Chapter 9 Rose #2
Confusion melted into understanding. Understanding caught fire.
“Rose—”
“Are you coming or not?”
He didn’t ask again.
We rode back faster than we should have. Not reckless, I’d never be reckless with the horses, but urgent, Cassie picking up on my energy and stretching into a rolling canter on the flats while Brutus kept pace beside her.
Neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say that our bodies weren’t already screaming.
I dismounted at the barn and my hands were shaking when I unbuckled the cinch. Graham was beside me in seconds, working Brutus’s tack with an efficiency that told me he understood exactly what was happening and had no interest in slowing it down.
We unsaddled. Hung the tack. Turned the horses into the paddock. My hands fumbled a buckle and Graham’s hand closed over mine, steadying, not taking over, and the contact sent heat straight up my arm.
“My cabin,” I said. All I could manage.
We crossed the yard without touching. If anyone had been watching, they’d have seen two people walking with purposeful calm toward the staff cabins.
They wouldn’t have seen the way my heart was trying to break through my ribs. Or the way Graham’s jaw was locked tight, like he was holding himself together through sheer force of will.
I punched in my door code. Wrong. Punched it again. Right.
The door opened.
I pulled him inside and kissed him before the door even clicked shut.
This wasn’t the lounge kiss, tentative, testing. This was starvation. My hands yanked his shirt over his head while he slammed me against the wall, his mouth on my neck, teeth grazing just hard enough to sting. The scrape of his stubble sent fire racing down my spine.
“Rose—” His voice vibrated against my throat, thick with that accent. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”
“If you stop, I’ll fucking kill you.”
He laughed, low and wrecked, then devoured my mouth again, tongue stroking deep while his hands shoved under my shirt, rough palms skating up my ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. I arched into him, already soaked, already aching.
We fought belts and buttons in a frantic tangle, denim and leather hitting the floor with dull thuds.
Laughter burst between us, breathless, stupid, then died when he lifted me like I weighed nothing, my legs locking around his waist, the thick ridge of his cock pressing right against my clit through thin layers of fabric.
I ground down hard. He groaned into my mouth, hips jerking.
“Bedroom,” I gasped.
He carried me, mouth never leaving mine, navigating by instinct while I clawed at his shoulders. When he dropped me on the edge of the bed, the look in his eyes was pure ruin: pupils blown, jaw clenched, chest heaving.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” I said.
He stripped the undershirt in one motion. I forgot how to breathe.
Broad chest, dark hair arrowing down, abs carved from real work, not gym sessions. Scars here and there from mountains I’d only seen in his videos. I reached out, palm flat over his pounding heart.
“Your turn,” he rasped.
I peeled off my shirt, unhooked my bra, let them fall. His breath punched out.
“Christ, Rose.” His gaze devoured me. Breasts, collarbone, the pale scar on my side.
He noticed it. Brows furrowed. Then he knelt, bent, and pressed his lips to the mark. Soft, reverent.
My eyes stung.
“Don’t make me cry before you fuck me,” I whispered.
He looked up, mouth still on my skin, eyes dark and burning. “I can do both.”
He kissed higher, tongue tracing ribs, then closed over my nipple. Hot, wet suction that shot straight to my core. I arched, fingers twisting in his hair, holding him there while he sucked hard, teeth grazing just enough to make me whimper.
“God, Graham—”
He switched sides, lavishing the same torture while his hand slid down, popping my jeans button one-handed. Zipper rasped down slow, deliberate.
“Lift.”
I did. He dragged jeans and panties off together, leaving me bare while he knelt between my thighs, still in his jeans, cock straining against denim.
The imbalance should’ve bothered me. Instead it made me feel like a queen, because Graham looked like a man about to worship.
“Look at you,” he murmured, voice shredded. “Fucking perfect. So wet I can smell you from here.”
Heat flooded my face and lower. “Stop talking and touch me.”
Big hands wrapped my knees, spreading me wide. Slowly. Eyes locked on mine, giving me every out.
I didn’t take it.
