And he noticed. “Something funny?”
“No, I just…well, you called me your woman.” Then I grinned again. Surely he didn’t mean that the way it sounded.
But he was still scowling at me. “Well, aren’t you?”
Was he serious? I blinked at him, my heart hammering against the walls of my chest as he stood there waiting for an answer. Oh my God! He was serious. But it wouldn’t work between us. Everything was going to come to a screeching halt the moment I left town.
Then I made the mistake of remembering how it had felt waking up in his arms. Blissfully content. Safe and protected, like no one could ever harm me. And the benefits of having a smoking-hot, insatiable man like Cowboy in my bed for the next few months definitely outweighed the risks to my already fragile heart. For now, at least.
“I…um, guess so.” It sounded more like a question than an answer.
“Okay, now we have a fucking problem,” he grumbled, his eyes flashing with intensity and anger. He turned away from me and picked up his jeans off the floor. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I didn’t want him to leave.
“Cowboy, wait.”
He dropped the jeans on the floor and turned back to me, stalking toward me with a wicked gleam in his eye, while palming something in his hand. His strong, muscular body took on a lithe, almost predator-like posture and I actually had to tamp down the absurd urge to run. That didn’t keep me from taking a few steps back, though. Or him from following. Even when my back came into contact with the wall, he continued to press forward. Wordlessly, he orbited in my personal space and the gravitational pull of his masculinity sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
I flattened myself against the wall and swallowed hard. “What problem?” I asked softly, not sure what had caused the sudden change in his demeanor.
But he didn’t answer me right away. Cowboy stopped in front of me so close I could feel his warm breath caressing my face as I gazed up at him innocently. He pulled the towel gently from my damp hair and tossed it on the ground behind him. Then he gave me a menacing grin as he dropped his own towel from around his waist. His erection sprang free of the terrycloth and pointed directly at me, as if I’d done something worthy of accusation.
Our eyes met, and although I heard the soft crinkling of foil, I didn’t look down to see what he was doing. Slowly, he lowered his mouth close to my ear, then loosened the knot tied in my robe before parting it open. “If you don’t know by now that you’re my woman,” he whispered in a rough voice, “then I am obviously doing something very wrong.”
His hands brushed across my scarred hipbones and his fingers slid just under the waistband of my cotton panties. One little tug and they were on the floor at my feet. I closed my eyes as a shiver shimmied through me. His intense eyes. His sexy morning voice. His imperceptible touch. It was all too much for me to handle.
Without warning, he gripped my hips and lifted me, wrapping my legs around his waist and entering me fast and hard in one smooth motion. I gasped and my eyes shot open at the delicious intrusion of my body. Grasping his shoulders, I tried to steady myself, but Cowboy wasn’t having any of that.
Not giving me any time to adjust my position or even take a breath, he buried his face into my neck, licking and sucking, while thrusting his hips in long, slow motions. I banded my arms around his neck to hold on tight. Over his shoulder, I could see the muscles of his arched back flexing and tightening as the speed of his movements increased and he reached deeper inside me.