Page 57 of Wild & Worthy

“You first,” I demand, driving my fingers harder, curling them as I press my palm against her clit. She throws her head back with a scream, but her hand never falters, stroking me relentlessly, matching me beat for beat like it’s one more thing she refuses to lose at.

I give it to her just as hard. Her breathing hitches, then breaks apart as her thighs start to shake around my wrist. The whole world narrows down to this. Her scent. Her heat. The slick sounds of my fingers working her. Our moans tangled together until I can’t tell hers from mine.

Pressure builds at the base of my spine, and I grit my teeth against it, holding on.

Her first. Her first. Her first. I chant it in my head like a fucking mantra.

“Chaaace!” She shatters, screaming my name, her core clamping down around my fingers as she gushes hot and wet into my palm, soaking my hand. Her whole body seizes and shudders while I work her through every last wave of it.

Hearing my name tear out of her as she comes is all the permission I need. My vision goes black at the edges, and I come hard and fast into her hand, groaning her name against her throat as I spill over her fingers while she strokes me.

By the time it’s over, we’re both wrung out and gasping in the fogged-up cab of my truck.

I rest my forehead against hers, my hand curved around her thigh as I try to catch my breath. "Holy shit," I breathe. I bring my other hand up and stroke her cheek. She's flushed, breathing hard, her eyes still glazed with pleasure, and fuck, I've never seen anyone so beautiful in my entire life. My fingertips drift over her cheekbone before I cup her face and kiss her, soft and slow. "That was…"

"Intense," she manages.

I let out a breathless laugh. Intense doesn't even begin to cover whatever the hell just happened between us. For a moment, neither of us moves. I don't want to. I want to stay right here with her tucked against me, looking at me like that, and forget every reason this is a terrible idea.

"We should get back to camp before someone wonders where we are," she finally says.

And there it is.

Reality.

I grab my shirt and pull it back on. Eli. My secrets. Every fucking reason I should put some distance between Addie and me. But as I watch her beside me, still flushed, smoothing her skirt down as if she can somehow smooth away the last twenty minutes, I know damn well I’m not going to. Whatever this thing is between us, I’m already in too deep to pretend I don’t want more.

Chapter twenty

Chace

There should be a law against making polite conversation with your best friend just hours after having wrecked his sister in the backseat of the very truck you’re both sitting alone in. The memory is still so fucking vivid; I can practically hear our ragged breathing from the backseat while I stare straight ahead and pretend everything is normal.

This morning, after we got everything packed up, Hazel decided the girls would ride in their rental car while Eli and I hauled Dusty in the truck. I figured Addie would fight it. She’s usually damn near glued to that horse, but to my surprise, she agreed immediately.

Which is how I ended up riding bitch in my own damn truck while Eli drives. God knows the man can’t give up control long enough to ride shotgun, even when the truck doesn’t belong to him. That’s Eli, though. He takes charge, I let him, and we’ve pretty much operated that way since we were kids. This time though, I had really been hoping to be alone with Addie.

Maybe she didn’t want to be trapped in the truck with me after last night, or maybe she just wanted some space to think. I’m not exactly sure. I just know it’s awkward as fuck sitting here with Eli while he drones on about fence lines and cattle, when all I can think about is the look on Addie’s face as she came undone beneath my hands, an image I sure as hell won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

“The fence on the west pasture has to be completely replaced when I get back,” Eli goes on from the driver's seat. “You know, the one we patched last month.”

The thing I keep coming back to is that it wasn’t awkward afterward. Once Addie and I climbed into the front seat, she looked over at me with a sly little smirk.

“You know, Walker, I think you owe me a burger or something.”

“A burger? Work up an appetite, Sunshine?” I grin over at her as I pull out of the parking lot, heading toward a twenty-four-hour diner I know close by.

She turns sideways in her seat and stretches her legs across the bench, resting them in my lap. I reach down and wrap a hand around her calf, absently running my thumb over her soft skin.

“Don’t get too full of yourself there, Cowboy.” She looks over at me with a teasing little smile, one eyebrow lifting. “You promised multiples the other night at the bar, remember? And in case you’ve forgotten how to count, that was only one. Seems pretty average to me.”

Fuck me, this woman is going to drive me wild. I slide my hand higher, up toward her thigh. “I can fix that real quick.”

She shoos my hand away. “Nope. That was a one-time experience. Guess you should’ve tried harder.” She smiles up at me, and God, that smile makes me want things a man like me definitely doesn’t deserve.

“Earth to Chace!” Eli pulls me back to reality. “Have you even been paying attention to anything I’ve said?”

I glance over at him. Judging by the look on his face, he definitely asked me something I didn’t hear.