Page 41 of Cowboy Mountain Man

I spasm.

Hard.

Then I fracture around him.

His hand slides up to my ass, pressing me tightly against him as he takes me again and again. A strangled moan lodges in his throat as he thrusts forward, filling me with powerful waves of heat.

I gasp. My heart pounds out of my chest. Sweat mists our flesh, and somehow we feel like one thing, melting into each other.

His breath is hot against my cheek. “God,” he manages, more animal than man.

“You okay?” I ask, tilting my head toward him. Can’t even raise it.

“There isn’t a word for what I am,” he grunts, sliding his arms around me and pressing a kiss against my temple. “Damn.”

Later, I lie against Harlan’s uninjured side beneath a faded quilt. The little room smells of clean sheets and cedar smoke drifting in from the stove.

His phone rests on the hall table outside the door, the volume turned up. Alden is down at the gate just in case. For a few minutes, I let myself forget why.

I trace a pale line along Harlan’s ribs. “You’ve got a lot of these.”

“Ribs?”

“Scars.”

“Occupational hazard.”

I lift my head. “Of protecting people?”

“Some. Some from working cattle.”

“Which is worse?”

“Cattle don’t usually lie about what they’re going to do.”

“Fair enough.”

He pulls the quilt higher over my shoulder. Such a small thing. He keeps doing them.

“You always take care of everybody?” I ask.

“No.”

“Just the paying customers?” I try to make it sound like a joke. My fingers keep moving over his skin because stopping would give me away.

He looks at me. “Alden is down at the gate. He should probably take over.”

My fingers stop anyway. “Do you want him to?”

“No.” It comes out immediate. Certain.

I look into his eyes while his thumb brushes my cheek. “I’d still be here if the job ended tonight.”

I take a slow breath. “Here at the cabin?”

“Here is wherever you are.”

Oh.