Page 37 of Broken Cedar

He withdraws his fingers from my pussy and brings them to his mouth, licking them clean, his eyes never leaving mine. Then his hand is in my hair, stroking as he leans down to kiss me, his tongue sweeping against mine, and I can taste myself on him, salt and musk and the particular flavor of my own wanting, and it’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.

“Let me make it all better,” he murmurs against my mouth.

He rolls me onto my side. My back to his chest, his body curled around mine, his cock nudging against my ass. He reaches between my legs, positions himself, and the tip of his cock slides through my wetness, gathering it, rubbing it over my clit in slow, teasing circles that have me trembling, my lips parted, my breath becoming ragged.

“Is this what you need?” he asks. His voice is low in my ear, his breath hot against my neck.

“Yes. God, yes.”

He pushes into me. Just the head at first, just enough to stretch, and the sensation draws a moan from somewhere deep in my chest. He grabs my leg, hooks it over his, changing the angle of my hips, and sinks deeper. Another inch. Another. The slow, relentless press of him filling me has me gasping, my hand flying back to clutch at his thigh, holding on as he bottoms out with a groan I feel against my spine.

“Oh, fuck,” I murmur. Yes, yes, yes. The words become a mantra, breathless and broken, as he begins to move. His cock rocking into me, withdrawing almost completely, then pushing back in with a depth that makes my toes curl. Each thrust has my body arching back against his chest, has his arm tightening around my waist to hold me where he wants me.

Colt’s hand finds my breast and pinches my nipple. He rolls it between his fingers as my hips push back against him, taking him deeper.

“Come for me, Hallie,” Colt gasps against my ear. His rhythm is faltering, his control slipping, his hips driving into me with a desperation that matches my own. “You can do that for me, can’t you?”

It only takes a few more strokes. His cock hitting that spot inside, and then I’m coming, my body clamping around him. Colt follows, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing inside me. “Fuck, fuck, Hallie. Oh fuck.” His groan is ragged against my neck as he emptises himself with a final, shuddering thrust.

We lie there, breathing heavily. His chest against my back, his arm around my waist, his cock still inside me, both of us trembling in the aftershock. His lips find the back of my neck. He presses a soft, almost reverent kiss there as his arm tightens around me, holding me, saying without words what his mouth has never been able to shape.

I close my eyes and let myself be held. Let myself, for the first time in years, acknowledge what my body has known all along: that I never stopped belonging here. I just got very, very good at pretending otherwise.

Chapter Nine

Iwake slowly, the way you do when you’re warm enough that your body has no interest in returning to the world. For a few disorienting seconds, I don’t know where I am. Then I feel the weight of an arm around my waist. The steady rise and fall of someone else’s breathing.

Colt.

Memory returns in fragments. The blanket. The afternoon sun. His hands. His mouth. The quiet afterwards. I stay perfectly still. He’s asleep, really asleep. I’ve never seen him like this. Not as an adult, I mean. Without the ranch resting on his shoulders. Without the quiet vigilance he carries through every waking hour.

His face looks younger somehow. The faint line that usually sits between his eyebrows has disappeared. He looks…peaceful. The thought catches me off guard.

I don’t know how long I lie there watching him breathe. Long enough to realize something that sends a sharp ache through my chest. This—this is the dangerous part. Not the sex. This. The quiet. The ease. The feeling of waking up exactly where I want to be. Because I could get used to this, far too easily.

I try to ease myself onto one elbow without disturbing him. Colt’s arm tightens instinctively around my waist, a sleepy reflex more than a conscious choice. My breath catches. He stirs slowly, his eyes blinking open. For a second, he simply looks at me, still caught somewhere between dreaming and waking.

“Hey,” he murmurs. His voice is rough with sleep, soft enough that it almost doesn’t sound like him.

Neither of us seems entirely sure who should move first. His thumb traces one absent-minded circle against my waist before he seems to realize what he’s doing, and he lets his hand fall away. I suddenly become intensely interested in the sky.

“What time is it?” Colt asks.

“No idea. Afternoon, maybe.”

He’s quiet for a beat. Then his arm withdraws, and the loss of his warmth is immediate, physical, like stepping out of sunlight into shade. “Shit. We should head back.”

“Yeah.”

We don’t move straight away. For a moment we simply lie there, listening to the breeze moving through the juniper overhead and the quiet shifting of the horses somewhere behind us. Neither of us seems entirely sure who should break the spell first.

Colt lets out a slow breath and finally pushes himself upright, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “We really did sleep half the day away.”

“I guess we did.” A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth before fading just as quickly.

He reaches for his jeans, then pauses. “Those are yours.”

I look over. They are. “I knew that,” I say, taking them from him.