Page 38 of One Last Rodeo

She nods. “Good.”

I press a palm gently over the top of her pelvis, feeling myself inside her. Feeling how perfectly she takes me. How we fit in a way that doesn't make sense to anyone but us. Her scent mixes with mine—clean skin, nerves, cocoa, heat. Her hands smooth up my abs, then across my chest, right over the tattoo atop the heart she kept beating. I don’t think she even realizes she’s touching it, but I feel it. Like a zap straight through my core.

Her fingertips graze the tiny scar where she repaired me and my whole damn heartbeat stutters. I'm planted inside her, toes curled into the mattress, thighs quaking like I don't ride bulls for a living, wondering what she's going to do next, and trying like hell not to move and fuck her into this mattress like I want to.

“You feel it?” I ask her, softly.

She doesn't answer. Instead, she turns her face to the side, jaw clenched. Like I've crossed some invisible line she keeps drawnaround herself—one she knows I've seen. She feels the electrical pull between us too. She feels my heartbeat. She won’t admit it.

“Just move,” she whispers.

I pull out, slide back in, keeping my weight braced on my forearms so I don’t crush her. Her hands slip from my chest, leaving my heart cold, grabbing the bedsheets as she moans and arches into me.

“So deep.”

I thrust again. And again. Deeper each time. Until I hook one of her legs over my shoulder and drive into her harder. That’s when her control breaks. Her head tips back. Her mouth parts. Her breath stutters.

My hands drag up her arms, until I reach her palms that are splayed out at her sides. Her fingers twitch under mine, like they’re trying to curl up and close me out. I don’t let them. I lace them together, grounding us both. Her eyes are closed, lashes shaking. And that’s when I realize I’m holding her hands.

These fucking hands. The hands that saved me. They’re small. Precise. Steady. And she's trusting me with them. The ones that have been inside my heart and are connected to the woman allowing me inside her body.

“You’re right,” I say roughly, staring at our joined hands while I’m being squeezed by her wet pussy. She clenches. I groan. I pull my hips back and watch the way my cock comes out covered in her arousal.

Fuck, I would live inside there if I could. She's perfect.

“…You’re right,” I repeat. “I was too rough with you earlier.”

Her eyes blink open, confusion on her face.

“Your hands are a fucking gift.” I bring our connected hands up to my mouth and kiss each one of her fingers on her left hand, slow, reverent, memorizing the tiny mole on her left ring finger like it’s something I’ll dream about later.

My heart still beats, but I can't tell if it's because it's supposed to, or because she's the one keeping it going.

I rock my hips forward, watching her stretch around me each time I push deeper. It’s fucking hypnotizing the way she takes me.

I lower her hand back to the bed and kiss her lips, sliding my tongue inside her mouth to taste her again. She’s so soft everywhere. Every part of her is like velvet.

“Am I being too rough?” I ask her again.

She shakes her head—no words, just that. Catalina isn’t cold at all. Damn the person who made her believe that. She’s molten. Malleable. She softens under pressure and blooms under heat. She’s honey, flowers in springtime, melted sugar on the tongue.

And for one terrifying second, it hits me—I think I get what Rafael means when he looks at Juneand just knows.

Her skin glows like warmth. Her brown eyes—when she opens them—are dark and liquid, terrified and guarded in equal measure. It's the same way I must look right now, because when our gazes collide, something shifts in her demeanor.

She pushes at my chest like she's trying to get me to back up. I lean back a little before she flips onto her stomach, breath shaky.

“From behind,” she whispers over her shoulder.

Distance. Yeah. That’s smart. I need that too.

I line myself up and slide back into her, lifting her hips to deepen the angle. It should help—switching positions, not seeingher face, pretending this is just sex with anyone. But it doesn’t matter whether I’m staring at her ass, or the back of my own eyelids in an empty hotel room. I’m still thinking about her hands. About her body fitted in mine. About her mouth. About her lips.

About how she put me together…

…and how easily she could be the one to rip me apart.

I find her clit and rub tight, fast circles, trying to ground myself in something physical like the fact that she's just a body. Another woman. But this doesn't feel like just any other woman. She’s special.