Page 48 of Wrangling a Texas Hometown Hero

Chapter Sixteen

Jace had never seen anything so sexy in his life as Hallie staring up at him with desire-drugged green eyes and her gorgeous moonlit hair falling around her even more gorgeous moonlit body. The fact she had him fisted in her hand and was pumping him in tight strokes that made his knees weak didn’t hurt either.

“Hallie,” he whispered.

“Sorry, but that’s just not loud enough to count.” She lowered her head and took him into her mouth with a deep suck that pulled him straight up to his toes.

“Hal—lie!”

Her eyes twinkled up at him as she proceeded to demonstrate how good she was at getting him to scream her name. Like he had done to her, she teased him—bringing him close with deep suction, lush tongue swirls, and tight strokes of her hand at the base of his cock—before she loosened her grip and gentled the suction, making him shake with need.

When he couldn’t take one second more of her torture, he pulled away and reached for the condom. Once he had it on, he turned to find Hallie stretched out seductively on the bed waiting for him, her eyes glittering with heat and something that took his breath away.

“Ready to ride, cowboy?”

He didn’t need to be asked twice. Sliding into her warm, wet heat was like sliding into a hot bath after playing an entire football game in a blizzard. It was satisfying and healing and as close to heaven as anything Jace had ever felt in his life. It wasn’t just the intense physical satisfaction of being sheathed in her warmth. It was more than that. It was the feeling of rightness that came along with the sexual desire. A rightness Jace had never felt before.

“Hallie.”

He didn’t yell it, but it felt like he had. The one word echoed through his soul like it had been shouted from the highest mountain. As he pumped out his desire, he whispered her name again and again until he felt like he was flying off that mountain and soaring through the blue sky like an eagle that had found his wings.

He continued to fly long after he was spent and she curled up in his arms like she never wanted to leave.

He didn’t want her to leave either.

The thought made the first trickle of unease settle in his stomach. He couldn’t keep Hallie. He was leaving in a few weeks. Now that the Holiday Ranch had a foreman, she’d be leaving too. Probably soon.

The unease turned to something else. Fear. Fear of losing the woman tucked so sweetly against him.

“I think I won.” She played with the hair on his chest. “You were up to twenty-six when I stopped counting.”

He couldn’t deny it. Even now, he wanted to repeat her name over and over again. Instead, he pressed his face into her hair and inhaled deeply as if to seal her scent inside him forever. “What forfeit do you want?”

“I’m thinking on it.” She snuggled closer to him, her head coming to rest against his heart. A heart that was beating wildly with thoughts of losing her. But how could he lose her when he’d never had her?

She yawned, her exhalation heating his skin and making him hard all over again. “Don’t let me fall asleep,” she said. “I need to get home before my parents and Mimi do or they’ll worry.” A second later, she was breathing softly.

Jace thought about waking her, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. She might not be his forever, but, for a little while longer, he wanted to pretend she was.

He wasn’t surprised he fell asleep. Beer and phenomenal sex were a drugging combination. He woke to the ringing of a cellphone. Figuring he’d left his phone in the pocket of his jeans, he shifted Hallie out of his arms and leaned over the side of the bed to pull the phone from his pocket.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?” The woman’s voice that came through the speaker had his eyes widening. He sat straight up in bed just as Hallie woke up and chose that moment to say his name again . . . in a very sexy voice.

“Hmm . . . Jace.”

“Jace?” Darla Holiday said.

He swallowed hard. “Yes . . . ma’am.”

There was a long stretch of silence during which Hallie wrapped her arms around him from behind and cupped his pec while her other hand cupped . . . something else.

“Hallie!” He jumped to his feet, turned on the lamp, and held out her phone. The phone he’d accidentally answered. “Your mama.”

That seemed to get her attention. She stared at him. “My mama?” Even with fear of discovery clenching his stomach, he couldn’t help but notice how stunning she looked with her bed-messed falling around her shoulders and breathtaking breasts.

He nodded as Darla’s voice came through the speaker.

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