he didn’t go faster. And he didn’t get rougher. He kept it slow, and he kept it sweet, and she began to whimper in frustration.
He moved his hands to her hair as he continued to kiss her, and she moved her hands to his stomach, pushing them up his shirt so that she could feel his bare skin. So that she could try to urge things along.
And then he pulled her ponytail. “Hey,” he said, his eyes burning into hers. “Don’t get ahead of it. Relax.”
She was ready to argue. To tell him she didn’t respond to commands.
But then his mouth was back on hers, and she couldn’t think of a single compelling argument for why they should do anything differently. Because his touch was magic, and his lips were magic, and he made her feel magic.
She had never felt magic in her whole life.
She had felt restless. And she had felt wrong. She had felt triumphant. And she had felt self-righteous.
But not like she might contain something bright and brilliant that existed inside no one else.
But West Caldwell needed her.
This big, handsome cowboy needed her.
And if he did, then maybe there was something special in her. Not just something wrong. Not just something wild that needed to be tamed. Something bad that needed to be corrected. But something that shimmered like gold, just like the sparks of pleasure inside of her.
This was the best birthday gift she’d ever gotten, and for some reason the realization made her throat feel tight. Made her feel like her emotions were trapped there, growing and building, expanding down her chest, into her stomach. Building pressure behind her eyes.
So she tightened her hold on him, because it made her feel like she might be closer to holding herself together, if she could brace herself on all his strength.
At the dinner table she’d had to be strong. Rigid. Self-contained.
But she could be contained in West’s arms. Stand solid against that broad, muscular chest.
She could rest.
His hands moved achingly slow over her curves, and when he picked her up off the floor, she didn’t even think to protest.
“Which way to the bedroom?” he asked.
This was pivotal, and she knew it. Letting him into her house like this, into her bed.
If he laid her down on that mattress and had his way with her, as he had done against the wall, as he had done on that couch in the barn, well, it would be different. This was her space. Her bed, where she slept every night.
His skin would be against her sheets. And when it was over her bed would smell like him. Like the scent of his skin and hers together.
She was already changed. But this was different. This was him in her home, changing the shape of her mattress with the weight of his body. Changing the shape of her life.
“Second door down the hall,” she said, her voice rough.
Because she couldn’t tell him no. No matter how much she might fear this. No matter how intense it might seem.
She couldn’t turn back, because she wasn’t made of that sort of thing.
Because once she had been wild. And once she had run across the property with her hair flying in the wind, not trapped in a ponytail.
Because once she had gone barefoot in the fields.
And that girl would have grown into a woman who hadn’t feared this at all.
But that girl felt locked behind a wall inside of Pansy. And for the first time she wanted to let her out.
He walked into her bedroom and set her down at the foot of the bed. Then he closed the door behind them.
He took his shirt off slowly, giving her a good view of his body. Then he worked his belt buckle free, pulling his belt through the loops on his jeans as he toed his boots off. Then he slowly undid the button and the snap on those jeans, and she felt her internal muscles clench in anticipation.
He pushed the denim down his thighs along with his underwear, leaving him gloriously naked in front of her.
She took a step toward him, then another. They had gone so fast all the other times. So desperate. And he had set the pace this time, keeping it slow.
It made her ache, but the idea of taking the time to explore him a bit... That made it seem worth it.
She reached out and touched his chest, licking her lips as she dragged her fingertips down over those hot, hard