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She might as well have just said that she loves me.

I reach for her, yanking her body against me and pressing my mouth to hers.

Chapter 11

Addison

Cruz Conley kisses like a starving man. Desperate, needy, insistent. We stumble across the threshold of my cabin, and somehow my legs end up wrapped around his waist, my arms around his neck, as he slams the door shut behind us.

My tongue tangles with his, my hands running up his neck and fisting his hair. He groans into my mouth, and I squeeze my legs tighter around him.

“Bedroom,” he breaks our kiss to murmurs against my lips.

“Behind me,” I breathe before recapturing his mouth with mine, causing him to groan.

He strides across the room, kicks my bedroom doorway open, and then steps inside, tossing me down on the bed. Propped up on my elbows, chest heaving, legs already spread wide, I stare up.

Cruz stands over me, backlit from the single lamp in the living room. He’s wearing those same sweatpants I’d been eyeing in the kitchen. Gray, sticking to his skin in all the right places—one in particular. His eyes capture mine, in them a fire that feels familiar yet new. He’s looked at me like this before. In anger, irritation, but maybe all along, it was something else.

He grabs the sides of his jean jacket, shrugging if off and tossing it aside, exposing a tight t-shirt overtop muscles so defined I almost whimper aloud. Next to go is his shirt, and then he leans over, bracing himself with fists on either side of me. Close enough to touch me, yet he doesn’t.

“You sure you wanna do this, Princess?” he whispers, and though he might be trying to seem calm and composed—in charge, in control—in this moment,I see him for what he truly is. A man desperate for something only I can give him.

“Cruz,” I breathe, reaching up to grasp his neck, squeezing just hard enough to pull him toward me. Surprise flashes in his eyes. “If you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to make your next two months a living hell.”

A grin spreads across his face, and his eyes darken. “Whatever you say, Princess.” And while I still might hate that stupid name, I hate it a little less right about now.

Then, without warning, strong hands grip my waist and flip me over onto my stomach. I yelp in surprise, and then my breath hitches in my throat as I feel his hands roaming across the exposed skin between where my tank top ends and my shorts begin.

“You know it took everything in me not to fuck you in that kitchen, right?” he murmurs, his hands sliding lower, over my ass, squeezing. “Especially once you startedyelling at me.”

“Why didn’t you?” I fire back.

“Health code violation,” he quips, and I giggle softly.

His hands continue their perusal, and then his fingers find the waistband of my shorts and slowly, slowly, he starts pulling them down. He pulls them slowly down my legs, then tosses them aside and reaches for my underwear. I glance over my shoulder, and our eyes meet as he slowly exposes me to the room, sinking to his knees and pressing kisses along my legs as he pulls my panties down them.

A moment of clarity hits me squarely in the face. Cruz Conely, on his knees, kissing my legs. We’re doing this. We’reaboutto do this.

And despite all the reasons not to, I can’t find one I care about right now.

I was sent here to get over my fear and come back better, but maybe I just needed to fuck a cowboy.

“You might not like the idea of being taken care of, Princess,” Cruz murmurs against my skin, his breathwarm, “but please,” he presses his lips to my inner leg, “let me take care of you right now.”

Fuck.

Suddenly, Cruz grabs both of my legs and yanks me to the edge of the bed, and I yelp. I feel his fingers digging into the flesh of my thighs, my ass, exploring me closer and closer until …

A soft moan escapes me as his finger slides along my center.

“Addison,” he murmurs, and the sound nearly breaks me in half, “you’re already so wet.” Inserting a finger inside of me, he continues, “I’ve barely touched you, honey.”

I bury my face into the covers, feeling myself redden in embarrassment.

“So much for hating me.”

I look back at him. “I already told you I don’t.”