Page 26 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

A muscle throbs in his jaw. A tension radiates from him. “I guess so.”

I wonder what he’s thinking. Why that bothers him.

“What happened, with your mom?” I ask and feel the way his hands tighten on the reins, because his whole body tightens around me.

“She had an aneurysm—a brain bleed. It happened pretty quick; there was no real warning.”

“God, Cole, that’s so sad.”

He makes a noise that I take to be of agreement.

We ride without speaking for a while. Rowdy’s hooves make thudding sounds against the hardened paths that scramble over the property, and the night birds sing their beautiful songs for us.

Even the trees seem to be whispering, their long branches brushing in the gentle evening breeze.

Cole pulls on the reins and Rowdy takes a different path, casually beginning to trot up a hill.

“I love it out here,” he says, voice raw, right against me, so I feel his words pulse through my core, into the deepest parts of me. “Don’t think I can see myself ever living anywhere else.”

I can’t imagine what it’s like to feel that.

Such an intense and obvious connection to the landscape, a contentment born of knowing you’re just exactly where you’re meant to be.

I don’t think I’ve ever known anything like it.

I’ve just taken my surroundings for granted.

It was a part of me, because it had to be.

Not like this.

“It’s very beautiful,” I agree, though it feels like such an insufficient way to describe this place. It’s overwhelmingly rugged, and has the kind of beauty that wraps right around you and holds on tight.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget this,” I say. “How clear the night sky is, the stars, the smell of the trees, the feeling of the cool breeze after such a sweltering hot day. All of it.” This.

“I’m glad you came out here, Beth,” he says, and now, when his words brush against my cheek, I don’t think it’s just because of us sitting so close in the saddle. I think it’s because he’s right there, his lips just a hair’s breadth from my skin. “I’m real glad you’re here.”

My heart gallops. One of his hands drops from the reins and moves to my thigh, just brushing it gently, like he’s sounding me out. Seeing how I feel.

“Cole…” his name is throttled by a thickness in my throat.

His hand moves higher up my thigh, and I drag in a deep, shaky breath, my whole body catching fire as he lets his fingers rest there, high on my leg.

I’m frozen, at first, with the sheer force of effort I’m making to will him to touch me more, touch me closer.

Belatedly, I realize, I can do more than just wish him to act. I can act myself. I can move.

And so, I do. At first, it’s just a simple relaxation of my body, against his, and then, I curve one of my hands over his, pulling at it until he lets me guide it toward my lips and hold it there.

His chest moves quickly with his intake of breath, but then, his other hand sweeps my hair over one shoulder, and his mouth is pressed to the bare skin of nape he’s exposed.

I groan, everything inside of me bursting into hyper light.

“Cole,” I say again, but with urgency now, because he’s stoking something inside me I can’t fathom, can’t ignore.

“God, Cole,” I shiver against him, and his hand on my thigh begins to move again, brushing deliciously close to my sex, so I squirm on the saddle in a desperate plea, but he moves it past anyway, over my hips, lifting the lightweight linen of my shirt to touch my bare skin.

It’s just the smallest contact, but every part of me explodes.

I writhe properly now, needing this, and so much more.

He trails his fingers across my stomach, little lines and swirls, as his mouth moves over my shoulder, kissing me there, making my whole body overheat.

“The first time I saw you, all I could think was that you didn’t belong here,” he says, as he brings his hand higher, brushing the underside of my breast, so I tremble even when his words are so at odds with the way he’s making me feel.

“But I was wrong. You suit here, Beth. Like you were made for this.”

His praise soaks into me like butter on warm bread.

I tilt my head back a little, and then, his hand is cupping my breast, holding it at first, like he’s trying to memorize the shape, before his fingers move, digging into me with just the right pressure, holding me back against him, pulling at my nipples until I’m moaning beneath that star-lit sky—the ancient witness to this treachery and release.

I’m not capable of recognising it right now but there’s something almost ceremonial about the way this is happening, like I’m being born again out here, with Cole guiding me toward a life after Christopher.

He drops the reins and his other hand pushes under my shirt, moving with urgency, fast, desperate, like now that he’s started touching me, he can’t stop. I whimper, because I need so much more than this.

As though he understands that, the fingers of one hand trail down my stomach, toward the line of my jeans, pushing at the button.

“Okay?” he asks against my ear, so I moan something resembling:

“God, yes, please,” even when I don’t know exactly what I’m agreeing to, only knowing that I will do anything with this man, go anywhere with him, in this moment.

He unfastens my belt, my zip, then slides his hands inside my pants, against my skin, my sex, his fingers brush over me and it feels so damn good the second he touches my clit I can’t help but cry out, the sound splitting through the silence of the night.

His laugh is throaty, and so damn sexy. “Good girl,” he say, in that deep, gruff way of his. “I like hearing you.”

“Well, keep it up,” I pant, “and you’ll hear a lot more.”

“I intend to,” he promises, and his fingers move faster, until I can hardly bear what he’s doing to me. My breasts, my clit, my damned shoulder: everywhere he touches feels like it might explode.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop,” I beg.

“Oh, baby, I’m not going to,” he promises. “Not until I hear you come, anyways.”

I whimper at that and try not to think about how long it’s been since I’ve orgasmed. How long it’s been since I’ve been with a guy who cared about me enough to care that I get off too.

