Page 118 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

There’s a split second where I want to laugh at the sheer melodrama of it, but it gets lost in an involuntary sob when his fingers are inside me, not tentative at all, just pushing in and holding firm.

He moves his thumb, slow at first, then harder, a rhythm that makes my head roll back and my fingernails score his skin through the shirt.

He’s watching all of it; he wants to see. The thought makes my cheeks burn, makes me soak his hand, makes nothing in the world matter except what he’s doing when I’m coming apart for him, bare and trembling in his hands.

My head snaps forward and my lips are on his throat, tasting salt and oxygen.

I sink my teeth in.

He hisses and rocks his hips against the desk, pinning me between his body and the surface so I can’t move, can’t think, can only feel the intense pressure of his palm and the way his fingers fuck me deeper with every pulse.

I want to beg. The urge is there, in the back of my throat, scraping to get out, but I bite it down, swallowing instead the groan he gives when I shudder around him, thighs clutching, body arching off the desk.

The hand in my hair tightens to the point of pain, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit how much I love that, the freedom of it, the certainty that I can trust him not to let go.

The edge of my knee smashes a mug to the floor, hot tea or maybe someone’s stale coffee splattering everywhere.

I don’t even blink.

Silas doesn’t either, unless you count the thin, feral twist of his lip as he pumps his fingers harder and the wet, dirty sound of it fills up the space between us.

It happens sooner than I expect. His hand flexes, then goes rigid, a tremor lighting up his arm as if my pleasure is a current traveling through him.

He breathes my name, just once, nothing like the weapon he usually makes of it. I jerk against his hand, every muscle in my abdomen pulling tight and tighter until it finally breaks.

I come with a wave of heat so hard it makes my teeth ache and my vision whites out, fractal and bright and endless.

For a long moment, the only thing tethering me to this office is the unrelenting fact of Silas’s body pressed into mine, his hand still, anchoring me at the precise point of impact, refusing to let me drift away.

When I come back to myself, I’m still trembling, my skirt hiked indecently high, legs splayed, and one shoe half off, balanced precariously on the edge of the desk.

I expect at least the echo of shame, maybe guilt, or the urge to laugh, but it doesn’t come. Instead, a flush of pride, wild and sudden, that I could do this to him and to myself.

He stands over me, hands braced on either side of my hips, breathing like he’s run an entire city block. There’s color in his cheeks I’ve never seen before; his mouth is wet and a little red, kiss-swollen, his pupils so wide he looks like a man hallucinating.

It’s almost tender, which is the most terrifying part of all.

My throat works, but sound doesn’t organize itself. He watches me, hungry and expectant, as if the moment hangs on my next word or movement. Instead, I open my thighs wider, an invitation and a challenge both.

His palm cups the inside of my knee, rough thumb smoothing circles, then sliding up in one long, brutal caress, until the ruined hem of my underwear dangles from my ankle like a flag of surrender.

I swallow, hard, the taste of ink or metal in my mouth.

“You…” I start, but he shakes his head, and the look is enough to shut me up.

He finds the zipper on the side of my skirt and tugs it down so slow I can hear every tooth give, the sound so obscene it makes my skin prickle.

Then he’s on his knees, and I’m not sure whether to be embarrassed or to arch my back farther so he can get at me.

I arch.

The skirt gets peeled off with a single, brutal jerk, and when his mouth presses to the inside of my thigh, the friction burns through every last nerve ending.

He smiles, right into me, and if I had breath enough to curse him I would. Instead I just shudder, waiting for the next contact, the next impossible demand.

He doesn’t give it to me, not right away. He drags it out, making me squirm, making me say please in every way the body can.

He laps at the pulse point in my thigh like he’s tasting the aftershocks, then follows the line of my leg, kissing every bruise and freckle until I’m burning.