Page 81 of Fixing to Be Mine

Colt reaches out and brushes a piece of hair from my cheek. The back of his hand drags slowly down the line of my jaw before dropping away again, like he doesn’t trust himself to linger.

“You good?” he asks, his voice so low that it sounds like a secret.

I shake my head, and the motion feels heavier than it should. “I’m drowning in you.”

His eyes don’t waver. “That’s allowed.”

“I know,” I say, curling my fingers into his shirt as he props his head up on his hand.

“You don’t have to have all the answers right now. Just hold space for the way you feel.”

“I don’t trust myself and my decisions after …” I can’t finish, but I also don’t need to.

He gives me his lazy grin. “You think I’m a rebound?”

“I don’t want you to be.”

“Then, darlin’, I’m not.”

The night air wraps around us, warm from the fire but cool at the edges. Somewhere behind us, a cricket chirps. I focus on the sound, on the way Colt is watching me like I’m not fragile, but something he’s willing to protect and fight for. I turn toward him fully, my body shifting closer to his. Our knees brush, then our thighs. Heat radiates off his skin, and it grounds me in a way that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with living in the moment.

Right now, I’m not hiding my feelings or pretending I don’t want him. And neither is he. This man makes me remember what it’s like to be chosen in return. Mutual attraction, want, and need aren’t something I’m used to.

I shift forward, capturing his lips, making the first move this time. I kiss him like he’s erasing every man that came before him.

My breath catches, and so does his. His hands find my face, fingers gently touch my cheek, as though he’s afraid I might vanish if he’s not careful. My pulse is everywhere at once as his tongue traces my lower lip, coaxing me open, and I let him see what I am like when I’m hungry, desperate, and no longer fighting myself.

“I need you,” I confess.

“Are you sure?” he asks, voice gravelly. He searches my face as if he needs to memorize the answer.

“I’m so damn sure; it hurts,” I say, swallowing hard.

Colt’s groan rumbles from deep in his chest. He sits up, taking me with him. Suddenly, I’m straddling him, my line of sight now level with his. His hands are steady on my hips, as if he’s claiming me, and I bite back a nervous laugh because I’m clinging to his shirt, breathing like I ran here from New York.

His kiss grows rougher, less a question, more of a claim. My hands run through his messy hair, and Colt shivers beneath my fingers.

I barely notice my dress hitching up until the heat from the fire meets the skin of my lower back. His hands move under the fabric so slowly that my entire body aches for more.

With him rock hard underneath me, I carefully unbutton the buttons on my dress until it’s more like a robe. I remove it, offering my body to him.

Every touch is amplified, as if someone dialed my senses to a fever pitch.

One of his hands slips beneath the band of my bra, fingers hesitant. I want to laugh and cry and moan at once, but my body chooses moan, and it vibrates straight through both of us. My nails dig into his scalp, and he bites my neck, not hard, just enough to claim a ravenous part of me that wants him.

I rock my hips, feeling how hard he is beneath me, and the whole world fades away. The trees, the moon, the pond basically vanish. When Colt lays me down on the blanket, his hands gentle but greedy, I realize I don’t want him to stop, not now, not ever. And maybe that’s what undoes me the most. That I could picture forever with him.

His mouth finds its way down my neck, across my collarbone, mapping every freckle and scar. I arch beneath him, helpless and happy. He kisses the skin above my belly button and then lower, leaving a heat trail I’ll never forget. Goose bumps cover me as he reaches my panties.

“We can stop. We don’t have to go any further,” he whispers, not just so I can hear, but so the stars can too. “We can wait.”

“Claim me, cowboy,” I say. “Please.”

My heart thuds against my rib cage like it’s trying to be heard through my skin.

Colt doesn’t devour me immediately; instead, he continues his worship. Slow, like we have all the time in the world, kissing his way back up until his mouth finds mine again, honey sweet and urgent. There’s nothing rushed about our undoing, and the way he cherishes me makes me crumble. Somewhere between his laughter and my content sigh, Colt slides his hand up my thigh and touches between my legs, careful as a prayer. His hands warm every inch of me as he takes his time. My panties are soaked through and have been since we kissed. This man turns me on in unexplainable ways, even from a simple glance.

“You’re trembling,” he says, his fingers brushing across my panties.

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