Page 116 of The Widow and the Wanted

“Up,” I tell him.

For a heartbeat he only stares at me, dazed and shining-mouthed, still caught somewhere between obedience and want.

Boone rises from the floor with a rough breath and crawls onto the bed full of wicked pride and need.

“Now I give my good boy his reward.”

His fingers knot in the bedding.

I kneel behind him and set my hands on his hips. For a moment I do nothing more than hold him there, feeling the tremor under his bravado, the way Lula smiles from where she waits in front of him, soft hands sliding beneath his jaw to tip his face up.

“There he is,” she murmurs. “Look at you, all pretty and pleased with yourself.”

Boone lets out a breath that is almost a laugh, almost a whimper. Then Lula reaches around him. Boone shudders when her hands spread him open for me with a tender sort of boldness that makes my mouth go dry. “There,” she says, voice low and sweet. “Give him his reward, Okee.” I bend closer, dragging my mouth along the inside of Boone’s thigh before I lower my mouth to him, slow enough to make him moan.

His hips rock back despite himself while I hold him there and take my time.

With a soft curse, Boone lifts his head and looks back at me. His hair hangs in his eyes, his mouth wet and parted. There is a flush high on his cheekbones and a tremor running through the strong line of his arms. He looks ruined already as I work him open with my fingers, and I’ve barely started.

“Sois sage, mon beau garçon, et je te donnerai tout ce que tu veux,” I tease, rising up to press against him.

He hums, breath catching, not knowing every word I’ve said but understanding enough. Beautiful boy. Be good. I’ll give you everything you want.

The sound he makes then is almost enough to undo me.

When I finally press inside him in one slow, careful thrust, a long, loud, desperate wail spills from his throat and fades into shaky, breathless whimpers.

Out of habit, I glance toward the door, heart racing, then remember where we are. In this house, the sound of a man being undone is hardly cause for alarm.

Lula’s hand slides beneath him, stroking with wicked care. “Look at him,” she murmurs. “He’s already making a mess of himself.”

Boone would have had an answer for that any other time. Some filthy little boast.

Not now.

Now he only bows his head and shakes, his breath coming apart beneath us.

“Yes… Okee, please.”

I grip his hip tighter. “He loves being taken this way. Don’t you, Boone?”

He nods against the blankets, too quickly, too honestly.

“Words,” I say.

His throat works. “Yes.”

Lula strokes him slower. “Yes, what?”

Boone shudders under us both. “Yes, sir.”

Then he looks back at me with those heavy, ruined eyes—the ones that make him look half drunk on want.

For all his trembling, there is still a spark of wicked pride in him, a lazy danger that says he knows exactly what he is doing to me. As if being good for me is just another way to be trouble.

Boone Maddox could laugh with a gun at his ribs. He could spit blood into the dirt and make a joke before he fell. But the way he looks at me now— Christ, this look is the part of him he gives only to me.

Ruined. Devoted.