The dynamics don’t make sense in my mind. Jackson is Colter’s brother, but their interactions don’t speak to that kind of dynamic. It’s confusing.
“Good.” He cuts the word sharp, final.
The conversation is done for them, but not for me. Because he doesn’t ease his hold. Doesn’t give me space to breathe. His hand spreads wide over my stomach, keeping me flush against him, and when he dips his head, I swear I feel the scrape of his stubble against my hair.
“You need to understand something, Peyton” he murmurs for my ears only. “Out here, you’re mine to look after. Mine to keep safe. It means you don’t get left behind. You don’t get lost. You don’t get hurt. Not on my watch.”
“I didn’t ask you to—” My voice wavers, weak even to my own ears. What is wrong with me that I can’t muster up my normal fiery tongue to spit back how he doesn’t own me. Where is my inner Miss Independent when I need her?
“No,” he cuts in, steel in the single word. “You didn’t. But you don’t have to. You’re in my world now. That makes you my responsibility. Whether you like it or not.”
My heart stutters, equal parts anger and something else I don’t want to name.
Colter turns his stallion forward again, ignoring the two trailing behind us like they don’t exist anymore. His focus is only on me, on keeping my body locked tight against his, on guiding Smokey with a firm hand. Every movement says one thing, clear as day:
I belong to him and that is the most confusing part of this whole thing.
The others hang back, quiet as ghosts, but Colter doesn’t so much as glance at them again. His hand remains firm on my stomach, fingertips brushing my ribs as if testing how deep my breaths go. I can’t steady them, can’t stop trembling, not when I’m pinned to him this way.
“Easy,” he says, low, steady—so at odds with the possessive bite of his earlier declaration. His voice now is warm and grounding. “I’ve got you. Breathe with me.”
I try, but my lungs don’t want to cooperate. My fingers ache from gripping the horn, knuckles white, until he peels one hand free and laces it with his own. My palm fits inside his like it belongs there, and he squeezes once, firm.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
The words are a promise and a warning in one, and I feel them in my bones.
Every stride of the stallion jostles me closer against him until I can’t tell where I end and he begins. His chest is solid at my back, his legs bracketing mine, his breath brushing the sensitive shell of my ear. It’s suffocating and safe all at once, and I don’t know what to do with the heat crawling up my neck.
I swallow hard. “I’m fine now. I can get back on Smokey.”
“No,” he says simply. No room for argument. “Not until we’re back. Not until I say so.”
It should infuriate me. It should make me shove against him, demand space. But instead, I sink back against him, worn out from fear and too aware of how steady his heartbeat is against my spine.
“Good girl,” he breathes so soft I almost think I imagined it.
18
The trail windsback toward the barn, the air warm and still except for the steady rhythm of hooves striking packed earth. My body feels like it’s made of glass—fragile, vibrating with leftover fear—but every time I shift, Colter’s arm tightens almost imperceptibly around my waist, grounding me. His palm is heavy, sure, a steady anchor pressed just below my ribs.
I try to focus on the scenery, the slant of afternoon light spilling through the trees, the soft hush of wind stirring dry grass, but all I can think about is the steady rise and fall of his chest at my back. The brush of his thigh against mine when the horses step in sync. The warmth of him, seeping through my shirt, searing into me like it belongs there.
He doesn’t speak. Not once. The silence should feel awkward, but it doesn’t. It feels deliberate. Intentional. As though words would break whatever fragile thing is holding me together.
Smokey follows along behind us. It’s almost absurd. The picture we make. Him in total control, guiding two horses at once, while I sit plastered to his front, my hands fisted uselessly in the horn of his saddle because I can’t stop shaking long enough to pretend I’m capable.
I hate it. And yet…God help me, I don’t.
By the time the barn’s weathered roofline comes into view, the worst of the trembling has eased, though my muscles ache from the adrenaline rush leaving my body. My pulse, though, refuses to calm. It hammers beneath my skin with every jostle of his horse, as if reminding me exactly who I’m pressed up against.
Colter reins in smoothly near the open doors, dust swirling up around us. For the first time since he pulled me into his saddle, he moves away—but not fully. He swings down with an effortless power that makes my stomach tighten, boots hitting the dirt with a solid thud. Then he turns back to me.
For a split second, I think he’s going to offer his hand like a gentleman, maybe even murmur something reassuring. But no—Colter doesn’t do soft edges. He simply grips my waist, strong fingers wrapping around me, and lifts me clean off the saddle as if I weigh nothing at all.
The contact is brief, but it brands me all the same. His touch lingers in the imprint of his hands even after my boots meet the ground. I stumble forward a step, suddenly unmoored without the wall of his body holding me up.
Dust hangs between us in the warm light, and I look up at him, searching his face. Maybe for gratitude. Maybe for some hint of what that ride back meant for him, if anything at all.
