Page 98 of Knot Her Cowboys
“For?”
“Not for leaving.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “I needed to go, but I should have kept trying to reach out. I should have kept calling until I got through to someone.”
“I know you needed to go, Riley.” I nuzzled the soft waves of her hair. “I just wanted to go with you because you were the only home I needed.”
Riley sniffled, tears sliding down her temples and into her hair. “You can’t say such sweet things to me while I’m being ruined.”
“No?” I kissed her forehead. “Try and stop me.”
She groaned, arching with panting breaths.
I paused my movements, consuming her whimper like it was a delicacy only for my tongue.
Riley dropped her head to the pillow and gasped out, “Eleven.”
“That’s my girl. One more for me.”
I undid the ropes on her ankles, and she locked them behind my back. “One more,” she repeated. “I can—I can do that.” She nodded like she was trying to convince herself of that reality.
I shifted my hips so I could rock against her, indulging myself in every shudder the movement coaxed from her.
“All I ever wanted was to share a life with you. I never cared where we’d end up as long as we were together. I’d have suffered through that crowded city so you could thrive at school and open your restaurant.”
“I don’t—Fuck. I don’t want you tosuffer throughsomething to be with me.” Riley whined again, pussy clamping down, her fingers holding on to the headboard for dear life, and I stilled. “I want—Cooper,please. I lied. I can’t do it. I’m one hundred percent going to die.”
I silenced her complaints with another kiss. She braced her feet on the bed, using her freedom to her advantage, rocking her hips against me, trying to scale the peak on her own. I let her for a moment, until my sweet omega gave herself away again with the arch of her body. Inching away and planting my hands on her hips stopped her pleasure in its tracks.
“Twelve,” she ground out.
“What do you want, Riley?” I asked quietly, following up on the statement she hadn’t finished.
“I don’t want to take your dreams from you just so I can have mine.”
I unbound her wrists, rubbing her shoulders to alleviate any lingering tension from her straining. “Is there a way we can both have what we want?”
She hummed. “Probably, but you turned my brain into soup, so I’m not going to think of an answer right this second. I feel like Jell-O.”
“I bet you do.” Another kiss, and her limp arms still reached for me. “How do you want me to finish you?”
She purred, threading her fingers through my hair. Her mouth was insistent against mine for a few glorious moments before she ran out of steam and melted beneath me. “Knot,” she said firmly.
I let her stretch out across the blankets and expose the litany of tattoos decorating her skin. I traced the ones dancing up her ribs, a dozen wildflowers that grew right outside our door here. The bouquet of lupines on her hip perched in a little barrel didn’t match the others in style, this one more cutesy than the rest. “Why a barrel and not a vase? Or the flowers by themselves?”
Riley chewed her bottom lip. “Because that one is yours.”
“Mine?” I moved my fingertips over the flower stalks. “What makes it mine?”
“What do you call a person who makes barrels?”
My mind blanked. “I might’ve missed that vocabulary lesson.”
Riley laughed, despite the flaming pink of her cheeks. “A cooper.”
My breath stalled in my throat. “Are you serious?”
“Look it up if you don’t believe me.”
“No, I believe you. I just gave up hope you wanted my mark on you.”
