8. Daniela
EIGHT
Daniela
It had taken me all of one night to fall back into bed with Sawyer.
I knew it was a mistake. I knew, from what I knew about Millie and Gage, that this was a have babies and settle down family.
I knew I could not settle down. That I didn't want to.
Also that I desperately wanted to just live on this ranch and pop out babies like Millie?—
Sawyer shifted behind me, his hand sliding down to my hip, and I curled against him instinctively. Yeah…the mental breakdown could happen later, right? Right now, it was sometime after dawn, I could hear the horses outside, and Sawyer was behind me, the perfect big spoon.
With his perfect cock between my thighs.
I hummed and rocked back just slightly against him, letting him slip against my wet core. I was already up for another round…round four, I think, if I was counting correctly. The hand on my hip moved down to my stomach, then up again…grasping my breast and squeezing.
He was awake.
Had been for a while, maybe.
He lifted his head just enough to press a kiss to my neck, his exhale making goosebumps erupt on my neck.
“You stayed,” he murmured, his voice rumbling in his chest.
“I did.”
I let myself fall into the sensations, the feeling of his hand on my breast, his fingers toying with my nipple…
his hips rocking. I’d expected to want to leave—fully anticipated waking up and immediately calculating the distance between here and Millie’s back door and how fast I could cover it without being seen.
But I was here.
Tucked against his chest…feeling perfect. At home. Safe and…
He pinched just tight enough and I let out a whimper. His teeth grazed my throat.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he rasped. “You know that?”
“Thanks.” I pressed back again. Again. “Will you fuck me?”
He chuckled. “Asking nicely, I see.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
His hand slid from my breast down my stomach, lower…lower. When his fingers slid between my folds, I was already wet, making him exhale harshly against my neck.
“Christ.” His fingers stroked me once, slow. “Every time.”
“Sawyer—”
“I know.” He pressed his mouth to the back of my neck. “I know what you want.”
He shifted behind me, positioned himself?—
And this time, he didn’t make me beg.
He thrust inside me all the way to the hilt, and I arched to make sure he didn’t slip free. Not that he was going to…he was so, so big, lodged inside me, my pussy clenching around him.
“Fuck yes,” he breathed. He curled his top leg to get between mine, spreading me open, and his hand came down to pull my legs wide to hook over the back of his knee. “God, your pussy feels so good, Daniela.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His hips rolled, setting a slow, steady rhythm, filling me deep. “Missed this. Missed you.”
I could’ve responded with snark. Maybe I should have. But I wanted to explain…wanted him to know. “Sawyer?—”
“I know.” He pressed his lips to my jaw. “I know you were busy.”
“But I should’ve…” I had to stop talking, cried out. His arm was over my leg now, his hand between my legs again…touching my clit, oh fuck. “Should’ve texted?—”
“You don’t owe me a thing, baby,” he purred. “Well…other than an orgasm. You wanna come for me?”
"Yes," I breathed. "God, yes?—"
"Good." His fingers moved in slow circles and his hips kept that devastating rhythm and I stopped trying to finish any thought I'd started. “Gonna keep you like this all morning…coming on my cock and my fingers and my tongue. You like that?”
“Oh my—oh my god—please?—”
"Please what?" His hips didn't slow. Not even slightly.
"Please don't stop?—"
"Wasn't planning on it." His fingers moved faster and I grabbed the edge of the mattress. "You feel so good like this. So fucking perfect." His mouth at my neck. "Come for me. Right now."
"Sawyer—"
"Now, Daniela."
I came.
Hard and fast, the way he'd told me to, my whole body clenching around him, a sound tearing out of me that I didn't bother trying to muffle. He worked me through every second of it—fingers relentless, hips still moving, his voice low and steady in my ear.
"Good girl." He pressed his mouth to the back of my neck. "That's it. Give me another."
I didn’t know what he was doing. Magic? Maybe. I’d never just…come on command before.
"I can't?—"
"You can." He pulled out.
I made a sound of protest.
He flipped me onto my back.
