"The horse master," I said carefully, "is exercising considerable restraint."
"How noble."
"Daniela." I looked at her. "Move."
She moved.
Slow at first—a roll of her hips that dragged a rough sound out of me—and I felt her everywhere, the slick heat of her, the way she fit, the way my hands were leaving marks on her hips that I'd think about later.
She found a rhythm. Picked up the pace. Her breath went ragged against my jaw.
"God," she breathed. "God, you feel?—"
"Yeah." I pressed my face into her hair. Inhaled. Cedar smoke and the cool night and Daniela, Daniela, sex andDaniela. "Yeah, I know."
She was chasing it now—hips rocking, fingers digging into my shoulders, little sounds escaping her that she wasn't trying to suppress anymore. The brat gone completely. Just Daniela, moving in my lap in the December dark, taking what she needed.
I let her run it for a while.
Felt her start to shake. Felt the rhythm getting desperate, breaking apart at the edges, felt her clench around me and gasp.
Then I gripped her hips.
Stopped her.
"Sawyer—"
"I've got you." I shifted forward on the bench, changed the angle, heard her breath catch on a moan. "Let me."
"I was?—"
"I know what you were doing." I started to move—slow, deep, deliberate—and felt her whole body shudder in response. "Now let me."
She made a sound against my neck that was half frustration and half something else entirely. Her arms came around my shoulders and she held on and stopped fighting it—stopped performing, stopped running it, stopped doing anything except feeling—and that was it, that was the whole thing, that was what I'd been waiting for.
"There," I said against her throat. "That's it."
"Don't stop," she breathed. "Don't—please—Sawyer?—"
"Not stopping." I drove deeper and she arched and cried out, loud in the small space. "Not even close."
The bench creaked. Her nails raked down my back. I felt her building—felt it in the way she was clenching, in the broken sounds she kept making, in the way she'd stopped saying words and was just making noise against my shoulder.
"Come on," I said low. "Come on, baby. Give it to me."
She broke.
Hard—harder than either time before, her whole body locking up and then shaking apart, my name tearing out of her throat, her fingers twisted in my hair pulling hard enough to sting.
I followed her over with my face pressed into her neck and her name in my mouth like it meant something.
I gave it a second…waited until my knees weren’t weak anymore. Finally stood, and she didn’t even utter a word of protest—just held on tight and folded into me, letting me carry her to bed. I laid her down carefully, and only then did I pull her off my cock…andthat, she did get mad about, frowning up at me.
Still, she curled into the blankets as I crawled in beside her.
Opened her eyes again to look at me when my head hit the pillow. Smiled.
I smiled back.
