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I don’t breathe.

She crosses the distance between us in one step and jumps.

Her arms lock around my neck, her legs around my waist, and I catch her the way I’ve been catching her since she was nine years old and convinced she could jump off the top of her grandmother’s porch railing. She is kissing me before I have the air to kiss her back, her hands in the back of my hair, and I hold her and let her have all of it.

She pulls back just far enough to look at me, her eyes still wet at the corners, her braids half loose around her face.

“Yes,” she says. “Obviously yes, you absolute idiot.”

I laugh.

It comes out rough and real and a little undone, and she hides her face in the crook of my neck when she hears it, and I hold her in the field with the lupine at our knees and the last of the sun going down behind the tree line and the ring on her finger catching what little light is left.

“My girl,” I say.

“Your girl,” she says into my neck. “Finally.”

I lower us down into the grass.

She looks up at me, the ring on her hand, and the tears drying on her cheeks, and the sweatshirt off her shoulder again, and the smile she gives me brings me to my knees.

“You’ve had this ring for two years,” she says.

“I have.”

She looks up at me, the ring on her hand and her braids loose around her head and her sweatshirt slipping off her shoulder again, and she smiles.

“How do I thank you for that, Gray?”

“You can thank me,” I say, pulling her sweatshirt further down her shoulder, “by showing me how you ride.”

“Well, what the cowboy wants,” she purrs, pushing her sweatshirt down her arm. “The cowboy gets.”

The tight jeans are next; she works them over her hips while I watch, my hands on her thighs, the muscles firm under my palms.

“Grayson,” she whispers my name like it’s a question she already knows the answer to.

“Up,” I tell her. “Let me see you.”

She rises on her knees above me, and the last of the sunlight catches the blue of her hair. Her braids hang forward, brushing my chest, and I reach up and take one in my hand, feeling the texture, the slight dampness from the humidity of the evening. I wrap it once around my fist, not pulling, just holding.

“These,” I say, tugging the braid gently, “have been driving me insane all day.”

She laughs, low and breathy. “They’re just braids.”

“Yeah, but I want to hold them like reins as you ride my cock, cowgirl.” My other hand finds her hip, thumb pressing into the hollow where her thigh meets her body. “Is that okay?”

Her eyes go dark. The playful smile fades into something hungrier, and she nods. I release her braid just long enough to work my jeans open, and she helps, her fingers quick and sure, and then she’s positioning herself over me, and the heat of her makes me suck air through my teeth.

“Slowly,” I tell her. My hands find both her braids now, gathering them at the nape of her neck, and I use my grip to guide her down onto me. “You’re going to take your time. You’re going to feel every inch.”

“Bossy,” she breathes. She sinks down, and her mouth opens, her eyes flutter, and the sound she makes is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

“That’s it.” My voice is thick with desire. My hips want to buck up, want to drive into her hard and fast, but I hold still. “Look at you. Taking all of me like you were made for it.”

“Maybe I was,” she says, and then she rolls her hips.

I groan. I can’t help it. The grip on her braids tightens, and she moves again, a slow grind that has her head falling back and my name spilling out of her mouth like a prayer.