Chapter 21
Y ou’re going to lie there and take your punishment.
I’m not sure who this cowboy is, and what he’s done to lock away the Beau I’ve gotten used to being around. One thing’s for certain, I’m in endless trouble with the way the man before me looks ready to consume me whole.
Beau is everywhere, surrounding me, still clutching me impossibly tight against his body. Meanwhile, any place his hands and torso and—oh my god, his wet jeans and t-shirt—aren’t pressed hard against my figure, it’s like he’s replaced my blood with a tingling, pulsating sensation.
My lips sizzle with the scratch of his stubble and bristles of his mustache lingering there. I can still taste the warmth, a hint of coffee and mint from his mouth covering mine. My breasts ache, heavy and full after the way my nipples have dragged against the wet fabric plastered against his front. Not to mention, beyond all of the ways my body has just been swept up by Beau, he’s left me with an unbearable emptiness and need between my thighs after playing with me so expertly.
I lick hastily over my lips, tracing the spot where he was a second ago with shallow, panting breaths. And that’s when his palms skate down the slope of my waist, following the invitation to reconnect with my hips.
He’s got a wildness to him, a desperation, and it’s so fucking hot.
Those calloused hands, firm and wanting, reach beneath me. Beau picks me up in one rough movement, wrapping my legs around his hips. Water sluices off my lower body as he starts to walk us out of the water.
“What are you doing? You can’t just—” I’m horny and incredulous. I’ve never had someone manhandle me quite like this before.
Beau doesn’t stop. “Oh. I can. And I will.”
As his steps hit the shingle, he stoops to collect my towel, holding me against him like I’m a goddamn feather.
“Beau…” I keep protesting. Because this is about as far from anything I might have expected from him. It’s reckless. Sheer madness. He can’t possibly be considering stepping across this line with me.
“No, Sage,” he grunts, and keeps striding up the riverbank. “I’ve driven since before dawn to get back here.”
As he speaks, I feel every one of his gritty words rumble straight through his soaking-wet chest and into my own. He refuses to set me down, or let me go, and proceeds to unhook the hinges on the flatbed.
“I’ve struggled with a head full of impure thoughts about the pretty girl staying in the cabin only fifty paces from my bedroom. I’ve spent the past hour going out of my head worrying about your safety. If it isn’t already clear, you’re on my mind permanently, and I’m about done with denying all the ways I’m needing you.” The hinges clank loudly as the tailgate falls into place, and that particular noise sends a shudder straight down to my toes.
My stomach swoops in time with the realization that he’s not simply tossing me into the backseat and locking me in his vehicle.
This man has other plans in mind.
He deftly flicks my towel to cover the metal below me, followed by depositing my ass on the back of his truck, then cages me in. There’s absolutely no escaping this moment.
“Right now, the only thing I need is your permission. Or are you going to be stubborn as fuck about that, too?”
Beau stands between my knees, with water droplets coating his tanned skin, white t-shirt clinging to his muscled frame. The see-through cotton has partially hitched up on one side, revealing the trail of dark hair disappearing below the waistband of his dripping-wet jeans. Those stormy eyes of his are hooded as he stares me down with enough force to have me shivering even though the setting sun bakes our damp skin.
This cowboy looks like sex and temptation… and heartbreak.
He’s the worst decision I could ever consider agreeing to.
“What are you doing?” I swallow hard. “You’re—you’re married.”
“Are you telling me no?” He palms the sides of my ass, then hooks the waistband over my hips, tugging slightly against the sodden fabric.
“W–What are we doing? Beau, this absolutely cannot happen.” My eyes can’t stop bouncing all over him. He’s so hot, so ruggedly powerful, and that mouth of his is right fucking there.
He strikes with the ease of a man who handles livestock and hauls hay bales on the daily. A cowboy who spent a career on the back of a bull. Flipping me onto my belly, it’s an act that spins my world and leaves my barely-covered ass on display for him. “Is that a no, or do I have your permission?” He repeats, and this time, his voice has dropped so low and seductive that I think there will be nothing left of me after whatever happens next except for a wisp of smoke once my blood has self-combusted.
I bite my lip, heart shuddering inside my chest.
“Go on. Use your words, Sage. You do love to run that pretty mouth of yours, don’t you?”
“Fuck you.” I pant.
Asshole that he is, Beau knows that he has me trapped. A rich, dark chuckle comes out of him, and his fingers toy with the edge of the fabric. Taunting me. Teasing me. Being the wickedest of temptations with something he knows I’m already lost to.
“I’m waiting.” He skates his flattened palm down the curve below my ass cheek. Every inch of skin he makes contact with comes alive, absolutely hypersensitive to his stroking exploration.
I’m torn in two. When did this man suddenly wrench free of his restraints? Until now, he’s been unable to escape those bars he’d been locked behind. And why am I so completely enraptured by him, to the point that I’m willingly turning a blind eye to all the reasons why I should be stronger and tell him to stop?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I let the word loose on the warm evening air.
