Dibs on the Cowboy
LAINEY
I come.
But I can’t come down. My orgasm slowly subsides, leaving me boneless, shaking. Unable to catch my breath. My leg is still slung over his shoulder, my hip flexor screaming from being pushed well past its limit.
Or maybe that’s because Colton’s weight is pressing me into the mattress. His chest barrels out on deep, huge inhales as he comes, whispering my name against my temple.
Because he’s kissing away my tears.
Because I won’t let him kiss my lips, so he’s kissing me everywhere else. Literally.
Since when do I cry during sex?
Since when do I let emotionally unavailable cowboys in?
Only Colton made himself available in every sense of the word tonight. I know so much more of his story now.
I understand him in a way I didn’t before. And I kinda love everything about this man.
My already overworked heart seizes.
We do not say that word. Not when said cowboy is still inside you. The things men say during sex don’t count.
But what about the things men do during sex? Colton has made sure I’ve come first. He’s genuinely curious about my body. His touch is genuinely tender.
He also takes his time with me. When you think about it, tonight was just one long game of foreplay, wasn’t it? Him picking me up in a clean truck. Him being interested in my story over drinks. Him buying me dinner, then rescuing me from a mechanical bull at the world’s cutest dive bar.
And then the sex. Epic. Best ever. Life-altering. Soul-destroying. The way he said he was already going to miss me “like that”—
Holy fuck, honey, he’s into you.
The thought makes my stomach flip. Maybe because I’m into him too.
Which is just great, considering there’s no real way we could have any kind of future together.
My contract here is ending, and I don’t know where I’m going to end up.
Mr. Firstborn Foreman here, however, has always known where he belongs.
Where does that leave us?
Does it even matter right now, though? We could stop while we’re ahead. Make this the first and last time we end up in bed together.
It’ll hurt less when I leave.
I think not having more sex like this, though, might hurt worse.
I’m already fucked. Why not enjoy the literal and metaphorical benefits of that?
His scruff scrapes against my cheek as he lifts his head.
“Dallas, I think we got a problem.”
Laughter bubbles up my throat. The contrast between that joy and the ache I feel behind my eyes and between my legs is the most exquisite mindfuck ever.
“What’s that, cowboy?”
My heart drops like a stone when I see the look in his eyes.
It’s the look. Soft. Full of yearning to the point of being almost mournful.
What the hell is there to do now except enjoy the excellent sex I’ve been searching for my entire adult life?
“I already wanna do that again,” he replies, leaning down to take my nipple in his mouth.
He really digs the piercing.
I feel his cum leaking out of the condom. Lots of it, then.
God, we’re making such a mess.
But my chest feels too tender and mushy to care about that now. I reach up to play with his hair. We’re both sweating.
“I think we both need to get out more,” I say around the tightness in my throat.
I am still shaking.
A fact he recognizes, because he frowns and says, “Aw, honey, you cold?”
“Yes. No.” I shake my head. “Just, I’ve never been…like that.”
Colton goes still. “What d’you mean?”
“You’re really good at that, Colt. Sex. And making me feel like a million bucks.”
The skin at the edges of his eyes crinkles. “My job here is done. Except, wait, I really hope we’re not done—”
“Of course we’re not done.” I press a finger to his lips. “I just didn’t know it could be like that. Like, it could be this good with someone I’ve known for all of, what—”
“Thirty days.” He rocks his hips, beginning to ease out of me. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
I laugh again, if only so I don’t burst into tears all over again. “You’re still inside me, and you’re already asking me out again?”
“Yes.” He says the word so matter-of-factly. Like us going on another date—spending more time together—is a given. “Come over for dinner. LEGO building optional.”
“I’m sorry, but I have plans.”
His turn to laugh. “No, you don’t.”
“You know me so well already.”
“I’d like to know more.”
“Do you have a death wish?” The unspoken thought hangs between us: This is ending. We’re playing with fire.
Also, sex like the kind we just had—athletic, intense, wrenching—takes a lot out of you.
