His grip on my thigh tightened to the point of pain, dragging a hiss through his teeth. He closed his eyes, his whole body trembling with the effort of restraint. He was a tightly coiled spring, and I was holding the trigger.
Then, slowly, agonizingly, he set my leg down. He didn't let go of me, though. He kept me pinned, his erection still pulsing hard against my stomach, letting me feel exactly what I was missing.
"You are dangerous," he said, opening his eyes. They were hazy, drugged with lust. "I want to. God, Winnie, I want to ruin you. But not like this. Not when I’m half-crazy from stress and you’re high on adrenaline and we’re one towel slip away from a show for your grandfather in the hallway."
He smoothed his thumb over my wet cheek, his touch possessive.
"When I take you," he said low, his voice dropping to a rough whisper that made my toes curl, "I want all the time in the world. I want to spread you out on that bed and make you scream while I’m deep inside you. I don't want to rush."
I shivered, the ache between my legs throbbing in time with my heartbeat.
"Fine," I managed, though my voice was shaky. "Responsible looks good on you, Sterling. But don't think I'm letting you off the hook."
He smirked, a dark, wicked thing. He leaned in and kissed the sensitive spot right behind my ear, his breath hot. "Oh, I'm definitely on the hook. And my dick isn't going to let me forget it for a second."
He stepped back, putting a foot of distance between us. The loss of his body heat was a physical blow. He ran a hand through his chaotic hair, looking down at the tent in his sweatpants with a rueful, breathless laugh.
"Go," he groaned. "Get dressed. Put on layers. Put on a parka. Because if you stay here looking like that for ten more seconds, I’m locking this door and fucking you regardless of who hears us."
I backed away, clutching the towel tighter, my skin tingling everywhere he’d touched me. My pussy was aching, empty and wet.
"Beau?" I called from the hallway.
He looked up, eyes still burning. "Yeah?"
"For the record," I said, a grin breaking through my breathlessness, "I would've screamed your name anyway."
I turned and walked away, feeling his gaze burning a hole in my back, leaving him there in the doorway, wrecked, hard, and—finally—mine.
BEAU
Quality ranch-grown muscle
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
Tuesday Afternoon, 3:45 PM
"Can't keep my hands to myself, no matter how hard I'm trying to" - Selena Gomez
***
Three days.
It had been seventy-two agonizing, blue-balled hours since the kiss in the hallway that had rewired my entire nervous system. And I was suffering.
I hadn’t gone to her room that night. I’d wanted to—Jesus, I’d stood outside her door at two in the morning, hand hovering over the knob, dick aching so bad it felt like a bruise. But Pops had been prowling downstairs like a warden with insomnia, and every floorboard in this house squealed like a snitch. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk disrespecting the man who’d taken me in or putting Winnie in a position where it felt cheap.
So I’d walked away.
And I’d been walking around with a semi-permanent erection ever since.
Life pretended to go back to normal. I took the board call on Friday, smiled through my teeth, sold my “personal growth sabbatical,” and lied about being focused and alone. Then hung up and told my father, as politely as possible, to back the fuck off.
But nothing felt normal now. Not with the way things had shifted between us.
The air between Winnie and me was heavy. Charged. Every time she walked into a room, my blood ran south. Every time she bent over to check a hoof or reached into the fridge, my brain short-circuited and all my higher functions were replaced by one word:mine.
And she knew it. She was weaponizing it.