I blinked up at him—morning light, dark eyes, that medal he always wore swinging forward—and then he had my legs over his shoulders and his mouth on me before I'd finished processing the transition.
It felt like my whole body left the bed when I thrust toward him.
"Sawyer—” I choked out.
He didn't answer. Just worked me with his tongue, focused and unhurried, like he had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do and I was the most interesting problem he'd ever been given. My fingers found his hair. He let me pull. Kept going.
"I'm—I'm already?—"
He hummed against me and I arched off the mattress.
"Please—" The word came out wrecked. "Please I need you inside me again?—"
He lifted his head just enough.
"Ask me nicely," he said. The audacity.
"You absolute—" I grabbed his hair harder. "Please, Sawyer. Please get back inside me right now. Please."
Something warm moved through his eyes.
He crawled back up my body and pushed inside again.
I blacked out, just for a second.
When I came to, my fingernails were in his shoulders…and he was fucking me now. Hard and fast and good.
This was different from last night's frantic and different from this morning's slow—this was something else entirely, something that had been building since the paddock fence and the trailer door and six months of not doing this.
He was everywhere. His hands on my hips, his weight over me, the slap of skin and the creak of the narrow mattress and his breath ragged against my jaw.
"Look at me," he said.
I looked at him.
His eyes were dark and intent and completely present, watching my face the way he'd watched me in the paddock. Taking stock.
"Good," he breathed. "Stay with me."
"I'm with you." I wrapped my legs around him. "I'm right here."
Something shifted in his face. The careful thing, going soft.
He kissed me—hard, then soft, then hard again—and kept moving and I held on and let everything else fall away. The career and the stage name and the decisions and the industry cocktail parties and six months of hotel rooms. All of it gone. Just this. Just him.
"Sawyer." Urgent. Climbing fast.
"I know." His hand slid between us. Found me. "I've got you."
"I know you do." I grabbed his face with both hands. Made him look at me. "I know."
Something cracked through his expression—fast, unguarded—and then his forehead dropped to mine and he drove deep and I shattered.
Completely. Entirely. Nothing held back.
He followed me over thirty seconds later with a sound he buried in my neck and his hands gripping my hips hard enough that I'd see the marks tomorrow and didn't mind at all.
We lay there.
Wrecked. Both of us.
His weight was heavy and complete over me and I kept my arms around him and stared at the ceiling of the small trailer and felt—scraped clean. Empty in the best possible way. Like six months of carrying something carefully had just been set down.
“You didn’t have to text me,” he murmured into my neck, voice muffled. Then he lifted his head. “But I’d’ve liked it if you did.”
I met his eyes, reaching up to play with his curls. “I’d’ve liked it too.”
“So why didn’t you?”
I bit my lip, frowning. “Because…”
God, how to explain it? Because I was just starting out but I also wanted to only be here? Because I absolutely could not take a break to settle down and have kids, but he made me want to transform into a baby factory?
Because he was worth more than traveling all the time and never knowing where the next job was and flirting with producers and film execs just so I could get on their good side? Because I had to be single to sell my brand?
I guess I took too long to respond, because he shook his head with a soft smile.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “I get it.”
I glanced down his body, where we were pressed together and warm. “It doesn’t feel complicated right now.”
“And we can keep it that way, if that’s what you want,” he said.
No. No way.
He couldn’t be that unproblematic…could he?
And why did that kind of make me mad?
He rolled off of me and onto his back, his arm still around my shoulders. I turned to face him, spreading my hand over his pec, curling into the soft, dark hair on his chest. I found the little silver medal, cool against his skin, and I hummed.
“St. Christopher’s Medal, right?”
He grunted. “You know your saints.”
“I was raised Catholic,” I said with a soft laugh.
“My mom was too.”
I let myself run my fingers over it again, just…investigating. Glad he hadn’t delved deeper into me, eager to learn more about him. “She still practice?”
He stiffened, just slightly.
“She’s been dead since I was twelve,” he said. “She and my dad. Car accident.”
I stilled.
