Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Stay,” she whispers, and a single tear slides across her cheek.
“Bay, baby, the tears, I can’t handle it. Not where you’re concerned.”
She smiles and wipes at her cheeks, but I’ve already caught the tear with my thumb. “I’m not sad, Mac. These tears, they’re more relief than anything. I wasn’t happy with him, and after taking a step back, I hate that I stayed as long as I did.”
I pull her into my chest because I don’t know what to say to that. Nothing I say will make her feel better, because I can’t believe she stayed either. But that’s okay, because she’s here, with me, where she belongs, and that’s all that matters.
She rests her hands on my chest, and eventually on my cowboy hat, which she takes and places on her head.
Fuck, she looks sexy wearing it. “You know what that means, right? You wear a cowboy’s hat, that means you’re his.”
“Is that so?” she questions. “I guess that means this is mine, too?” she asks, dropping a hand between us and gripping my cock through my jeans.
“Fuck.” I hiss out a breath. I was not expecting that.
“That’s not an answer, Mr. McBride.”
“Yes.”
“So, if I were to do this?” She steps back and starts working on my belt buckle.
“B-Bay,” I grit out. Am I dreaming? Fuck me. If I am, I don’t ever want to wake up.
“These are your rules, cowboy,” she teases.
The buckle falls open, and she makes quick work of the button, then the zipper, and then she’s shoving her hands down in my pants. Not just into my pants, but past the waistband of my boxer briefs, and her soft hand grips my cock.
I swallow hard, keeping my eyes on her. If she’s waiting for me to stop her, it’s not going to happen. I’m at her mercy.
“Is this for me?” she asks sweetly.
“All you,” I rasp.
“Mmm,” she moans.
“Baylor?”
“You said I come first.”
“I did.”
“Should we test that?”
This beautiful woman just scrambled my brain. “Bay?”
“I’m already wet, Mac. I don’t think it will take long. It’s been a long time since a man has touched me. Over a year,” she whispers.
I should have fucking laid his ass out while I had the chance.
“But you’re so hard,” she says, pushing my jeans down and stroking my cock gently.
“Fuck,” I rasp. “Baby, if you keep that up, I’m going to come in your velvety soft hands.” I pause and collect myself, thinking about puppies and how much I hate her ex, to reel myself in. “It’s been years for me.”
“Years?”
“Yeah, since before you graduated college.”
“What?” she breathes.
“I wanted you. It wasn’t satisfying when you were all I thought about when I was with someone. So, I just stopped. I had a plan, then you moved to New York, and I was still planning, and even after you brought fuckface home for the first time, I couldn’t. I tried a few times,” I confess. “But they weren’t you.”
“So, we both need this?”
“I need you,” I answer, because she could pull her hand from my cock, and I’d still want her with a passion I don’t know what to do with.
She pauses, her eyes meeting mine. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Every word.”
“Your words, the sweet things you say, they make me ache for you,” she whispers.
“Tell me what I can do to make it better?” I know how to make it better—fuck, do I know—but this is her show. She’s in control. I’ll give her anything she wants. Hell, she already has all of me, even if she’s not ready to admit it yet.
“Touch me.”
“Let’s go back to my place, or yours, or hell, a room at the inn,” I suggest.
“What’s wrong with right here?” she asks, stroking me again.
“I don’t want our first time to be in the dusty stables.”
“I don’t need the location to be perfect, or have flowers and candles. I need real, Macklin. I need you, and what I see in your eyes, I’m…” Her voice trails off.
“You’re what?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head, peering down at her hand wrapped around my length.
“There’s nothing you can’t tell me, Baylor.” My tone is soothing.
“I’m trying not to need you,” she whispers, her eyes locking on mine once again. “Needing you means my heart is invested. Needing you means that when you decide you’re done with me, my heart will shatter. Not just hurt-me shatter, but a kind of pain, a kind of shatter that changes you. I’ll never be the same.”
“I want you to need me, Baylor, because I need you. All of you. I won’t change my mind, and your heart”—I place my hand on her chest—“is safe with me.” Fuck, if she could only see in my mind. Her telling me she’s trying not to need me guts me, because that’s all I want. I want to be there for her in the good times and the bad. I’m her anchor, and she’s mine.