Those words undid me.
I moaned, high and needy, grinding down against him with each punishing stroke. The pain faded, replaced by a fullness that bordered on holy. I wanted him to wreck me, to keep going until neither of us could walk straight.
He pounded into me, harder and faster, my legs gone numb from the force. The house could have collapsed around us and I wouldn’t have noticed. All that existed was the stretch and the slick, the smell of oil and sweat, and the relentless pressure of his cock splitting me open.
He shifted, angling deeper, and I saw stars. My whole body seized, pleasure detonating in every nerve. I came again, harder than before, the orgasm wrung out of me like a confession.
Rawley roared, then slammed into me one last time and froze. I felt him pulse inside me, heat flooding my guts, every drop claimed and marked. The sensation was so primal, so total, I nearly blacked out.
We stayed there, panting, my body draped over his, sweat and spit and cum gluing us together. I felt him soften, then slip free, and the emptiness was so intense I wanted to beg him to fill me again.
He let go of my wrists, then brushed the hair from my face, thumb gentle on my cheek. For a second, he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
“You okay?” he asked, voice almost tender.
I nodded, not trusting my own voice.
He grinned, then bent down and kissed me, soft and lingering. His beard scraped my chin, but the contact made me shiver. We kissed, deep and slow, and for a moment it was just us, the ranch, and the future we were building together.
He held me, one hand stroking my back, the other keeping me pinned tight to his chest.
Eventually, the exhaustion caught up with me. My eyes drifted shut, and I let myself drift, trusting Rawley to keep watch.
The last thing I remembered was the sound of his heartbeat, steady under my cheek, and the way the moonlight painted our bodies in silver, tangled together on the battered old couch.
I belonged here.
With him.
And tomorrow, we’d do it all again.
Chapter Seven
~ Rawley ~
I woke up before the sun, same as I always did, but for the first time in years, my body didn’t immediately scan for threats. Instead, I stayed still, staring at the ceiling, and tried to process the simple fact that I wasn’t alone in the bed.
Jojo was asleep on his side, one arm curled under the pillow, the other thrown across my chest like he owned the place. Hair splayed over his face, mouth open just enough to show a hint of teeth. He made a noise every few breaths, a soft, choked whistle that would have annoyed me from anyone else.
But from him, I didn’t mind.
If I looked down, I could see where my hands had left prints on his skin—faint, but there. His scent clung to the sheets, to my arms, to the inside of my mouth. He was all over me, and I couldn’t tell if the sensation was a comfort or a threat.
Last night was still a blur in my mind. The kitchen table, the couch, the way he’d shivered when I bit him just above the collarbone. The way he’d said my name, half sob and half dare.
I’d never seen anyone look at me like that before.
Claimed. That’s what the old-timers called it. I was supposed to be the one doing the claiming, but the truth was, I felt just as marked.
I pried Jojo’s arm off my chest, careful not to wake him. His fingers tightened for a second, then relaxed. I slid out of bed, bare feet cold on the hardwood, and padded to the bathroom. The house was silent except for the ticking of the old clock in the hallway.
In the mirror, I looked like hell. There were scratches on my back that would take days to heal. My skin itched with sweat and last night’s dried oil.
I showered fast, letting the scalding water erase what it could. I scrubbed my arms, my chest, but the ache stayed underneath it all, a bone-deep thrum.
I toweled off, dressed in clean work clothes from the closet, and caught a faint trace of Jojo on the flannel—he’d started washing the laundry in his own detergent, something with lavender and oat that I never would have bought for myself.
I didn’t hate it.