Felt like an asshole.
“Oh Sawyer,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” He shrugged one shoulder, but he was just staring up at the ceiling. “Uncle Adam and Aunt Peg took us in—my dad was Adam’s little brother. Forrest and his twin Emmett were ten…so it was harder on them.”
I pressed my palm flat against his chest, felt his heartbeat. It was perfectly steady…like he’d told this story a thousand times and had it rehearsed to the point where it didn’t hurt anymore.
“I shouldn’t have—” I paused. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed?—”
He turned toward me with a slight smile, extending one arm to brush against my chest. “Daniela, it’s okay,” he said. “They’ve been gone twenty-three years. I’ve had a long time to grapple with it, and it isn’t like you had any way of knowing.”
My brow furrowed. “If I’d kept texting you, it may have come up.”
He turned onto his side now, tucking his hands under his pillow. We were so close, face to face, naked in his bed…
…I should just say something.
Stop being a coward.
I cleared my throat. “Okay…if I’m being honest, I didn’t text you because?—”
My phone rang.
I closed my eyes.
Winced.
“You should get that,” Sawyer said. “Could be Ellis Jones calling about your big break, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Probably not.”
“Don’t jinx it with your pessimism,” he said, then sat up and pulled me with him, gesturing toward the pants I’d discarded on the floor. “Go.”
I grabbed my jeans off the floor, fished my phone out of the pocket.
Unknown number. Los Angeles area code.
My heart skipped a beat.
I looked at Sawyer. He was leaning back on his hands, the blankets pooled around his waist, looking like a goddamn Greek god.
I answered.
"Hello?"
"Daphne." Ellis Jones's voice was unmistakable—flat, direct, no preamble. "It's Ellis."
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
Sawyer scooted forward, trying to listen.
"Ellis." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Hi."
I looked at him. He raised his eyebrows. I nodded and mouthed holy shit.
"I'm not going to waste your time," she said. "I want you for my next film. Lead. I've been sitting on this script for two years and I finally know who I want in it." A pause. Almost imperceptible. "It's you."
My mouth opened. Closed.
Sawyer was watching my face.
"I'm—" I stopped. Tried again. "I'm listening."
"It shoots in the Texas Hill Country. March through July. But…here’s the thing. Part of the reason I want you is because you were so onboard with doing your own stunts, but this one is going to need a lot more riding experience. We can afford to pay for it out of the film’s budget.”
“You’re going to…you’re going to pay me to learn how to do stuntwork with horses?’
“Yeah,” she said. “And there’s this great trainer out in the area—you live out there in your time off, right? Texas. There’s this great trainer outside San Antonio, you met him on set for Devil’s River, you remember?”
I looked at Sawyer.
"Sawyer Holt," I said carefully. "Yeah. I remember him."
Sawyer pressed his lips together, suppressing a laugh.
"He's the best I've worked with," Ellis said. "I already reached out to him this morning. Waiting to hear back."
"Oh," I said. "Interesting."
Sawyer produced his phone from a little shelf near the head of the bed. Looked at it. Looked at me. Held it up so I could see the screen.
Ellis Jones - missed call, 7:14am.
I put my hand over my mouth.
"You think you could work with him again?" Ellis asked. "I know it's a lot to ask, being out in the middle of?—"
"It's not a lot to ask," I said. My voice came out remarkably steady. "I'm actually—I'm in the area right now. Visiting family."
"Perfect timing."
"It really is," I said.
Sawyer was shaking with silent laughter beside me. I shoved his shoulder. He caught my hand and held it.
"Read the script," Ellis said. "I'm sending it now. Don't let your agent talk you into anything before you read it yourself."
“Got it,” I said. I paused, not sure how to feel or react or…well, anything. “Thanks, Ellis. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“No problem,” she said. “Talk soon.”
Then she just hung up.
I looked at Sawyer.
“Guess I’m gonna be putting you through your paces this winter, huh?” he asked.
My eyes flitted down to his waist, then back to his face.
“Guess you are,” I said.