Chapter 8
COLT
Fuck, did I have her right where I wanted her. Her upturned ass, even in the ugly scrubs, was perfect. I remembered my handprint on it from that night at the rodeo and I itched to mark her like that again.
As she squirmed, my dick stirred.
Hooking one of my ankles over her thrashing legs, I pinned her down.
“You gonna calm down and listen to what I have to say or do you want me to spank your ass first?”
She stilled.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed.
I spanked her over her scrub pants in answer.
“Want more or are you ready to listen?”
“I want you to let me up and then I’m going to–”
I spanked her again, a little harder this time. Then reached around and tugged on the drawstring. The pants loosened and I yanked them and her panties down below her ass.
It was like that night at the rodeo, except now she was like a bronc trying to buck off my lap.
Her gorgeous ass was already stained pink. I gave her two more swats and she shouted and growled. Hissed like a cat, even.
“I can go all afternoon.”
Finally, after a minute of spanking–not too hard because I was in the wrong in all this and I didn’t want her to think for a second this was punishment–and swear words that were impressively inventive, she called out, “You… you weren’t there.”
My raised hand settled on her upturned, very pink, ass, but not to give it another swat, but to cup that heated flesh. To stroke it. My shoulders slumped and the guilt and frustration I’d been carrying for the past six months flared so hot it burned.
Taking off my Stetson, I tossed it onto the sofa beside us.
“I know,” I said simply. I was at fault here.
“Do you know what it’s like to have the woman of my dreams at my hotel room and I wasn’t there?
Waiting with a wet and swollen pussy I’d just fucked.
Who put herself out there, made herself vulnerable and then I ghosted?
That she probably hated me and there was nothing I could do about it?
I couldn’t go after her or track her down?
Because I didn’t know her fucking name.” The last I said through gritted teeth.
“If it was just a one-time thing, you could’ve said so,” she told me. “Not make me feel foolish knocking on an empty hotel room door.”
The way she was angled, her head was tipped down close to the floor. I couldn’t have this conversation like this any longer. She had to look in my eyes, see my face as I said the words of my own disappointment and heartbreak. I lifted her and settled her on my lap, her knees by my hips.
Her hair was wild and with handcuffed wrists, she tucked it behind one ear, then the other.
I sighed, then stroked her hair, smoothing the strands she missed. “Pretty girl, there was nothing more I wanted to do than be there to open it. To let you in and finish what we started and never fucking let you go.”
Her hurt gaze met mine. “But–”
“But my brother got hurt on his ride and I had to go with him to the hospital.”
She frowned, her head cocking ever so slightly to the side.
“Your brother?”
“You gonna listen?”
She nodded.
“My brother is Trig Wilder. If you follow pro rodeo, then you’ve probably heard of him.
He competed that night… hell, while I was balls deep inside you, and got thrown.
Landed bad and hurt his knee. That was the message I got on my phone and why I left.
He was already in the back of the ambulance and I had to climb in and go with him. ”
“Is he okay?”
I had to shrug because the question was really for Trig. “His knee is okay if he doesn’t get on the back of a bull again. Skiing’s probably out, too. He met a woman last week and married her two days later. He retired because she’s his life now.”
She bit her lip.
Trig’s fall was the culprit behind this whole mess, but it wasn’t his fault. It was mine. I could even blame my dick because if I’d had any brain cells left in my head, I’d have at least asked her name. “By the time I got to my hotel room, it was after two and–you weren’t there.”
Her gaze flicked down and to the side. “I showed,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes, wishing I hadn’t made her feel that pain or rejection.
“Fuck.” When I opened them, I cupped her cheeks, forced her gaze to hold mine.
“I’m sorry. For not being there. For not getting your name.
For making you think, even for a split second, that you weren’t wanted. Do you believe me?”
Her eyes roamed over my face for a second, then another. “It’d be easy enough to look up Trig Wilder’s injury from that night. It’d be not only in the reports from the event that I have access to, but also in the media. A big name like his getting hurt would’ve gone viral, I’m sure.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t from amusement. “Lots of clips of him being thrown,” I confirmed.
“If you were going to lie to me–”
“I swear, Molly, that–”
She put a finger over my lips silencing me, the handcuffs clanking as she moved.
“If you wanted to lie, you could’ve said something else. Diarrhea or kicked in the head by a bronc.”
“Diarrhea?” Now, I laughed.
“I’d imagined both of those options many, many times over the past few months, wishing both had happened.”
“Ouch.”
“I don’t know your first name, Sheriff,” she admitted.
“Colt. Colt Wilder.”
“Colt, I knocked. And knocked,” she admitted. “Felt foolish, especially when the woman staying across the hall opened her door and yelled at me.”
“Shit!” I ran my hand through my hair and practically tugged it out by the roots. I’d missed so much with her just because of horrible timing. If she hadn’t ended up in Devil’s Ditch, I might never have found her again. “I wanna kill my brother. Why the fuck did he have to get hurt then?”
That made her laugh. My eyes widened, then I slowly smiled, too.
“The first thing you learn about emergency medicine is that it’s usually unexpected,” she reminded. “I thought…”
“You thought I was a dick.”
She smiled, then nodded, her hair falling from behind her ears. It was that silky. “Yeah.”
“You thought I fucked you then decided to fuck with you by giving you some random hotel room.”
She nodded.
I groaned. “I swear, Molly Simon, that being there to open that door for you was the one thing I wanted to do in my entire life. It’s also the one thing I regret not happening.”
“I believe you,” she replied simply.
I sighed so hard, my shoulders slumped. I would grovel and move into begging if I had to. “Yeah?”
She nodded again.
I groaned. “Thank fuck. Maybe we can start over?”
“Start over?”
I nodded. “My name’s Colt Wilder. Sheriff for Devil’s Ditch. I think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen and I’ve been thinking about all the things I missed doing to you that night in my hotel room.”
She bit her lip and she flushed a pretty shade of pink. Not as pretty as the color of my handprint on her ass, but a close second.
“Molly Simon. ER Chief and de facto medical examiner. I’ve been thinking about all the things you missed doing to me that night, too.”
“Wrap your arms over my neck.”
She did as I said and I felt the cool metal of the handcuffs against my skin. “What are you–”
I cupped her ass, stood and took the steps to my bedroom two at a time.
“I’ve got six months of orgasms to give you. Thank fuck neither of us work tomorrow. I’m not letting you out of my bed. Or the handcuffs.”