Page 195 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

"I'd rather look serious than scared," I admitted, the truth slipping out before I could stop it. "Because I’m fucking terrified, Nell."

She’d stopped telling me not to call her by the nickname. It had been a game at first. Nelly was already a short name, dropping the ‘y’ didn’t make much sense. I’d kept it up though, and now I used the moniker because it felt like something only I shared with her.

Her fingers stilled against my forehead, then traced down to cup my cheek. "Why?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

I leaned into her touch, closing my eyes briefly. When I opened them, I found her gaze steady on mine, waiting for an answer I wasn't sure I could articulate.

"Because I've never wanted anything the way I want you," I finally said. "And I've never been afraid of losing something the way I am now. I’m not that guy. I’m used to screwing up. I take it in stride. But I can’t fuck this up. It’ll kill me. It’ll kill the pack.”

Her eyes softened. "You’re not going to screw this up, Cooper."

“You don’t know that,” I growled, hanging my head, covering my face with one hand.

She pulled my hand away almost immediately. I didn’t fight as she threaded her fingers with mine and lowered our arms until our joined hands rested against my thighs. I searched her expression, looking for any hint that she might be worried about the same thing—that stupid, thoughtless Cooper would do something dumb enough in the future that she’d bolt.

But then a small smile tweaked her mouth and a mischievous glint sparked in her eyes “Look at it this way. You already did the worst thing you could do. You basically had me kidnapped.”

She paused, letting me absorb her words.

“So, anything you might do in the future probably can’t raise the bar.” Nelly closed her eyes, pulling her hand from mine and pressing it to her stomach. Her Omega scented the air again, as her heat reminded her it still existed.

“Nelly, what if?—”

She cut me off. “What if everything is amazing. What if I’m impossibly, incandescently happy here for the rest of my life, and you keep being boyish, beautiful Cooper?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

There wasn’t anything Icouldsay to that.

So, instead of talking, I started doing.

I lowered my head, letting my lips brush against the mark I'd left on her wrist. Her pulse jumped beneath my mouth, and I smiled against her skin.

"Tell me what you need, Nelly," I murmured, trailing kisses up her arm. "Whatever it is, it's yours."

"You," she gasped, arching beneath me as another wave of heat crashed through her. “All of you.”

I felt my brothers' presence close in, but I could only focus on our Omega.

She was beyond perfection.

I shuddered, pushing my face into her hair, kissing her neck, moving my lips over and up. I licked the line of her jaw, then traced the tip of my tongue down, down, down, until I was between her breasts. My mind drift, wondering if she’d be interested in food play.

A line of whipped cream, trailing all the way down to her honey pot.

Chocolate dipped cherries, dangled over her mouth, waiting to push between her soft, curved lips.

Through the fog of unbridled yearning clouding my mind, I recalled how tentatively she’d eaten at first. We’d had to coax her into enjoying the food, into letting go of her long-standing habits of eating exactly this, at exactly that time. Never overdoing it. What had she said? Something like, “Heavy ballerinas make bad dance partners.”

The memory made my jaw clench as my mouth moved around her belly button. Fury bubbled up inside me at a world that had taught her to fear nourishment, to see food as an enemy rather than sustenance. At an industry that had warped her relationship with her body until she believed its worth was measured in ounces rather than in the strength of her spirit. It didn’t matter what she weighed. What she really needed was someone strong enough to lift her up.

When she was at her heaviest.

Whether it be in her mind, her soul, or her body.

Bullshit men make women feel lesser because of a scale. And they do that, not because the woman isn’t beautiful, but because they’re weak.

Pushing her legs apart, I moved to kneel between them.