Page 38 of Roulette Rodeo (Jackknife Ridge Ranch #1)

The possessiveness should scare me. Should send me running. Instead, it makes me clench around him, drawing a strangled sound from his throat.

"Yours," I agree, testing the word. It tastes like freedom, oddly enough. Like choice. Because I chose this, chose him, chose to give what could never be taken.

He kisses me then, deep and claiming, and I start to move. Slow at first, learning the rhythm, the angle, the way our bodies fit together like puzzle pieces. The initial discomfort fades, replaced by something else, something building low in my belly.

"Can you—" I start, then lose my words.

"What do you need?" He's watching me so carefully, ready to give me anything.

"Move," I manage. "Please, I need you to move."

He groans like I've shot him, but starts to pull back slowly. The drag of him against my sensitive walls makes me gasp, sensation rippling through me in waves. When he pushes back in, it's different. Still intense, still new, but there's something else building underneath the ache.

"There we go," he murmurs, finding a rhythm so gentle it makes my chest tight. "That's my girl. Taking me so well."

Each thrust brings new sensation, my body learning this dance it's never done before. The pain fades with each movement, replaced by something warm and spiraling. Not quite pleasure yet, but the edge of it, the promise that my body knows what to do even if my mind doesn't.

"You feel incredible," Shiloh grits out, and I can see the control cracking in his expression. "So tight, so wet for me. Been dreaming about this."

"Yeah?" The word comes out breathier than intended.

"Since that fucking storage closet," he admits, picking up the pace slightly. "Wanted to bend you over those boxes and claim you right there."

The image makes me clench around him, drawing another groan from his throat. I'm starting to understand the power in this—how my body can affect his, how we're connected in this primal, perfect way.

"Would've let you," I confess, surprising myself with the truth of it. "Would've given you everything right there with the mops and cleaning supplies."

"Romantic," he teases, but his hips snap forward harder, deeper.

The angle changes something, his cock dragging against a spot inside me that makes sparks shoot up my spine. I gasp, clutching at his shoulders, and he immediately does it again.

"There?" he asks, like he doesn't already know from the way I'm arching beneath him.

"There," I confirm, then lose all words as he focuses on that spot with military precision.

The ache is still there, will probably be there tomorrow, but it's drowned out by this new sensation building low in my belly. Different from when he used his fingers, deeper and more intense. Like my whole body is a string being wound tighter and tighter.

"That's it," Shiloh encourages, his control fraying at the edges. "Chase it, baby. Let me see you fall apart on my cock."

The crude words should embarrass me, but instead they make everything hotter, sharper. I've heard so much worse in three years of performances, but this is different. This is real, raw, meant only for me.

"I don't—I can't—" I'm babbling, lost in sensation.

"You can," he insists, shifting angle again, and oh. OH. "Come on, cherry. Give me one more. Show me how good I make you feel."

His thumb finds my clit, circling with just enough pressure, and that's all it takes. The tension snaps, pleasure crashing over me in waves that seem to go on forever. I'm dimly aware of crying out, of my nails digging into his shoulders, of my body clenching rhythmically around him.

Shiloh's hips stutter, pace degenerating from a soldier's cadence to ragged, wild chaos as he slams into me, his restraint shredded by my orgasm.

The guttural noises that wrench out of his throat are nothing like the careful, almost clinical grunts of sex I remember from the casino's thin walls—it's animal, possessive, starved.

His arms are shaking so hard I worry they'll give out, but he grits his teeth and rides the aftershocks of my climax with a desperation that makes my insides clench all over again.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he rasps, forehead pressed to mine, breath mingling with my own. "So perfect, squeezing me so tight, gonna?—"

In the haze, I realize he's seconds from the edge.

His hands flex and dig into my hips, holding me down, grounding himself.

Then, with a last, frantic thrust, he pulls out, and the heat of his release hits my stomach and chest in thick, hot ropes.

The shock of emptiness is immediate and sharp, like a desperate vacuum where moments ago I was full, stretched, unbreakable.

A strangled moan cracks out of him as he collapses to his elbows, just barely keeping himself from crushing me under his weight.

There’s a sticky, messy heat between us, and I’m aware of it not as a thing to be embarrassed by, but as a badge of honor—proof, a tangible mark, that I belonged to no one until this moment, and now I belong to him.