“Long as I get to die with you, I’m all right.” He pulls all the way out.
There’s a pinch between my legs. Just uncomfortable enough to make me wince.
“Sore?” There’s a deep, deep divot in his forehead now, like the fact that I’m in pain seriously bothers him.
I shake my head. “I’ll be okay.”
“Tell me where your Advil is.”
“I can—”
“Nope.” Kissing my cheek, he rolls onto his back. “I got it. You stay put, yeah? I’ll clean us up.”
There’s a washcloth and a glass of ice-cold water involved. A quick trip to the bathroom for me. Two Advil placed right in the palm of my hand. A frown when he sees the beginnings of beard burn on my breasts.
“I’ll help you change the sheets after we’re done,” he says, climbing back into bed beside me. He doesn’t bother to slide under the covers. He just lies there, his naked body on full display.
My soul must leave my body because suddenly I’m levitating, floating around the room like a dumbstruck balloon. “We’re not actually done?”
He folds his arm behind his head on the pillow and looks at me. “You’re outta your damn mind if you think I got a sitter for one measly round of sex.”
I sip my water. “I was that good, huh?”
“Honey.” He puts his hand on my naked thigh underneath the covers. “You don’t need the ego boost—”
“Ha.” But I do. I really, really do.
“I’m gonna give it to you, though, because it’s well deserved. I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to sleep after this it was so good. Not just the sex but the date.” His voice softens. “I needed this. Thank you.”
I swallow, hard. “I did too.”
He nods at the notebook on my bedside table. “Can I ask what you’ve been working on?”
I whip my head in his direction. “Whoa whoa whoa. Since when do you not want to light all my ideas on fire?”
Rolling onto his side, he lifts his free shoulder. “It’s a recent development.”
“Tell me more.” I grab the notebook.
“Not to get too into the weeds here, but…I don’t know. I’m starting to think that maybe shaking things up a little might be a good idea.”
I blink at him. “Can you say that again? Just so I can be sure I heard it correctly. Because when we first met—”
“I was the worst. I know. I was wrong. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
His smile is back, and it takes my breath away. “You’ve been the best surprise, Lainey Brown. In ways I never anticipated. I’m still terrified of fucking up the legacy that’s being passed on to me.”
“Sounds like the kind of fear that might never go away.”
“Right.” He looks at me for a long beat, searching my face. “But if I can be honest about my fears—if I can find some semblance of acceptance that change is just a part of life—then maybe I can, you know, actually live it.”
The man is actively trying to get me to fall in love with him. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why he’d say these things.
Why he’d be so open-minded after shutting me out the day we met.
“I like that idea. Acceptance.” I page through the notebook until I find the sheet I’m looking for. “It’s so hard not to wish things or people were different.”
He leans in to see the page, brushing my arm with his lips. “Who do you wish were different?”
“My parents, obviously. I wish they were happy. Or that they’d choose happiness, because right now…” Sighing, I shake my head. “It’s just sad.”
“That’s rough. Hard to be around, I imagine.”
You beautiful bastard. Of course you’d get it.
“Very. Especially when I’m the only one who seems to notice…well, anything that happens in our family. My brothers—I mean, I love them, but they’re—”
“Different from you.”
Yes. “Yes. Probably need to accept that fact too.”
“Probably.” Colton nudges me with his knee. “Easier said than done. Something I’ve been working on for, oh, thirty years now.”
“Ew, you’re old.”
“I prefer ‘experienced.’”
“It’s cool to see your parents’ relationship, though. They seem happy.”
Colton sighs, his warm breath making my arms break out in goose bumps. “Dale and Paige aren’t perfect. But yeah, they still dig each other after however many years together. I wish I knew what their secret sauce was.”
“Everybody changes. Maybe…I mean, I obviously don’t know your parents all that well, but maybe they were just honest with each other through everything. Maybe they were best friends from the start who could talk to each other about anything.”
