“Good?” I grunt.
“Best thing I’ve eaten in weeks.” She smiles, small and real. “You hunt this yourself?”
“Last fall.”
She watches me over the rim of her water glass. “You do everything yourself up here, don’t you?”
“Easier that way.”
“Lonely way.”
I shrug. “Used to it.”
After dinner she insists on washing dishes. I dry. Our elbows bump. She laughs when soap suds flick onto my shirt. The sound hits me low in the gut—light, sweet, something I didn’t know I was starving for.
We end up on the couch. Firelight. One lamp. She tucks her legs under her, facing me. I stretch out, boots off, trying to keep some space between us.
“Tell me about the ranch,” she says. “The horses. What you do when you’re not rescuing bleeding girls.”
I talk. More than I usually do. About the mustangs I break in spring, the garden I keep in summer, the way the aspen turn gold in fall. She listens like every word matters. Leans closer. Her knee brushes my thigh.
The air changes.
I feel it the second her breathing shifts. My own pulse kicks up. She’s looking at my mouth now. I’m looking at hers—soft, pink, slightly parted.
“Colt,” she whispers.
I should stand up. Walk away. Lock myself in the barn till morning.
Instead I reach out, slow, and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. My thumb lingers on her cheek. “You’re killing me, Willa.”
Her eyes darken. “Good.”
Then she’s leaning in. I meet her halfway.
The kiss starts soft—testing. Her lips are warm, tentative. I groan low in my throat and angle my head, taking more. She opens for me on a sigh, and the taste of her—coffee and sweetness and something purely Willa—floods my senses. My hand slides into her hair, cradling the back of her skull. She makes this little sound, half whimper, half plea, and climbs into my lap like she belongs there.
Christ.
Her thighs straddle mine. The shirt rides up. My palms find bare skin—smooth, warm, trembling. I kiss her deeper, tongue sliding against hers, slow and filthy. She rocks against me once, instinctive, and I feel how hot she is even through my jeans. My cock strains, aching. I grip her hips to still her, fingers digging in just enough to leave marks I’ll hate myself for later.
She pulls back an inch, breathing hard. “Colt… I’ve never?—”
“I know.” My voice is wrecked. “That’s why we stop.”
Her forehead rests against mine. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Neither do I.” I kiss her again—gentler this time, just lips, then the corner of her mouth, her jaw. “But you’re hurt. Scared. Running for your life. And I’m not the kind of man who takes advantage of that.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not taking. I’m giving.”
“Still.” I lift her off my lap, and set her on the couch beside me even though every cell in my body screams at the loss of her weight. My hands shake as I straighten her shirt, covering those thighs I want wrapped around my waist. “You deserve better than a quick fuck on a couch with a grumpy bastard who hasn’t touched a woman in years.”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t tell me what I deserve.”
I stand, putting the coffee table between us like a coward. “Go to your room, Willa. Go to bed.”
She rises slowly. The fire paints her cheeks pink, lips swollen from my mouth. She looks debauched and innocent at the same time—my own personal torture.