He kissed the inside of one thigh, open-mouthed, stubble scraping, then the other. Higher. Breath ghosting over slick folds. I trembled.
“Graham, please—”
His tongue dragged through me in one long, slow stroke.
I cried out, raw, shameless, back bowing off the bed. He groaned against me like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted, tongue circling my clit, sucking gently, then harder, two thick fingers sliding inside, curling, stroking the spot that made my vision blur.
My hips bucked. He pinned me with one forearm across my stomach, immovable, while his mouth worked relentlessly. Wet sounds filled the room, obscene and perfect.
This. This is what I’ve been afraid of. Not the sex. The surrender.
“Don’t stop—” I was babbling, voice wrecked. “Right there, fuck, Graham, don’t you dare stop—”
He curled harder, sucked my clit deep, and I shattered.
The orgasm tore through me, violent, endless, thighs clamping his head, fingers yanking his hair, his name ripping from my throat. He licked me through it, gentling only when I started shaking.
When I collapsed, gasping, he kissed my hip, looked up with a filthy grin. “Good?”
“Get up here and fuck me properly.”
He crawled up, kissing me deep. I tasted myself, salty-sweet, and I shoved at his jeans. He kicked them off, cock springing free. Thick, hard, the tip already slick.
I wrapped my hand around him. Hot. Heavy. He hissed, forehead dropping to my shoulder.
“Rose, if you keep that up—”
I stroked again, slow, tight, feeling him throb against my palm. “Condom. Nightstand.”
Hands shaking, he rolled it on. Then he settled between my thighs, weight braced, forehead to mine.
“Still okay?”
I locked my legs around him and pulled.
He pushed in slow, a relentless stretch, inch by thick inch until he bottomed out. We both groaned, loud and broken.
“Fuck,” he breathed, voice gravel. “You feel— tight, hot, perfect. Like you were made for me.”
And there it was. The thing I’d been running from. Not how good he felt inside me, but how right.
“Move,” I demanded. “Harder. Please.”
He did.
First thrust stole my breath. Second had me scoring his back. By the third we were frantic, skin slapping, bed creaking, my hips rising to meet every deep drive.
He hitched my leg higher, changed the angle, deeper, grinding against my clit with every stroke.
“There, God, right fucking there—”
“I’ve got you.” His accent thickened, voice a growl. “Let me have this tight little pussy, Rose. Let me ruin you.”
His thumb found my clit, circling, pressing, while he fucked me harder, faster, the wet slap of our bodies obscene.
I felt it building again, coiling, vicious.
“Come for me,” he ordered against my ear. “Come on my cock, love. Squeeze me tight.”
I broke.
The second orgasm was deeper, darker, my walls pulsing around him, milking, as I screamed his name. He swore, Scottish curses I barely understood, then slammed deep once, twice, and came with a guttural groan, hips jerking, face buried in my neck.
We stayed locked together, shaking, breathing ragged.
Eventually he eased out, dealt with the condom, came back, and pulled me against him. Arm heavy across my waist, fingers tracing my hip.
I let him hold me. No armor. No calculations.
“Stay,” I whispered. “Tonight.”
His arm tightened around me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I wanted to believe him.
That was the scariest part.
I woke in the middle of the night, disoriented by the warmth of another body in my bed.
Graham was asleep beside me, one arm slung across my waist, his face slack and peaceful in a way I’d never seen when he was awake. He looked younger.
My throat ached looking at him.
What are you doing? The voice in my head, the practical one, the one that had kept me alive and solvent and sane for twenty-seven years. You know how this ends. You know he’s leaving. You know you can’t keep him.
I did know.
But lying there in the dark, with his arm around me and his heartbeat steady against my back, I couldn’t make myself care about endings. Not yet.
I’d let someone in. Let someone see me. Let someone touch the parts of myself I kept hidden from the world, and not just the physical ones.
It terrified me.
It also felt like the first real thing I’d done in longer than I could remember.
I closed my eyes and let myself fall back asleep, my body curved against his, the doors I’d kept locked for years standing open behind me.
Tomorrow, I could figure out what it meant.
Tonight, I just wanted to feel.