Page 80 of Roped

But he keeps rubbing my back, stroking my spine, massaging my head even as he goes on, “Just trust me for this. Can you do that for me, darlin’?”

I trust him for this and for everything else. Still, I don’t answer him for long, long moments and he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s patient and good with his hands, a true cowboy. But in this moment, I know that’s not why he’s doing any of those things. He’s being this way for me, and even though I have no idea what he’s got planned or why he’s asking me to trust him, I simply nod.

It’s tiny and I’d think he wouldn’t catch it, but he’s so deeply attuned to me—more than any human being in this world—that there’s no way he doesn’t. And I know he’s thankful for it because his chest shudders and his body loosens up a bit. Then he squeezes me again before pulling away. He grabs my face, runs his eyes over it, and wipes my tears with his thumbs. His jaw is still pulsing in anger, and there’s something akin to violence lurking in his green eyes. But when he leans down and places a soft kiss on my forehead, it’s his tenderness that threatens to break me. Besides, I know those darker emotions aren’t for me. It’s for my distress.

Then, just as abruptly as he’d stopped me from leaving, he hauls me up his body. He makes me climb him like a tree, my thighs going around his hips and my arms going around his neck, and he carries me somewhere. My face settles in the side of his neck as he strides across the dirt path. He rounds the fence and uses the gate to get in. I’m a rock in his arms, and it’s taking supreme amounts of effort not to struggle. Not to twist free of his arms and run away. But he told me to trust him, and I will. I do. It’s just that I’m going to throw up any second now.

Just as the thought flashes through my head, he stops and I clench my eyes shut, locking my limbs around him in a death grip. I know what he’s going to do. I know and I hate him for it. I hate myself for being so deathly afraid of it. Just as I’m about to tell him that I’ve changed my mind, that I don’t trust him; I can’t do this, he goes ahead and places another kiss on my forehead. Followed by one more on my wet cheek. Then, “Trust me.”

He doesn’t give me time to respond before he grabs my waist, picks me up—how does he keep doing that with an injured shoulder and without breaking a sweat, I’ll never know—and sets me down on the saddle. My stomach bottoms out and I make a keening sound. But it only lasts a second because in the next, he’s up on the horse, too, and my hands fly to him, to his chest to hold on to his shirt.

Then he dips his face down, his Stetson casting us both in the shadow, and commands, “Wrap your legs around me.”

I do that.

“Now, your arms.”

I do that too.

“Good,” he rasps, and I squeeze him.

Then he goes ahead and puts his hand on the small of my back to scoot me even closer, plastering me into his body. I hear him snap the reins, and wide-eyed and afraid for my life, I breathe out, “W-wait.”

He brings his attention back to me and does exactly that; he waits.

“Um, I think”—I swallow—“I’m kinda… s-sitting wrong. I mean…” He is silent while I gather my words and I continue, “Shouldn’t I be sitting the other way around?”

It’s so ridiculous that it’s only occurring to me now, but instead of facing out, I’m facing him. I’m practically sitting on his lap, wrapped around him like a vine or a chain. A rope. Our chests are moving in tandem and our mouths are so close to each other, I’m not just breathing in his air, his scent; I may as well be eating it. I may as well be eating him. Kissing him.

“No,” he replies, his eyes intense.

I pull at his hair. “But I don’t think… people ride together this way.”

His own hands are in my hair, my braid wrapped around his wrist. “They don’t.”

“So then—”

“You and I, though?”

“Yeah?”

“We do.”

A breath leaves me in a rush, and this time, I say the words. The ones I kept inside of me the night I went to his barn, thinking it was the last time I’d see him. “The Phantom and the Princess.”

His eyes heat up and his hold tightens. “His Princess.”

My heart skips a beat at his correction, and I thank God he stole me again that night, instead of letting me go like I thought he was going to. “Your Princess.”

“And my Princess, she gets the best seat in the house.”

I clench my thighs around him and swallow, wordlessly.

“His name’s Tulip,” he tells me, looking me in the eyes.

“T-Tulip?”

“The horse you’re about to ride on.”