Cowboy Up (Coming Home #3)

I take a slow, deep breath. “Don’t let go of me,” I tell my dark cowboy.

“Not sure that’s gonna be possible, sweetness,” he oddly answers, then makes a clicking sound. He doesn’t look away from my eyes, not when we start moving at a slow walk. Not when we start to trot a little faster. He holds me captive while I trust not only him, but also the animal carrying us. I should be terrified at what his words make me feel. I shouldn’t allow myself to think they mean something that should be impossible, but with my body plastered against his and his breath mingling with mine, I find myself melting into this man who is as much of a stranger as he was two months ago.

Only now that stranger has a face and a connection to my life through my friendship with his family. That means today won’t be the last time we see each other, even if those seven words don’t mean what my heart thinks they do. This isn’t the end of Clayton and me.





9


CLAYTON


“Body like a Back Road” by Sam Hunt

- -

I let Dell lead the way, knowing he’ll take us back to the ranch eventually. I say a silent prayer that he does what he normally does when I let him take control during our rides and wander the long way through my property—enjoying the freedom of his hooves—because I’m not ready to let the woman in my arms go. I’ve never felt this connected to someone. I felt it the first time I had her in my arms, ignored it, but I won’t make that mistake again. I’m sick of living a shadow of a life because I let my fucked-up past cloud my way toward some sort of normal future. Even if nothing comes of this, I’m going to try.

“I’d convinced myself what I felt that night was the just the whiskey,” I admit. I smile when her cheeks heat, my words hitting the bull’s-eye.

Who would’ve thought a woman blushing could be so erotic? But with a vision of just how far that blush will spread, all I can wonder now is if her small tits turn pink with a blush when she comes—something I never got to see that night because of the darkness she seemed to need.

“Might’ve been,” she whispers so softly I have to strain to hear her, and then she lays her head against my shoulder, relaxing just a bit in my hold. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, but that move right there shows me that she trusts me to lead.

“You make me feel like I’m comin’ alive, sweetheart. I’ve got no words to explain it better than that, but what I know is there ain’t no way on this green earth that it’s the whiskey that is doin’ to work. Wasn’t the cause then and damn sure ain’t now.”

“Heat of the moment, maybe. An adrenaline rush,” she weakly argues without conviction.

“I’m old enough to be able to control my cock in the heat of the moment. Even if I was feelin’ some adrenaline, it wouldn’t make me feel like I was out of control of my own body. You feel my heart poundin’ in my chest now? You explain that as heat of the moment when the only time I feel calm is on the back of one of my horses.”

She turns her head away, and as much as I love the feel of her relaxed in my arms, even when I know she’s afraid of horses, I wish I could look into those rich chocolate eyes of hers—so dark that I could get lost in their depths—to try and figure out what’s going on in that beautiful head of hers.

“Did you know who I was?” she asks, her mouth moving against my neck causing a chill to roll down my spine. My hand half on her ass and half on her pussy twitches violently with the sensation of it.

“No, I didn’t. I knew you were a gorgeous woman who looked about as lost as I was feelin’ when I walked into Hazel’s that night. Knew exactly who you were back at Mav and Leigh’s though.”

“You wouldn’t have tried to find me if we hadn’t crossed paths today.”

It isn’t a question.

She’s not wrong either. Something we both don’t need me to verbalize, but I don’t like her thinking I was just using her as some fuck toy either. We’d both been looking for something that night, but I don’t make a habit of spending the night getting lost in a woman before vanishing, and I’ve felt bad about that since. My loneliness drove me to her, and it kept me from finding her after, but it won’t keep me away from her now. There’s a reason we crossed paths to begin with, I know that with absolute clarity.

“It’s okay,” she continues, a little softer. “I understand it better now.”

I frown, seeing the roof of my house over the horizon. “Understand what, Caroline?”

“Why a man like you wouldn’t have tried to find a woman like me.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I sharply ask, making her jump slightly.

She sighs. The sound holds notes of sadness, but she doesn’t lift her head from my shoulder. Her lips continue to speak against my neck. “It’s funny the things you remember. Those memories that you hadn’t thought about in years comin’ out of nowhere at the oddest times. I remember once, durin’ one of the famous Davis boys’ bonfires, somewhere around the time I turned eighteen, I was sittin’ on the back of your sister’s tailgate watchin’ everyone let loose around me when I saw you with some tall Barbie doll–lookin’ girl with the biggest boobs I had ever seen. The first thing I thought was how someone so thin could stand upright without topplin’ over all the time. Stupidest thing to think about in that moment, but I did anyway. After that, though, I couldn’t look away from y’all. Not even when you pushed her against Ronny Billings’s truck and pulled her jean skirt up to her chest and started thrustin’. I kept watchin’. I don’t even know why I’m rememberin’ it so clearly now, but I was transfixed by you even then. Though I think that was also the same night I stopped walkin’ around with my head in a cloud of fantasies.”

Jesus Christ.

I don’t remember a thing she’s talking about, but I have no doubt it probably happened. I was careless with how I took my pleasure in years back. Those nights might’ve started out as a way for us to sneak beer in high school, but if she was eighteen when she saw me doing that, I was well past high school age and at that point, the bonfires had turned into an easy way for all the boys I grew up with to fuck young, tight, and eager-to-please pussy. I was no better than they were and I didn’t stop being careless until I got burned by the wrong woman.

“I’m not the man I was back then,” I defend myself, wanting her to believe my words more than I care to admit.

“I didn’t say you were, Clayton.” She takes a deep breath while I revel in the way her saying my full name makes me feel. “I was just explainin’ why I know I’m not the type of woman a man like you would be goin’ for. Well, I guess you might think I was that type of woman, since I gave myself to you just as easily as that girl did back then, but even if you did think that, you wouldn’t have looked for me.”