Page 30 of Drifter’s Heart

I lick the sweat pooled in the crook of her neck, trying to regulate my pulse. “Hell, girl. If you’re gonna do that to a man, don’t expect him to be able to get up and make you breakfast.”

Winnie stretches beneath me, or at least I think she does. Her arms and legs fold around me tight. “I have you. What the hell do I need food for?”

A deep laugh rumbles free from my chest. “I love the way you think.”

I love you.

My confession sticks in my throat as I draw back far enough to see her eyes. Then my mouth is on hers, silencing her sass for a while as our heartbeats race in tandem again.

NINE

WINNIE

What Takes Too Long?

Wilder West is in my bed, and he’s not even snoring. I mean, with a name like that, can he be more perfect? I clearly freaking can’t be perfect because, as per usual, my mouth opened and the truth fell out.

Zero vodka required.

I’ve known West for over a decade. He’s supported my stunted, shitty family through both of Cord’s accidents and operations. He got my brother back up on his feet, literally, from a wheelchair. He held Coyote Falls together and sweated into the foundations of my brother’s home when he couldn’t keep it together any longer. He was there for me when I needed someone to stand behind me as my life fell apart after Sally was born. And never, not once in all that time, did Wilder West ask anything of me.

What did I give him? A basketload of sass while my life erupted around me because of my crappy choices. And yet after everything, here he is in my bed, not snoring, looking sexy as a cowboy can possibly be, sans those utterly hideous pink shorts.

“I can feel you looking at me.” West doesn’t crack an eyelid. “Do I smell bad?”

I poke his ribs. Not even ticklish, dammit. “Nope. You can’t even claim to be stinky.”

“See?” He stretches across my bed, his feet dangling off the end of the single that contains me just fine. “I’m too sexy for⁠—”

“Not those damn shorts. I’ll find you something of my brother’s to wear home.”

West grimaces and peers at me through slitted eyes. “I’ll never fit in his skinny jeans. He’s built like a twig, for fuck’s sake.”

I nod emphatically, wiggling my own thick thighs that are far from twiglike. “I’ve been telling him for years that he’s adopted.”

“Ha. You’re both Rand genes all over. Don’t give me that shit.” West rolls toward me, naked as the day he was born, and loops an arm around my waist that’s longer than it has any right to be. “Come here, girl. I’m cold.”

“Liar. You are not,” I sass him, wriggling in his arms. Then… I stop. There’s no reason to fight him after a while, and lying still is…

Nice.

I don’t think I’ve ever done nice before, and cuddling has never been on my radar. I play with the hairs on his arms. “So, this is new.”

“Which bit?”

I elbow him lightly in the ribs. That earns me a reaction. West oofs in my ear and I grin. “The snuggly bit. This bit. I don’t have a clue what comes next.” My knees draw up toward my chest.

West leans over me and pushes my legs down with a gentle but firm hand. “To start with, don’t you tense up on me. Not unless my cock is lodged in this pussy and you’re milking me after I’ve made you come again. You understand me, Winnie?” His voice lowers a few notches, one hand drifting up over my ribs to wrap around my breast.

My breath hitches as he toys with my nipple. “Yeah. I got it.” I grip his wrist like I’ll be swept away by a current that originates with him if I don’t.

Being played with constantly is also a new sensation. Overwhelm is setting in… but then it doesn’t. West is a master at drifting close to the edge and then bringing me back before I topple over, and not just in the sense of too many orgasms. He knows just how much I can take before I have to stop.

I fall silent for long enough that West sighs. Then he rolls—pulling me beneath him. I squeak as I’m suddenly face-to-face with the man I don’t want to look at because of everything I said hours before. Everything I admitted to.

Everything he knows now that I can never take back.

“You think as loudly as you talk.” Hard, rough hands cup my jaw, and callused thumbs smooth over my cheeks in such a tender motion that I want to cry.