Colton’s Adam’s apple works on a swallow. He presses a kiss to my arm. “I like that idea. Being honest. Not sweeping shit under the rug.”
My heart twists. “Never too late, you know.”
He doesn’t reply to that. Instead, he grabs the corner of my notebook in his hand. “Wanna keep doing it?”
“I always wanna keep doing it with you,” I say, laughing.
“Well, we’re going to do that too. But I’m talking about honesty.”
“You think I’ve been honest all night?”
“Lainey, you’ve been honest from the get-go. Why’d you think I couldn’t stand you at first? Because you called me out on my bullshit. It was annoying. And the biggest fucking turn-on ever.”
Butterflies.
Everywhere. In my chest. My belly. My thighs.
“Thanks?”
“It is a compliment. I mean.” He glances down.
I gasp, delighted, when I see that he’s getting hard again. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish.” He runs a hand over his face. “I love fucking you, but being this turned on is—”
“A lot. I know.”
He loves fucking me.
I just might fucking love him.
Too soon. I know it’s way too soon. But if he keeps being, well, him…
“So these ideas you got for the ranch.”
I can tell he’s forcing himself to focus.
“Talk to me.”
I do.
Wild as it sounds, I feel safe to just…dive right in. Share everything. Even though I rarely show people my notebook. This thing is for rough drafts. Rough ideas. It’s my heart and head working themselves out on the page. So much of what’s in here sucks.
But I show Colton anyway.
I walk him through my sketches. His favorite color is yellow, so he likes the drawing I did of a stallion on its hind legs, mane flying, colored with a marigold-hued pencil.
He tells me the horseshoe logo I’ve been working on is beautiful but that it looks a lot like the logo Mollie designed for Lucky River Ranch.
We laugh at my notes on how much horses actually poop. He shows me where I drew the lines of my map incorrectly and then tells me about landmarks that will help me find my way around the property.
He uses his blunt fingertip to trace a pair of figures—a man and a woman—I drew watching Doc Sally and her husband, Wyatt, work together the other day. The man’s in a cowboy hat, with his hands on her hips. She looks up at him, her hair trailing down her back.
“This is beautiful. Lainey, this is all…so creative. Really fucking beautiful. Wow. Seeing the ranch through your eyes…” He blinks, sitting up. “It’s brand-new.”
I feel like I’m going to cry again. “Wow. That’s awful kind of you to say. Thank you, Colt.”
He turns his head to look at me. “Will you please call me that? From now on? Because I really hate Colton.”
I really, really dig him telling me so explicitly what he wants.
I dig him being vulnerable like this even more.
I’m in so much trouble.
“Why?”
“Just do. Too formal.”
“Okay. But only if you stop calling me Dallas and use Fort Worth instead.”
His laughter fills the room, echoing inside my rib cage. “Sure thing, Fort Worth.”
He takes the notebook in his hands, and we flip through more pages.
“You really wanna give this up to go corporate?” he asks.
“This is silly.”
“Seems like it’s important to you if you’re spending so much time on it. Double U.” He chuckles, pointing to my manic light-bulb moment. “Clever.”
“Beck liked it. I wanna workshop it with Dean too before I finalize anything, but I’m pretty proud of that one. Came up with it after we…did what we did in the barn that day. Go figure. Having an epic orgasm really helps with creativity.”
He thumbs through all the pages I’ve filled. “You’ve been orgasming a lot, then, haven’t you?”
“Come to think of it, I have.”
“Promise me something?”
“That sounds serious.”
“You’ll only orgasm with me going forward. Until you head back to Fort Worth.”
I take a deep inhale, pretending to ponder the proposition. “You work a lot.”
“I’ll find time.”
“I work a lot.”
He’s trailing his fingertips up my arm now. “You know I like a challenge, right? I’m gonna make this happen, honey, come hell or high water.”
My first impulse is to assume he’s full of shit. No way will Colton—wait, Colt—jump through hoops to see me. I’m not that important.
I don’t matter that much.
But you do. And he will.
And he does. The next day. And the day after that too.