He backs me toward the bed. His hands span my waist, his thumbs pressing into the hollow above my hip bones, and the pressure sends a current straight down my spine. He lifts me, sets me on the edge of the mattress, and steps between my legs.
"Tell me to stop," he says.
"When have I ever told you to stop?"
"I'm giving you the option."
"And I'm declining it."
He pulls my shirt over my head and his mouth drops to my collarbone, my throat, the spot behind my ear that makes my breath stutter. His hands are rough, the calluses from yearsof bull rope dragging against my skin like sandpaper, and the friction of it sends sparks across every nerve ending he touches.
He works my jeans open and drags them down my legs along with my underwear, and I'm bare in front of him while he's still fully dressed.
The imbalance is deliberate. He wants me exposed while he decides what to do about it.
"Colt." His name comes out half demand, half plea.
"Patience." The word is a threat and a promise, wrapped in a West Texas drawl thick enough to choke on.
He presses me back onto the mattress with one hand flat on my sternum, holding me down.
Then he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed and puts his mouth on me.
The first stroke of his tongue rips a sound out of me that I don't recognize. He licks me in long, flat strokes that cover everything, then zeroes in on my clit with a precision that borders on cruel.
His hands grip the insides of my thighs, spreading me wider, holding me open for his mouth, and the combination of his rough palms on my skin and his tongue working me in tight, relentless circles makes my spine bow off the mattress.
"Oh God. Right there. Don't stop."
He doesn't stop. He slides two fingers inside me while his tongue keeps moving, curling them against the spot that makes my vision white out, and the orgasm builds with a speed that catches me off guard.
I fist the blanket with both hands, my hips grinding against his face, and when I come, it tears through me so hard my thighs clamp around his head and I lose the ability to form words.
He doesn't give me time to recover. He stands, strips his shirt over his head, and I watch the muscles in his torso flex in the low light.
His body is a map of the circuit: old bruises faded to yellow along his ribs, a rope burn across his riding hand, the thick cords of muscle across his shoulders and back that come from absorbing the impact of fifteen hundred pounds of fury night after night.
He unbuckles his belt, and the sound of leather sliding through denim makes my stomach clench.
He shoves his jeans down and comes back over me, all heat and hard muscle and the smell of dust and sweat still clinging to his skin from the chase. He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, his palm dwarfing both of mine.
"Look at me," he says.
I look at him. His face is inches from mine, and the expression he's wearing has nothing soft in it.
This is the man who shields me with his body in parking lots, who puts himself between me and danger without thinking. This is what that protectiveness looks like when it turns into something else.
"You're mine," he says. "Say it."
"Make me."
His pupils blow wide and his breathing changes, and he enters me in a single hard thrust that drives the air from my lungs.
The fullness of him stretches me to the edge of pain, and the sound I make is raw and loud and nothing I'd want anyone else to hear.
He doesn't wait. He pulls back and drives in again, setting a pace that's faster and harder than last time, each thrust shoving me up the mattress until my head hits the wall. I brace one hand against it and use the leverage to push back into him, meeting every stroke, and the wet sound of our bodies colliding fills the bunkhouse.
"Say it," he growls against my ear. His hips snap into mine, and his free hand grips my hip hard enough to leave marks.
