So he ignored it. He concentrated on what he knew. The same way he did when the gate opened and there was nothing but him and the bull leaping and rolling and bucking beneath him. He concentrated on the dance of it, not the deeper things he didn’t want to acknowledge in the moment.
The heat in her gaze, not the haunted part.
The way she gripped him, not the way she laughed.
The fact he wanted her, hard and wild, as if he’d been wanting her for a long, long time. When the truth was, he didn’t even know her name.
He told himself that was a good thing. Names were intimate. Names…meant things.
He didn’t want to know her name. He didn’t want to mean anything. He just wanted her, that was all.
Cody bent his head down, taking her mouth at last, and he made that matter.
Because it was the only thing that ever could.
Chapter Three
Obviously Skylar knew better.
But her cowboy was kissing her, and she found she didn’t care too much about what she knew.
She cared a whole lot more about how she felt.
Because this was clearly insanity, and yet he tasted so good she thought that all this time she’d been getting it wrong. She’d wanted so badly to be normal again. To blend in instead of stand out. To be just like everyone else and no kind of shrine at all, when really, what she’d wanted was this.
This. Him.
It was like fireworks—
But no, she told herself as sensation swamped her. It was the Fourth of July. If there were fireworks, it was to celebrate the holiday. He wasn’t doing it, no matter how she felt inside.
Still, she didn’t check the dark night sky somewhere above them. She let all that pop and sizzle and crash happen inside her no matter what might or might not be happening above them.
Because all Skylar could concentrate on was him.
He was harder, more solid and more muscled, than he appeared at first sight—and at first sight she’d thought he was pure granite in jeans and cowboy boots. He’d looked lanky despite that, standing out there on her father’s step, but it turned out that every part of him was built tough. Like weathered steel, everywhere.
And she could feel him everywhere, because he was so big and so hard, impossibly hot to the touch, and on top of her.
She had no idea where the hem of her dress had ridden up to and she couldn’t say she cared. She let her hands move along his sides, feeling his heat and strength through his shirt. He was too warm, too hot, and the coolness of the summer evening now that it was dark didn’t seem to make a difference. He generated a heat all his own.
In some distant part of her brain, Skylar knew that there would be entirely too much to think about when this was over. She’d never been this girl. She’d never done anything like this before. She’d only ever touched one man this way, and she’d intended to marry him. She’d always been a little bit old-fashioned. That was what happened when your mother was a monument to romantic bitterness and your father remarried like it was his job. It had always made sense to Skylar to take it slow. To make sure.
And look what that got you, a bitter voice inside her sang out.
She shoved it aside. Because the truth was, if this was out of character, she liked it. She encouraged it. Because whatever character she’d had, whatever person she’d been before, that Skylar had been lost two years ago.
That Skylar was dead.
And that was okay. Because the Skylar who was stretched out on the old picnic table, way out in the furthest shadows of the backyard with a cowboy pressed against her in the dark, didn’t care who she’d been. The Skylar who met his hard, demanding mouth with her own wanted one thing. One thing only.
More.
So she angled her mouth to get a better fit and she pressed herself against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and hooking her legs over his.
Everything seemed to burst into flame then. All at once.
Her cowboy laughed a little bit, right against her mouth. He shifted slightly, moving one of his hands to her propped-up leg. He smoothed it over her knee, his hand hard and calloused, then found her thigh. And he laughed again when she hissed something that wasn’t quite a word as she tipped her head back against the table and surrendered herself to the storm of his touch, charging through her, lighting her up.
He didn’t hesitate. At all. She didn’t know why that made everything that much hotter.
It was as if he knew. As if he’d known from the moment she’d opened the front door that it would be like this. That he would be sprawled over her in the dark, about to discover that she was hot and wet in a great many ways she didn’t know how to explain. Or express.
The cute little boy shorts she wore as underwear hardly deterred him. He slid his hand beneath them, making a low, very male noise of appreciation when he found her.
“So wet,” he muttered.
That didn’t seem like something that needed commentary, and that was a good thing, because Skylar could hardly breathe. His hand was so big. Hard and faintly rough. She could feel the slight, delicious abrasion as he caressed her, moving through her folds, then finding the neediest part of her that easily.
As if he’d known that too. Exactly how it would be.
She sucked in a breath—to say something maybe, or cry out, or who even knew—but he was already thrusting his fingers inside of her. And he dragged his thumb against her clit as he did it.
Again. And again.
Until Skylar couldn’t pretend that she was capable of thought. She was nothing but wild, humming, spinning sensation. She arched up against him, rocking herself against his talented, clever hand, because in that instant she would do anything for this. For him.
For a hard, unsmiling man who looked at her as if she was nothing more than a particularly hot piece of ass, and then proved it.
It was liberating.
More than that, it was so damn good.
“Concentrate, baby,” he muttered against her neck, and then he twisted his fingers and surged in deep.