“Cole…” faster, harder, his whole body wrapped around me, his teeth nipping my shoulder as he drives me to the very edge of what I think I can cope with, and then, in a glorious explosion of color and sound, I’m tumbling over the edge of it, the whole world shaking and reshaping itself as I tremble from head to toe, his name tumbling out of my mouth over and over, as a wave of cataclysmic pleasure swallows me up entirely.

Just like after I told him about Christopher, I become slowly conscious of the fact that I’ve walked through a doorway, and things are different on the other side. Everything even looks different. The forest appears closer, the trees darker, the sky shinier.

“God, baby, you sound so good,” he says. “Makes me want to really see how good I can make you feel.”

The words ripple through me. I barely trust myself to speak, but eventually stammer out, “What exactly does that entail?”

His laugh is a slow seduction, in and of itself. “You, me, not on a horse’s back. Some place I can touch you and kiss you for hours, until you’re begging me to ride you, to fuck you, until you can’t think straight.”

I shudder against him at the promise of that. “I’m free tonight,” I say, huskily, the wanton invitation out before I can even second guess myself.

He pulls his hand out of my pants, uses it to grab the reins again. A shift of his foot against Rowdy and we’re moving. The saddle shifting beneath me is a whole new kind of awareness now; I wonder if he has any idea how good this feels? How addictive.

“I kind of like the horseback,” I say, earning a rumbling laugh.

“Okay, we can do some more of this, too.”

I like the way he says that. Like this is just simple and uncomplicated.

Rowdy comes to the crest of the hill, and I realize we’re almost at the house—he’s brought us around a different side. I’m disorientated in the dark, and because of everything that’s just happened.

Once we’re close, he pulls on the reins and Rowdy stops moving. Cole swings himself down easily, coming around to my side. “Ready, City Girl?”

I look down at him, and my heart lurches almost painfully. I nod so I don’t have to attempt words.

He grabs for my hips, and lifts me from Rowdy’s back like I weigh nothing.

He reaches for my jeans, still open, and I think he’s going to fasten them for me—good thing, too, because my fingers are all trembly.

But instead, he kneels down and cups his hands behind my bottom, drawing me closer to him.

With one hand, he pushes down my underpants and then his mouth is on my sex, his tongue teasing me at first, moving slowly and tentatively so my knees almost buckle, and I might have stumbled to the ground if it weren’t for the strong, commanding hand on my ass.

“You taste so good, City Girl,” he groans against me. No way can I say anything besides an incoherent babble. I dig my nails into his shoulders, needing something to hold onto, even with him gripping me the way he is.

He is a master of all things, and this is no exception.

His mouth finds my clit and sucks hard, and then, he slides a finger inside me, so every muscle in my body clenches in euphoria.

I don’t want to wait for some other night, some other time.

I want all the things he promised me before.

I want hours and hours of this. I don’t just want him to touch me, to kiss me—I want to do the same right back to him.

“Cole,” I cry out, as he pushes another finger deep inside and then moves them in, out, in, out as his mouth draws the most sensitive parts of me and flicks them with his tongue.

“Fuuuuck,” I cry as an orgasm shreds me to pieces.

Not with a slow build, not like a wave, but a deluge, almost out of nowhere.

I hate to think how hard my fingers bite into his shoulders, but I hold him like that for a long time, until I can breathe again, until I can feel my legs.

He pulls out of me, stands up, and then, while I’m still swaying a little, refastens my jeans, in a gesture that is so simple and caring, I feel the sting of tears at the back of my eyes.

I blink quickly, refusing to give into them.

“Let’s get you into bed, Beth,” he says, eyes glinting with wickedness when they meet mine.

“My bed?” I ask, almost petulantly, because despite the two times he’s made me come tonight, I want so much more.

“Your bed,” he confirms, a lazy grin crossing his face, making my heart pound. He puts an arm around my shoulders though, as he walks me around to the front door, leaving Rowdy behind.

I’m glad for the support of his arm. I lean against him, and tell myself not to overthink any of this. Just go with it.

But I’m not good at not overthinking, and everything’s changed for Cole and me tonight.

We’ve spent the past few weeks pretending we don’t want to rip each other’s clothes off, and we can’t do that anymore.

But there’s some inherent awkwardness here, that needs to be addressed. Or at least, anticipated.

At the door, he moves to stand in front of me, wrapping his other arm around my waist, latching his hands there, in the small of my back. I try not to notice how right it feels.

“I’m glad you told me, Beth,” he says, gently, and my heart lurches to the wrong side of my chest. He squeezes his hands a little, to underscore that.

“Me too.” And I am. He’s the first and only person I’ve ever been honest with about Christopher, yet having him know just feels normal.

The moonlight catches the top of his head and it’s like he’s being bathed in silver.

I lift a hand to his cheek, running my fingers over the ridge of his face, sighing softly as I connect with his stubbled jaw and then the edge of his lips.

Something about this man and this night feels almost like we’ve carved out our own little niche, away from the rest of the world, but we haven’t.

Not really. It’s still out there, just exactly like it was last night, today, three months ago.

Christopher’s family in New York, Beau, Austin, Caleb, Mackenzie…

“Cole,” I say, my voice ambivalent.

He stiffens slightly. “Don’t say it was a mistake.”

I blink up at him. “I wasn’t going to.”

“No?”

I shake my head, something in his question flooding me with warmth. “But I don’t think we should broadcast what we’re doing to anyone else.” Heat flushes my skin. “Not because we’re doing anything wrong, it’s just…”

“I get it,” he says, nodding once. “It’s not anyone’s business but ours, anyway.”