Page 23 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

“You know, a lot of women can’t come from penetration alone,” he said easily, as though that was a perfectly normal conversation to have while making breakfast. “Most women need clit stimulation to get there.”

I shot him a baleful glance over my shoulder as I pulled eggs, milk, mushrooms, and spinach from the fridge. “Oh, really? Thank you,” I cooed. “I had no idea how my body worked, having only been living in it for a mere twenty-nine years. Thank goodness I have a man to explain it to me.”

“Yeah, okay.” He laughed ruefully and held his arms up in the universalI surrenderpose. “I’m just saying, you don’t have to be shy with me. It’s a privilege to be naked with you, and there’s not a damn thing you could ask for that I wouldn’t say yes to. Tell me how you want to be touched and I’ll learn. Or hell, touch yourself while I’m inside you. That’s fucking hot.”

If only it were that easy. I shook my head and got to work cracking eggs. “I’ve tried that. More than once. It doesn’t work for me. I wish it did. You can’t even imagine how badly I want that. Do you know how it feels, to touch yourself with someone watching, to know that they’re depending on you to make it happen, and then you can’t? Even though it’s your own body, you just can’t? I’ll tell you how it feels, Zack. It feels awful. It’s humiliating. It’s?—”

To my absolute horror, my eyes burned with tears. I turned away quickly, swiping the sleeve of my robe across my face.Then I took a deep breath and whisked the eggs together with a splash of milk. I wasnotgoing to break down.

“Hey.” He took the whisk from me and nudged the bowl aside, then turned me around to face him. “Hey. You don’t have anything to feel bad about. I want to help you feel good, that’s all. However that happens for you is perfect. Okay? I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s not you. It was—” I waved a hand, not wanting to waste my breath on his name.

“I see.” Zack braced against the counter, bracketing my body with his muscular arms, and regarded me with narrowed eyes. “Darlin’, I’m going to need a name and his last known address.”

I snort-laughed in spite of myself. “That won’t be necessary. Really. He’s not in my life now, and it wasn’t really his fault, either. It’s me. I’m the problem.”

“You’re a lot of things, Hannah, but a problem isn’t one of them, and whoever made you think otherwise is an asshole.”

I fiddled with the belt of my robe, then sighed. “He was a jerk about it, but he wasn’t wrong. I can’t orgasm with another person. And it’s not because I don’t know how my body works, or because I’m too shy to ask for what I want.”

I didn’t know how to explain it, the overwhelming fear that took hold every time I became too aware of a man’s proximity to my body. My fight or flight instinct was broken, because I didn’t fight and I didn’t fly. I simply froze.

I chanced a peek at him and found his gaze intent on me. No judgment, just concern. It gave me the courage to keep going.

“It’s not for lack of trying, either. I’ve tried. Really. Different positions, different men. Relationships, a one-night stand. None of it worked. Sometimes I got close”—like last night, with you—“but then something would happen. We’d make eye contact or I’d feel his breath on my neck and…” I looked away again. “Suddenly I wasn’t safe. I mean, I was, of course. In reality, I wasn’t in any danger. But I didn’tfeelsafe.”

“Safe,” he echoed. His eyebrows drew together. “Hannah…”

The way he looked at me, I knew what he was thinking. What he was fearing. I’d had this conversation before with the therapist my brother, Jeremiah, sent me to while he was my guardian, and then again with another therapist I saw after I graduated college. I knew there was a connection between what had happened to me and how I felt during sex now, butknowingit didn’t seem to help mefixit.

“I wasn’t assaulted, Zack. It wasn’t like that.” Although it kind of was, but even with therapy, I never felt I had the right to claim it. I had never fought it. I had simply accepted it as uncontroverted fact that it was God’s plan for me. “I was married. When I was fourteen years old.”

9

ZACK

Dad:

The drain in the training barn is clogged. Can one of you get on that?

Adam:

Not it

Brax:

Not it

Zack:

Dammit

Adam:

It works out better this way. You have the longest arms.

Zack:

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