Skylar broke apart. She screamed, maybe, and she didn’t care who heard it. And it was only when she’d shuddered and shuddered, shaking so hard that moisture leaked out of her eyes and she thought she might not stop, that she came back down and realized she was still spread out on that picnic table.
And he still had his fingers deep inside of her, but his free hand curled over her lips to keep the noise inside.
That mouth of his still didn’t smile. But those eyes that she knew were a mysterious green danced.
“You’re welcome.” He sounded full of himself, arrogant and male, and better than anything Skylar could remember hearing. Ever. “I kept you from screaming so loud you brought everyone in that party running up here to see what was wrong.”
He lifted his palm from her mouth, and she could taste him. Hot. Hard. Faintly rough.
Perfect.
“Thank you,” she managed to say primly in a voice that was much too scratchy to be hers. “I’m not sure I care.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” her cowboy murmured, more laughter in his voice if still not on his face. She had no idea why that made her chest feel almost too tight to bear. But then it was impossible to care, because he was pulling his fingers from the deep clench of her pussy. And it made her shudder all over again. “You going to come again?”
Skylar smiled. “That seems greedy.”
“Greed is good.” He gathered her closer to him, then rolled until she was splayed out on top of him. “I heard it in a movie, so it must be true.”
“That sounds reasonable to me,” she whispered.
He reached up one of those hands, so masterful and strong it made her stomach flip over, hooked it around her neck, and tugged her mouth down to his.
And for a long time, she was simply lost in that. In him. The sensation still storming around and around inside of her, telling her in no uncertain terms that she was alive.
Gl
oriously, beautifully alive.
She had his shirt pulled out of his waistband and her hands beneath it, all over that chiseled steel chest of his. She rocked herself against the hard ridge of his jeans below her, making both of them groan. And still he kissed her, a fierce and wild sort of taking, teeth and lips and desperation.
Skylar had never felt anything like this in her life.
And then he was moving again. His strength was almost impossible, she thought in a daze. He picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all. Then he sat up on the top of the table, and swung around to the side, so she was splayed out over his lap.
Then he reached down between them, unbuckled his belt, took his sweet time pulling down his zipper, and then finally, finally pulled his cock free.
She thought maybe she died in the time it took. Died and came back and died again, so greedy was she for this. All of this. She wanted to glut herself on every last bit of sensation.
Skylar didn’t play around now, pretending to be shy. She reached down and wrapped her hands around him, loving the little sound he made when she did. The little hiss of breath that told her that no matter how controlled he was, she got to him too.
It thrilled her.
She stacked her hands, one on top of the other, and then moved them. Slowly and luxuriously. Up and down.
Once. Twice.
“Enough.” His voice was different now. Strained. Dark.
As if he was as greedy as she was.
More, maybe.
Skylar felt his big hands move between them again. He dealt with the condom and then she felt a few sharp tugs. It took her a minute to realize he was ripping her underwear off of her as she sat there, her legs open over his lap.
And there was something so animalistic about it. So greedy and delirious. She nearly came again, just from that.
And then he was lifting her, tipping her toward him and holding her where he wanted her, so that the broad head of his cock was moving through her folds. Nudging against her clit to send wild sparks showering through her, then back through her wet pussy as if he was situating himself—
Except he clearly knew what he was doing.
It dawned on Skylar that he was playing with her.
Her heart kicked at her, and then slowly, so slowly, as if he had all night and could take all the time he liked, he started to work himself inside of her.
“So fucking tight,” he muttered.
“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment,” she whispered in return, half laughing.
“It’s a goddamn song of joy.”
It felt like joy. He did. And he kept going, deeper and deeper.
Like every other part of him, his cock was like steel. And much bigger than she’d expected. He was splitting her open. He was filling her, hard and deep. He was making her new.
And when he was finally all the way inside of her, stretching her to the hilt, he wrapped his hands around her hips and opened his strong thighs beneath her.
Skylar pulled in a breath. Because she was ready. More than ready. As if all this heat and all this fire—all the wild, intense sensation, melting and raging inside of her—was the change she’d always needed.
Two years later, she was finally dealing with the things that therapy and time could not.
“Skylar?”
Skylar froze. Below her and inside her, her cowboy shifted, his gaze moving over her face as if he was trying to read her.
“Skylar? Are you there?”
It was Angelique. A woman who was all of eighteen months older than Skylar, and yet also her stepmother, which never got less awkward. Skylar had no idea why she was looking for her—
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She and Angelique were friendly. More friendly than Skylar had ever imagined they would be, back when Jesse had refused to acknowledge her and Skylar had tried her best to stay polite, but distant.
But this wasn’t really the time to think about her relationship with her stepmother.
“Maybe she heard you,” her cowboy said, his voice barely more than a whisper and much too close to her ear, sending a shivery thing dancing down her spine to pool there where their bodies were connected.
