Page 47 of Montana Rain

Eyes fluttering closed, I let out a shuddering breath. Cole brushed his hands down over my shoulders, mouth following the same path slowly. He kissed over my cheekbones, brushing the side of my lips and my jaw to my neck. He sucked on my pulse point, and shivers that had nothing to do with snow followed.

My body was still hidden beneath the blanket, and he couldn’t see the way my nipples hardened under his touch or how I was suddenly aware of every texture. The pads of his fingers and the softness of the rug we sat on.

Cole followed my collarbone with his lips, teasing my shoulder before slipping his fingers under the edge of the blanket and peeling it away. “You weren’t kidding about the slow thing.”

“I never joke when it comes to you.”

He leaned me back on the rug, supporting me so my ankle didn’t jar and cause me pain as he came with me. His own blanket slipped away, and I wasn’t shy about looking. The temptation yesterday when he sat here just like this had driven me crazy, wondering what he’d looked like when I’d imagined it so many times.

Now? I couldn’t see all of him, but what I did see was lean and strong and didn’t hold a candle to my imagination. Not even the glimpse of him in the Resting Warrior gym had been a good comparison to Cole up close.

“Careful looking at me like that, Rayne.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How am I looking at you?”

“Your eyes are hotter than the fire.”

“What happens if I’m not careful?”

Leaning down, he licked the hollow of my throat. “Keep looking at me like that, and I won’t be able to go slow.”

Pleasure spiraled down through me, warming my gut and waking up yearnings I’d desperately tried to ignore. “I never said I wanted to go slow.”

“Good thing I have excellent self-control.”

“Control is overrated.”

“Mmm.” He hummed into my skin, kissing down between my breasts. “When you’re not in pain, I’ll happily lose control with you, princess. I will take you against the wall. Bent over the table. I want to put you in every position imaginable and fuck you so hard you’ll feel me for days. We both need that, and it’ll happen.

“But right now, I need to be soft and slow, and savor the fact that you’re alive. I thought I’d lost you.” His voice scraped along my skin. “Out in the snow when I couldn’t find you, I was out of my mind, thinking you would freeze alone and it would have been my fault.”

Any sound I could make stalled in my throat. Cole’s mouth closed over my nipple, tongue sliding over my skin. The fire under my skin went against Cole’s slow and deliberate movements. I wanted him to move and take and fuck.

“Cole—”

He sucked slowly, every pull of his mouth adding to the arousal burning under my skin.

“You’re going to drive me crazy.”

“Now you’re getting the idea.”

“Please?”

Sucking hard, he released one nipple and teased the other. “Not this time. Beg me all you want, princess. This time, we’re going slow.”

His words echoed in my head.

I’m the man who’s going to challenge you and make you blush and tease you, because I don’t think you have anyone in your life who does that.

He was right. People didn’t think they could challenge someone like me. Or play with me because I was a therapist. I was serious. Full of gravity. They yielded when they were allowed to push.

Cole didn’t yield. The man had no fear of pushing on the walls I’d unconsciously built. I was the person who helped everyone else dismantle their walls, but I had no one to do it for me. He would, and he would be there to catch me when I inevitably fell.

I tried not to be terrified.

Dragging his lips down my skin, he lowered himself onto my body, giving me his weight and pulling his hands down my ribs. He deposited gentle kisses as he went, and then he let out a groan. “You’re just as soft as I imagined.”

“You imagined me?” My voice was breathless in the quiet crackle of the fire and the howl of the surrounding storm.

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