The single pin drop moment that might ruin both of us.
“ Yes .”
Beau makes a satisfied, desirous noise and roughly yanks my bikini bottoms down, stretching them tight over my upper thighs.
“I think you like being bad,” he murmurs.
“I think you like being bad with me.” I’m so painfully aware that he’s fully clothed, and I’m splayed out here naked, draped over the back of his truck with dust and the lingering scents of hay and leather floating all around me.
His palms roam up over the swell of my ass, and he groans while squeezing a handful on each side. “You have no idea.”
My pulse is a stallion, galloping mile after frantic mile in the side of my throat. Yet, rather than acting swiftly, this man continues to stroke my damp skin. It’s like he’s stalling. As I shift my weight, I’m left wondering if maybe now that we’ve reached this precipice, he’s about to reconsider everything.
Oh god. Is he about to prevent this from going any further?
“Did you touch yourself while you watched me?” I purposely taunt, with a breathy gasp. Shoving him to the edge of reason, because I’m not going to hang here in this torment on my own any longer. “Did you stroke your cock while watching me put on a show, or were you too afraid of what it might mean if you gave in?”
That earns me exactly what I’m after.
“Goddamn it, Sage.” Beau sounds pained and desperate as the first crack of his open palm lands on my bare skin, making me jerk. Heat blossoms immediately, racing from the site of the sting to throb in my clit.
“I couldn’t stop watching you.” Another smack follows on the other side. “You had me trapped, even though I should have ended that call before it went as far as it did. You had me nearly unloading without a single stroke.”
As he says those final words, they come out through gritted teeth when he gives two quick blows, one after the other, and then his palm soothes over the sting. The way he glides his touch over those spots of heated flesh simply melts my brain.
I want more.
“Did you have your dick in your hand?” I gasp and claw at the towel.
“The whole time.” Smack .
“Fuck, that’s so hot.” My body jerks and arches and begs for him without restraint.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with you, my naughty girl?” Beau gives me one more imprint of his palm before finally delivering what I’m panting for. He dives a hand between my legs, sinking his fingers back into my weeping, clenching pussy.
“I’m not anyone’s. I’m certainly not yours .” My spine bows as I outright moan.
“You say that now, but you will be.”
“That’s rich…” I’m frantically trying to widen my legs but can’t because of the bikini restraining me from simply opening fully for his touch. “Coming from the man who has a ring on his finger… who has a wife .” As I gasp out the words, there’s something I can’t explain that happens to my body. This infuriating man curls his fingers and expertly strokes my inner walls, leaving my mouth dropping open on a whine.
“What I have is an ex , she’s a divorce just waiting to be finalized. A signature on a page erasing her from my life. That woman is a shitty decision from my past, just like I’m sure you have a trail of broken hearts littering the streets in your wake, beautiful girl.”
“I’m not interested in excuses.” I claw my fingers for purchase as he strokes me so damn perfectly. “Don’t—Don’t give me some sorry story about being neglected as a husband, and so you’ve decided to stray.”
“I’ve already told you, it’s not like that.” Beau draws back slightly to drag his fingers through my slit. This time he moves slower, but no less ruthlessly to liquify my body and brain into pure, glimmering pleasure, just for him. “I need you, Sage,” he murmurs.
God, I can’t handle hearing him say that. “I’m not interested in settling down, either. Don’t think you can sweet talk me.”
When he pushes back inside, my words falter. I damn near bite my tongue in half just to stop the slutty noises that want to escape my compressed lungs.
“Why does it have to be you?” My breathing hitches, and my forehead drops.
Beau fucks me with his fingers, and my body rocks back and forth, draped over the tailgate of his truck, leaving me nearly losing my goddamn mind. I want to fight this. I want to protest everything, and yet, I’m helplessly caught in a web of obsession over him.
Selfishly, I can’t bring myself to deny us any longer.
All I can do is scrunch my eyes closed while allowing the pleasure to keep building. With each movement of his hand, my clit throbs and begs for his attention.
“One time.” I whimper.
He makes a noise that sounds so smug, so wicked, like he’s just won another world championship. “Just this once, hmm ?”
“Yes.” My teeth clench. I’m so close and hate that he’s wound me into this frenzy.
“We both know that isn’t going to be enough, baby.”
Holy fuck, I can’t seem to stop gripping his fingers harder and harder each time he calls me that.
“Until you aren’t married anymore…” I gasp as he sinks deep, tightening around his fingers. “That’s already one terrible decision I have to live with myself for making.”
“You’re not the one to blame here, Sage.” His words are soft, in contrast to his rough handling of my body. “I’m the one in the wrong place at the wrong time. A man who should know better than to even think about looking at you. But I can’t survive another goddamn day.”
I exhale a shaky breath, a whimper of pleasure. “Then you’d better make this worth it, cowboy. One. Time. ”