Skylar didn’t twist around to look, but she knew that Angelique must have been standing on the lawn. Peering out into the darker woods.
“She can’t actually see me, can she?” Skylar asked, her voice shallow and soft.
“Let’s hope not,” her cowboy murmured.
But he didn’t really sound like he’d care too much either way.
Something that Skylar shouldn’t have found the least bit hot. And yet.
He pulled out then, making Skylar bite her lip and let out a tiny little sound of protest, but then everything was spinning. It took her a minute to realize that she was. Literally.
He lifted her up and spun her around, and then settled her on his lap again. But this time, she was facing the party down below. She could see all the lights and people milling about, and a shadow on the edge of everything that she could tell was her stepmother.
And she didn’t care about any of it, because her cowboy was working her down onto his cock again, every ridiculously hard inch of him making her want to scream.
It was that good. It was fire and heat and perfection.
But this time, she didn’t have his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. This time, she had to do it herself.
And the fact that she wasn’t sure if she could or not, when she could see Angelique’s silhouette right there in front of her, should have terrified her. She wished she was drunk. That would be some kind of excuse.
But in the next breath, she decided she didn’t need any excuse.
She didn’t understand why sex with a stranger should affect her like this. How it could. The impression she’d gotten from her more adventurous friends over the years was that this wasn’t how it normally went. But then again, they were usually too drunk to know better.
Or so they’d always claimed. As if maybe the sex would have been amazing if they could remember it clearly.
Skylar wasn’t drunk. She was stone-cold sober, and for the first time in two years, was doing something that had nothing at all to do with grief.
If anything, it felt like flying.
And then he began to move.
Slow. Hot. Deliberate.
“Skylar? Are you up there?” Angelique called out again, and Skylar shuddered. The man behind her only let out a sound that was slightly too gravelly to be a laugh, and then pressed his mouth into the crook of her neck.
“I thought I saw her go up there,” Angelique was saying to whoever was standing with her. “Maybe she went back into the house.”
The cowboy kept moving. Long and deep. Inexorable. And Skylar was reborn. Remade.
From one thrust to the next, she was undone. Made new.
He held her with his hard steel band of an arm around her waist, his mouth at her neck, and that other hand of his sneaking down to the place where they were joined, to roll her clit between his fingers as he slammed himself into her.
It was hard. It was intense. It was dirty—and it was glorious.
She fell apart once, in a wild sort of shudder she thought should have shattered her into actual pieces, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t even pause, as if he knew her body would hum from one intense peak straight into the next, and as if he didn’t much care if she caught her breath or not.
It was too intense and then it was wild again, one stroke to the next, and he kept right on going. He built her up again, threw her over that cliff again, and still he kept going.
Once. Twice. Then once again.
And only when she was limp against him, holding her own hands to her mouth to keep the sounds she made inside, biting on her own fingers to stay silent, did he finally let himself go.
He threw Skylar over one last time as he went himself, while fireworks burst open in the sky above them as if he’d made them, too. As if he’d ripped open the sky and filled
it with all the color and light he’d poured into her.
And for a while, they just sat there. Skylar was limp in his lap, collapsed against his chest. She tried her best to breathe, but couldn’t say she cared all that much if she did or didn’t. Not when she couldn’t feel her fingers.
He recovered faster, which didn’t surprise Skylar at all. She didn’t object when he picked her up again, pulling out of her as he lifted her, then setting her beside him on the picnic table as if she was made of glass. But a different kind of glass. The kind he expected could survive a hurricane or two, if she had to guess. Not the shattering, delicate, fragile kind.
Not the glass she’d been for years that everyone tiptoed around, so fearful of another crack.
She breathed in, then out. She willed her heart to slow back down. She willed her breath to stop catching in her throat.
And Skylar had no experience with this. She didn’t know what was supposed to happen in the cool dark of a Montana summer night between two people who had never so much as introduced themselves. She imagined doing that now. Putting on a carefree smile and acting like all those girls she’d envied a little, back when she was younger. When some part of her had worried she was missing out.
But she felt something shift inside of her, as if in warning. And she didn’t want to try to play any games when she didn’t know the rules. She didn’t want to get to know the man when the cowboy had taken her on a much-needed holiday from herself and her legacy and her whole, tortured story.
There was a whole party down there filled with people who would tell her how sorry they were. They would make concerned faces the moment they saw her and ask her how she was in low, intense tones. But not this man. He’d wanted her, so he’d taken her. He had no idea who she was. And somehow, he’d set something free inside of her. Shifted that great, squatting weight of grief over an inch or two to let a little light in.
Skylar needed to protect it, whatever it was.
And she certainly couldn’t do that, she realized then, if she sat around having a strained, awkward conversation with this man about…whatever it was people talked about when they just up and had sex while they were still strangers. Skylar didn’t know the protocols. She didn’t know how people navigated things like this when everyone’s clothes were back on and real life was closing in again.