I watch him, wild-eyed, as the final spasms of pleasure render his careful exterior to rubble.

His lips are trembling, eyes squeezed shut with something like pain, but sweeter.

I don’t get a chance to mourn the sudden emptiness, because what happens next is so honest, so intimate, it shreds every last defense I had left.

Shiloh’s hand flies to his cock, gripping the base with the kind of desperation usually reserved for people clinging to a lifeline.

For a stunned second, his knuckles go white.

A vein pops on his forearm, visible even beneath the intricate tattoos, pulsing with the heartbeat that still belongs to me.

I see it happening—the knot, that animal swell I used to joke about with Briar, now visible and real and totally undignified.

It balloons at the base, angry and refusing to be ignored, as if his body is telling mine what it wants, regardless of the last six million years of human evolution.

He’s panting, lips drawn back, sweat and tears and maybe even blood mingling on his face. The knot throbs, visible as a plum-sized bulge, and it takes him massaging it almost ruthlessly to begin to tame its size.

It starts as a gradual swelling, but quickly goes from an unnoticeable thickening to a full-blown, furious distention, as if his cock is staging a last stand against the inevitability of physics and dignity.

The base balloons, darkening, and Shiloh’s hand flies to it, wrapping the shaft like a tourniquet while his thumb and forefinger press the knot tight.

I’ve read about it, heard the locker-room banter, even watched a few educational videos (read: questionable porn), but nothing compares to seeing it up close and personal—this raw, animalistic truth of an alpha’s anatomy now visibly attached to the man who just took my virginity.

Shiloh doesn’t look at me. He’s locked in some private struggle, gritting his teeth as he squeezes and kneads the bulge, sweat pouring off his brow.

It’s not arousal, not exactly. It’s more like pain, but a pain threaded with primal satisfaction and a helpless sort of pride.

For a second I’m sure he’s going to lose the battle, and that lump is going to cement us together, like a cartoon where someone’s finger gets stuck in a bowling ball and has to be amputated.

I nearly giggle, actually—some hysterical cackle threatening to burst out at the sight of this six-foot-four killing machine reduced to wrangling his own junk like a first-time teenager.

He glances up, catches the beginning of my smile, and—for a split second—mirrors it, even through the haze of release and exertion. “Sorry,” he pants. “Usually easier to hide, if there’s a condom. Or, y’know, pants.”

“Don’t apologize,” I say, because this is, genuinely, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. “I’m just impressed it still wants to fight. You’d think it would be tired by now.”

He snorts, then groans as he gives the knot another squeeze. “Old habits. Sometimes takes a while to settle.”

“Should I, like… help?” I wiggle my fingers, half-joking, but also one hundred percent sincere. I want to be useful. I want to be part of this weird, heroic struggle.

Shiloh’s eyes go wide. “No—uh—just… give me a sec. Don’t want you thinking you signed up for some kind of freak show.”

I lean up on my elbows—wince, actually, as the aftermath of my first time makes itself known in a dull, not-unpleasant throb—and peer down the length of our bodies.

We’re an absolute mess: sweat, fluids, me painted with evidence of his orgasm, him still rock-fucking-hard and panting like a marathon runner.

The knot looks angry. I want to poke it, but resist. Barely.

Instead, I raise my eyes to his face, and what I see there makes the laughter dry up, replaced by awe.

He’s so… open. All those layers of stoicism and military discipline have been torched by the moment—his mouth slack, the line of his jaw trembling, his eyes swimming with a dozen emotions at once.

Relief, pride, shame, and something vulnerable and infinitely precious.

I want to cradle it, even if I have no clue how.

“You okay?” I ask, softer this time.

He nods, then shakes his head, then nods again. “Just… intense.” He swallows hard. “Never had it like this before.”

I’m about to ask what he means—never had sex, never knotted this hard, or never with someone who didn’t immediately want to run screaming from the room—but then I realize it doesn’t matter. We’re the only ones here, in this moment, in this milk-and-blood-splattered aftermath.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The scent of sex is thick and primal. When I reach up, fingers trembling, to touch the line of his jaw, Shiloh almost flinches, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he opens his eyes and finds me gone.

But I don’t vanish.