Page 75 of Slow Hands Cowboy

Also decadent, and thoroughly masculine.

It was amazing that she could think about the bedroom at a time like this, but it was another piece to the Walker puzzle, and that was why it was interesting. Everything about him felt interesting at the moment. Everything about him felt imperative.

Everything else was white noise.

He set her down on the bed, and didn’t give her a chance to draw in a full breath before he grabbed hold of her legs and dragged her toward the edge of the mattress, dropping to his knees in front of her as he spread her thighs wide, her dress flipping up around her hips.

She tried desperately to remember which pair of underwear she had put on before coming downstairs, but she couldn’t.

Judging by his growl of satisfaction, though, they met the standard.

“Fuck,” he said, large hands on her thighs as he leaned in and she jumped as he pressed his nose against the most sensitive part of her.

It was instinctual for her to pull away, to try and push herself back on the mattress, but the moment that she did try, he gripped her hips and pulled her more firmly toward him.

“No,” he said. “I’ve wanted this for years, and I’m going to take my time with it. Don’t rush me.”

She hadn’t been rushing him. She was just a little bit freaked out, because she felt on the edge of something bigger than she’d ever experienced before, and he hadn’t even technically touched her intimately yet.

Blunt, rough fingers pulled her underwear down her thighs, and he flung them off to the side, so that she could catch a glimpse of the peach cotton.

Well. That was the pair that she had put on.

It was somewhat of a hysterical thought, but then, she felt borderline hysterical.

All those years of resisting this? And for what. For what?

A reputation that meant nothing, that hadn’t protected her from public humiliation? A reputation that she had wanted to preserve so intensely that she had almost married the wrong person? Trapped herself.

To deny this? This thing that felt so...

His hot mouth pressed against her inner thigh, and her head fell back, a whimper escaping her lips.

“Easy girl,” he said. “I’m going to show you what you want.”

His tongue traced a hot trail up to the crease between her thigh and that most intimate part of her, and she held her breath before he flicked his tongue over that sensitive bundle of nerves there. Before he licked her where she was wet and needy for him.

Her hips nearly came up off the bed, but he held her fast, allowing her just the smallest bit of movement as he began to consume her.

His mouth was wicked and relentless, and she forgot to have shame.

It was like the concept of it just melted away, slipped out of her mind and floated off into space.

She had never known who she was without that shame. That shame lived in her. It was always there, telling her not to get too hedonistic, telling her not to enjoy sex too much, or to want it too badly.

Just don’t be a slut like your mother.

Yes, it was always there, and suddenly it was gone. Suddenly the idea of being a slut didn’t seem so bad, as long as she was his.

Suddenly, she wasn’t in control of anything, not her need for him, not her response to him. Nothing. And she loved it. Reveled in it, gloried in it even, and she had never thought it would be a possibility. But this was her, Addison Carey, living without all that heaviness that had been placed inside of her body the moment that her mother had left.

Because everything had been perfect. And then she had fallen out of the treehouse, and when her father had been fixing the scrape on her knee, he had explained to her very calmly why her knee hurt, and her heart hurt, and every time she had a band-aid after that, she couldn’t help but remember that moment.

Physical and emotional wounds linked together in ways that she didn’t think she would ever be able to separate them. And maybe that was part of why it had always felt like it had something to do with her. Like the wound was there, out in the open for everyone to see.

Maybe that was why. It had always felt like it was hers to carry. Hers to fix. Hers to heal.

Or maybe she was just dizzy with need in this moment, and she was weaving constellations out of scattered stars that never meant to connect.