He guides my hands to the flannel I clumsily unbuttoned earlier. It falls to the floor, then his Henley. My hand palms his thick bicep, rock hard. The arms of a cowboy rancher, not a gym rat.
It descends lower, memorizing angular planes and dips, teasing and caressing until I slip beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs. A contented growl rumbles through his chest, more like a purr, lips claiming mine recklessly.
Breath frantic, our lips tangle. We struggle out of cotton and denim until nothing exists between us but longing.
My eyes trace the broad angle of his chest, descend along the defined abs and the V of hair that teases lower to where he’s thick and long, veiny and taut.
“I’m on the pill,” I whisper, cheeks burning. “And I haven’t been with anyone since my last checkup.”
“I’m clean, too,” he says. “And I’ve got condoms.”
My arms tighten around his neck. “I don’t want anything between us.”
His breath stutters. “Then neither do I.”
The world collapses into heat, breath, and pulse.
His large calloused hands rove over me, passion igniting as I wrap my legs around his waist, urging him to me. But he doesn’t answer until his mouth has claimed me again. Lips, body, soul.
He sinks into me slowly, giving me time, watching my face like he’ll stop the second I ask.
I breathe through the stretch, nod once. “Don’t stop.”
That’s all he needs.
My nails dig into his back as I draw closer. The world breaks away beneath me as I float free, hips bucking, legs shaking.
Tiny spasms grow and build as he angles my hips, finding the spot his fingers already know so well. He relentlessly drives over it until I scream his name into the silence of the cabin, coming undone.
His body wraps around mine, core shaking as he follows behind, flooding me with wave after wave of heat. Collapsing atop me, though never letting his full weight crush me, he catches his breath, looking at me like he can’t quite believe I’m real.
“Don’t want to rush you,” he says, swallowing hard. “But I need you to know…” He grabs my hand, pressing it over his chest where his heart thuds. “This is yours now, if you want it.”
My throat tightens, his handsome face blurring. “I do.”
I curl against his chest, his hand drifting through my hair like it knows the way.
Pine sap and smoke. Heat and strength.
Nothing missing. Nothing taken.
Just… here. Breathing together.
Chapter
Fifteen
ALLIE
The door creaks open, and I snuggle deeper into the warm flannel sheets. They smell like Austin, threaded with pine and smoke, and something darker.
“Ready for coffee, yet, Sleepyhead?”
I yawn. “That a new name for me?” I ask, peeking out from the blankets.
A part of my body still expects chaos. I can feel it in the way my pulse skips, how my chest tightens. Like memory is more than words and images trapped in the brain.
But one look at that lopsided grin, those dimples, and I melt all over again.
