Page 112 of Risking it for the Cowboy

And yet, it only took a matter of minutes, carrying Daisy into Tyler’s living room where Seth, Steven, and Heart were playing a board game, eating popcorn, to give Tyler the CliffsNotes version of what had happened tonight, having set the lawyer into overdrive. Another minute of Heart fretting in the doorway, worried, and he was storming out and hopping back in his truck, breaking the speed limits like twigs beneath boots.

He flew through the night, roaring into Charlie’s driveway to see his woman whirl around on a step ladder in the yellow glow of the porch light with her screwdriver, boarding over broken windows with a piece of plywood?

Fuck that bastard! Shattering her world and leaving her to clean up the mess.

He shoved out of his door, slammed it, loosened his tie and threw off his suit coat as he approached the front door, letting it land on the front walk, rolled up his shirt cuffs, and leapt up both steps as she began to descend her ladder at ten fifteen at night for God’s sake.

“Thad,” she croaked, in the face of his anger—

He gripped her face, tilting it this way, that way, inspecting, because if there was one spot on her skin that hadn’t been there before, he would—God, he would…

A cut had scraped her forehead. A bruise rested aside her neck. His hands shook, his lips trembled, his molars were going to crack. His eyes pricked with stinging. Blood lust licked through his veins.

“I’m okay.” She nodded, gripping his wrists, his grip so tight he needed to loosen it, so he didn’t hurt her, too, her jade gaze burning desperately into him.

But he couldn’t look her in the eye, couldn’t speak, because he should have been here to ward off the devil like his gut had told him, and his face crumpled as his pricking eyes burned with tears, memories of New York, of a different tearful phone call. Except this time it wasn’t Charity’s face he saw as he shoved down her front door, it was Charlie’s. It was a little blond, blue-eyed girl leaning on his arm as sadness demolished her happiness like a wrecking ball. It was visions of Charlie Bradford with baby Daisy cowering beneath the fist of a monster, summoning T.R.’s past to the surface, reminding him that she might see a prince in him, but he was just as much a monster, and his lips landed on Charlie’s, this need to feel, to know she was whole, to know that she was in his arms where he could breathe the realness of her lilac scent.

He walked her backward, against the door as he wove his fingers into her hair over her ears and clenched, leaning over her.

“What do you need from me, baby?” he breathed roughly, resting his forehead to hers and feeling the need to dig into the touch, to put pressure against his forehead to take the pain off his heart.

“Nothing, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

“Dammit, Charlie, what do you need?” he growled, so tired of this woman apologizing for shit that wasn’t her fault, his grip around her nape firming. “Be straight.”

Her hands clenched down on him, as if she were finally capitulating, finally going all in and dammit! He was a bastard for building that trust on a cracked foundation. He owed her the truth, especially after tonight, when things had gotten too real to ignore. Because when he closed his eyes and relived New York, relived the mess of blood on the floor from his fi—

“You.” She gripped his cheeks. “In any way you’ll give me. I trust you.” Music to his ears. She searched his eyes. “This man who’d never hurt a soul …” A shiv in the side of his conscience. “I just need you. And your patience. And your honor. And your sure hands that only know how to love and not punish—”

“Flower Girl I gotta tell you something,” he blurted out.

“I’m okay,” she whispered, lifting his face in the cradle of her palms, gazing into his distraught eyes as he chewed his confession into his cheek.

She brushed his cheekbones desperately. She pressed her lips to his worried ones. Shook her head. “Whatever it is—”

“Flower Girl, I—”

“Make love to me, Trouble,” she whispered, pressing her lips harder to his, begging him to keep wanting her. “As messed up as all of this is, I just—” She swallowed, as her fingers traced up and down his spine, welcoming him against her, begging him. “I just want to know I matter enough … to you, for you to accept this messy version of me, because I just want to bask in this safety I feel with you—”

His lips crashed to hers, silencing her. Love her. It was so fast. Only days, and yet, her supplication tore at his resolve and made him whole. She was finally coming to him, asking him, as she pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips to his and pulled his arms from her face around her body to press into her back and rear and he was … lost.

He gripped her. Rolled into her. This need to connect, to unify, to stake a claim and make her his, to override all common sense and decency and just … hold on.

She mewed against his lips through her emotion, and he extracted her DeWalt from her grip and together they fumbled the door open and Artex sniffed at him, but he didn’t care. Because he was hoisting his woman up, encouraging her legs around his rear as he carried her toward the stairs like that first night over two weeks ago, as if discovering this gorgeous songbird for the first time again.

Goddamn, he was erect, so hard it was painful. And yet as he thumped his way upstairs, he knew. He just wanted her to love him too. Not judge his intelligence based on his grades. Not judge his worth based on his accomplishments or his character based on some social media fan page. Just love him. Just like she needed someone to love all of her messy past and the promising future. The brainy girl who hadn’t been shallow enough for a momma’s love, whereas he’d never been brainy enough for his parents’ love.

Together they stumbled into her bedroom. Crashed to the mattress as he fought up her T-shirt—his T-shirt on her—her fighting open his belt buckle as he jammed open each button down his shirt and tore off his tie. She shucked his sleeves down his arms as he shimmied her leggings over her rear, dragging them free and throwing them aside. He collapsed onto her, covering her body like the stake claimed that it was, and dove in for her breasts encased in soft lavender lace he wished he could take time to appreciate.

Except he had to feel her. Biting them through the lace, her kneading his scalp, tugging his hair, was a balm he’d needed. He suckled. She arched up for him and clenched his hair, and the contented moan from her lips was a struck match to dry tinder. Fighting the cup down he latched onto the pink tip. Groaned.

God, so good, he rolled his cock against her thigh, creating blessed friction that both relieved the pain and stoked the fervor and yet, through it all, as his skin rested warmly to hers, as his arms cradled her face and shoulders, she skimmed his waistline with her nail, scoring the flesh and eliciting a growl of want so visceral it reverberated through his chest to hers.

“Please.” She exhaled the pained word.

And his remaining thread of control snapped.

*