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She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “We’ve spent three weeks going slow. To hell with slow. Let’s run these barrels.”
It was so Britt he couldn’t stop his own slightly crooked grin. And he suddenly saw the wisdom in those long evenings spent exploring, so that he knew every part of her already, and she knew every touch, every stroke that drove him mad.
Still, he tried to hold back, to savor, but when she curled her fingers around his fierce erection and urged him on, when he found her slick and eager and ready for him, he was lost. He ordered himself not to forget that he had to be careful of her leg, but that was his last sane thought as he drove into her, hard and deep. She cried out, a shouted “Yes!” that echoed what he would have said if he had the breath. But he didn’t, so he kissed her again as fire rippled through him, and reveled in the sweet, tight clasp of her body around him.
As his hips moved he knew he wasn’t going to last, this had been building too long. He’d have to make it up to her next time, because—
She cried out his name as those inner muscles clenched, proving she’d been as close to the edge as he had been, and squeezing him into capitulation. He gave up on the next stroke and stayed deep, feeling the pulse of it down to his toes, groaning with a wonder he’d never felt before in his life. It was fierce, fiery, and as everything with Britt seemed to be, over the top.
He collapsed against her, barely remembering not to jostle the leg propped on pillows.
“To hell with slow indeed,” he muttered when he could gather enough breath to talk at all.
“Best run of my life,” Britt said.
He raised up on one elbow and looked down at her. And this time he said it first. “I love you, Britt.”
The smile she gave him made it all worth it, even the years of taunting and teasing and acrimony.
“Back at you,” she said, echoing his words.
And the lifelong feud was officially burned to ash in the heat of that love.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Last Stand Fourth of July Rodeo
They stood beside the fence, watching the Creekbend High School rodeo team circle the arena, flags high, excitement crackling all around them. Britt was grinning, remembering the day she’d ridden in this same opening event. There was nothing like Independence Day in Last Stand. She’d never been prouder than the day she’d been chosen to lead the pack, the big American flag hers to hold.
Someone passed close behind them, bumping Ghost. The gray grullo’s head came up, but at a word from Cody on one side and a nicker from Trey on the other, she settled. The solid, steady Trey had been an incredibly calming influence on the edgy mare. Just as Cody had been for her.
“I can’t believe it,” Jen said. Her friend had come down from Dallas to see Britt’s return to the circuit; she was the only one outside of Last Stand who knew how seriously Britt had been hurt.
“Believe what?” Britt asked, turning to look at her.
Jen nodded toward Ghost. “How the holy terror behaves for him.”
Britt couldn’t help the smile that overtook her. “So does this one,” she said softly, putting a hand over her heart.
She knew how some would interpret that, taking umbrage at the idea that it took a man to tame the horse—and her—but that didn’t bother her. Because she knew it wasn’t the man, not in the way they meant. It was her love for him that allowed her to take that extra breath and head off that explosion of temper. Or else he’d been right and now that she didn’t have to expend all her patience on Ghost, she had more for everything else.
Or maybe it was simply that she’d found a whole new kind of happy, and it overwhelmed everything else.
She thought of the conversation they’d had this morning, when they’d awakened in his bed.
“You sure you don’t mind spending all day at the rodeo?” she’d asked.
He’d given her a sleepy-eyed smile that sent her pulse racing. “As long as Ghost isn’t your first ride of the day.”
She’d melted in an instant, and proceeded to do exactly that, ride him until she heard that most precious sound, her name ripping out of him as he erupted inside her. And in the panting moments afterward, she marveled anew at how he’d let her take charge, saying with a grin she needed the exercise. Therapy and all. Never mind that she was completely healed.
Besides, he pointed out, he’d done all the work before she’d gotten the cast off.
Who’d have thought sex with Cody the Coder would be the most amazing thing in the world? And it had only gotten better as time passed. So good that it was almost hard to remember that a mere three and half months ago she’d hated him with a passion. Or thought she had; she was fairly sure now that passion had just been this, turned around because they’d both been too stubborn to see.
She was so delighted at being fully mobile again she didn’t mind going back and forth, so they usually ended up dividing their nights between her place and his. To her surprise she found she didn’t mind his lair and hadn’t since she’d walked in and seen the beautiful Milky Way screen saver on the biggest flat screen.
“I feel the urge to burst into song about the stars at night in Texas,” she’d said.
