Page 113 of Risking it for the Cowboy

He shoved his jeans down as he tore his heavy erection free. Her panties were stripped down her legs, discarded into the abyss of their other clothes as she lay flopped beneath him like a rag doll and he landed back down atop her, fighting his hips between her legs as he lifted her knee, opening her to him, and shoved within her.

She arched, head thrown back, a cry welling from her chest as a rough growl rolled up his throat to be seated within her. This shocking stretch, delicious pain from his fierce entry.

So good.

She clenched his shoulders, his arms, to stabilize herself as his mouth swallowed her sounds. Somehow, his hips were banging her thighs, skin slapping skin, lips devouring lips. Somehow, his fingers were woven with hers, pinning her hands to the bed above her head as if he needed the anchor to hold himself down. Somehow, this frenzied mating felt like love—messy with an edge of pain but oh, so good.

The passionate, rough pounding intense and delicious but this, skin to skin, heart to heart, need to need … it was love. Young and uncultivated. But found between two souls.

“Charlie…” he crooned her name, guttural and rough, like the lyric of a song. “You—” His roughness just what they needed, began to transform into something more, something gentler as his tongue plied hers, his fingers clenching hers. “Need to pack, because you—” He shoved up on his knees; his thighs splayed beneath hers. “And the girl—belong with me—”

At his cabin. Where memories and music were made around a fire.

And as he hoisted up her thighs, anchoring her in his grip, the most primal part of her held open to him, he tipped his head back, and pounded home. Hard, fast, cathartic undulations that spiked tingling across her skin and through her belly, because looking up at him, his torqued muscles and golden hair and work-roughened body, she saw a future. A man she didn’t have to worry about turning drunk and angry.

His thumb fell to that sensitive place, swirling as roughly as the rest of him, making her squirm, as he wrestled with controlling his climax while trying to let her go first.

Good, this torn-up man, the one ready to chase down the demons of the world for her, was worrisome, but the seducer captivated with need for her, was the one she needed, to vanquish the pain and make her feel safe.

*

Her leg trembled in his grip but he held her firm.

“C’mon, baby,” he growled, feeling her squirm, feeling her fight for release, watching her blond locks flop across her cheek and forehead, desperate to push her over the edge first and give her the hit of dopamine she needed, like a fucking gentleman and not the barbarian he was acting like because, damn straight, he’d hold out to finish last.

“Perfect, baby,” he praised. “Gimmie your pleasure, baby.”

Her head tossed side to side and she arched her pretty breasts up to him, an altar at which he’d happily pray for the rest of his life if he could…

The rest of his life. The realization hit like a train.

A life where he got to watch this woman shine in the spotlight beside him and teach about her daisies with pride instead of like a victim in hiding. A life where she got to take on the world and bask in the stage lights as he ran his grandparents’ farm and, together, they brought his songs to life and maybe, just maybe, together they’d achieve that Nashville dream. And God, his spine was tingling, his lust coursing through him, ready to explode.

A life where he’d watch more babies nestled to these breasts if they so chose; babies he’d give her, siblings he’d give little Daisy, because this woman didn’t think he was a fuck-up. A body swelling with progeny he’d put there, to be revered as the miracle they were, as little Daisy should have been so loved by a father.

Her body tensed. Her nails gripping his forearms dug into his skin, as her mouth parted and her eyes fluttered shut and the beautiful sound of her release trembled from her lips, his name, once so much a curse, now a prayer.

“Thaddeus… I’m in love with you.”

He detonated, feeling her warmth coating him with every primal thing she felt for him, and he yanked free, bareback, as she gripped his cock and pumped with those pretty fingernails—

His release draped ropes of seed across her navel. He fell forward, bracing his weight on his arms, and yet, they trembled so badly as he nudged and growled out each jolt, pressed between their bodies as if to bond them.

So lost in the moment. So found when it came to this woman. Did she realize what she’d just said? As he returned to gravity, his heartbeat roaring in his ears and his release growing sticky against their skin, he kissed the cut on her forehead, his eyes pinching closed, as if to kiss away her hurt and his guilt. As her nails began to massage, contemplative combs through his hair, feeling so content.

“Are you sure you want us living with you?” she hedged into the silence.

Should she put herself in a position of dependance again, he read between the lines.

His head lifted. He cupped her crown, resting on his elbows, and stared down at her. Jason was part of her story. He’d shaped the woman beneath T.R. now.

Embroiling herself in a position of dependance on a man was risky for a girl like her.

“I want my girls safe,” he croaked. Pressed a kiss to her cut again as her eyes fluttered closed. “I wanna know they’re both happy.” Pressed a kiss to her nose, feeling the tension relaxing from her chest on a long exhale that warmed his cheek. “I want them to know they’re worth being loved.”

Her eyes opened at this as she idled her fingers in his hair.

“What did you need to tell me before?” she murmured against his neck.