22. Winnie
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
winnie
I drag my fingertips lightly up his forearm—slow, tracing the line of muscle, catching the way goosebumps ripple across his skin under my touch. His jaw clenches. Hard. For a second, I think he might pull away.
He doesn’t.
“Winnie,” he warns, voice rough.
But I’m already leaning in, my hand sliding to his shoulder. “We can go back and drink that shot if you want. I’ll follow your lead.”
He doesn’t move.
His hand closes around my wrist—gentle at first—before he pulls me hard into his chest. And then his mouth crashes into mine like he lost the fight the second I touched him.
He runs his thumb along my jaw, careful, hypnotic.
The kiss is slow at first, then urgent, the kind of kiss that carries you into another reality, one you’ve always dreamed about. I can taste the faint hint of citrus and expensive whiskey.
His hand is on my hip, then under my shirt, thumb brushing the edge of my ribs. My skin burns where he touches, and all my senses explode. He groans, low and desperate, like he’s been holding back for a lifetime.
He breaks the kiss, forehead pressed to mine. “Winnie, I swear to god?—”
I cut him off, pulling his hand higher, guiding it up to where I want him. He doesn’t hesitate this time. His thumb traces my breast, and I arch into him, gasping. His mouth is everywhere—my jaw, my neck, my throat.
He moves on top of me, careful but heavy, pressing me into the mattress. His knee parts my legs, and I let him because I’ve wanted this. It’s something I’ve imagined, dreamed about lately.
He takes his time, kissing me until I’m dizzy. He lifts my shirt over my head and moves lower, mouth trailing down to my collarbone, then my chest. I make a sound that’s half whimper, half moan.
“Tell me right now if we should go take the damn boot shot, Winnie.” His voice is a rough, whiskey-soaked slow draw.
I shake my head, eyes squeezed shut, lips parted. My heart hammers against my ribs like a frantic little bird trapped in a cage. If I open my mouth, I’ll whimper. If I look at him, I’ll beg and sound pathetic.
Then his hand is there.
His palm drags up my thigh beneath the hem of my skirt, fingers rough. His thumb finds my panties, pressing in just enough to make me gasp.
“Guess I’m the deputy tonight,” he says. “Means I decide how this goes.”
“Big responsibility,” I breathe.
He leans in against my ear. “You trust me with it?”
I barely nod. His fingers don’t stop moving, tracing slow, maddening circles over the soaked lace.
“Good. Because I want you to come. Are you gonna make yourself do it, or should I?”
I can feel how wet I am, how every tiny shift of his hand sends sparks shooting up my spine.
“I’ve never made myself do it.”
He laughs—a dark, filthy sound—and then his fingers are hooking into the waistband of my panties, shoving them aside like they’re nothing.
“Your pussy is this fucking pretty and you don’t touch it?” His voice drips with disbelief.
My hips jerk involuntarily, seeking more, but he holds me still with his other hand, fingers digging into the soft flesh of my hip. He’s relentless. His fingers circle my clit with just enough pressure.
“So fucking wet,” he growls, dragging his fingers through my center before pushing two inside without warning.
“Fuck.” I choke on a moan as he fills me, stretching me open with long fingers that curl just right, rubbing against that spot inside that makes my vision blur.
“You’ve got a lot to learn,” he says, slow and unhurried. “Do I need to teach you about playing with yourself, too?”
I nod.
“Add it to the list.”
His mouth curves in a quiet laugh. “Alright,” he says. “Watch closely.”
His mouth finds my neck—open, rough—and the kiss that follows feels less like a choice and more like gravity finally winning.
His thumb finds my clit again, pressing down in tight little circles while his fingers work me, slow and deep and perfect until I forget what the lesson was supposed to be.
“Oh shit,” I breathe, trying to steady myself, grabbing at his shoulders.
He lets out this low, dark laugh—one that vibrates straight through me as he continues.
“You gonna come for me?”
I’m no longer keeping track of anything that matters, thinking about anything else. His thumb presses hard against my clit, and I can’t stop the whimper that escapes my lips.
“Yes, don’t stop,” I moan, not expecting it to feel this good.
“If you need to scream,” he says, mouth near my ear, “bite my shoulder. I like it.”
I nod and grab his bicep, my fingers digging into his firm muscle.
He curls his fingers inside me, hitting a spot that my whole body feels.
“There it is. Right here,” he whispers, like he knows my own body better than I do.
Apparently he does because I start to clench around him, unwillingly, and it's devastating how quickly I lose myself in him.
“Danger,” I moan, barely able to get the word out.
He pins me down to keep me in place, and his thumb keeps rubbing my clit. I bite his shoulder, my nails digging into his skin. It doesn’t phase him. His lips are hot and demanding against my ear. “That’s it, huh Winnie? I feel you clenching.”
“Oh god, yes,” I say, gasping, begging, shaking beneath him. And when it happens, it’s unbelievable, soul-shaking.
My back arches, I'm clenching harder around him, greedy and eager.
He grins against my ear. "That’s it, baby. Squeeze my fingers just like that."
My body rocks through the orgasm, and I can hear the noises, feel the wetness pool between my legs, all over his hand. I’m breathless, panting, and when I manage to speak, it’s a shaky mess. “I’m so sorry,” I breathe, my cheeks burning. “I didn’t expect…”
He cuts me off with a laugh, dark and amused. “You didn’t expect to come all over my hand so quickly?” he teases, and I nod, feeling stupidly shy. He licks his fingers clean, his tongue dragging along them slowly.
“Yeah, that,” I admit. “I’m sorry about the mess.”
By the look on his face, I can tell he doesn’t care about the mess.
“Lay back,” he orders.
I hesitate. “What?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“I’m not done with you.”
“We’re going to break the sex rule?” I ask way too fast, and he laughs, shaking his head.
“No,” he says, his grin widening. “Still plenty of ways to make you come. Now lay back.”
“Yes sir.”
I really hoped he would break his rule for me tonight, but I’m not about to stop him from continuing.
“I need to clean this up,” he says as he moves between my legs, hooking one over his shoulder. His mouth is hot and wet against my thighs, kissing, licking, teasing. He spreads me open, and I gasp, my body trembling.
“You don’t have to,” I start to say, but he cuts me off with a hard suck on my clit, and my words dissolve into a choked moan.
“You taste so fucking good,” he says against me.
My nails dig into his shoulders again. I’m gasping for air, my body still trembling with aftershocks. Danger looks up from between my legs. His eyes are dark and completely gone. I can't look away, can't break this moment.
"You’re so gorgeous."
“I don’t feel?—”
“You are. You’re so goddamn perfect,” he says. His mouth is relentless, sucking, licking, driving me wild.
I grip the sheets, I lose focus, sight even.
Is it just because I’ve wanted him so badly that everything feels amplified? Like my nerves have been turned up too high and he somehow knows exactly where to press. Every touch lands deeper than it should.
I don’t know when he learned all my weak points. Or if he always knew. I just know one touch from him feels like too much—and not nearly enough.
And when the moment happens again, it’s different—deeper, more intense.
“Fuck, Danger,” I moan. My body is shaking. I can’t hold it back. “I’m about to?—”
I cover my mouth with a pillow, muffling the sounds because for all I know half the town is right on the street outside. But he doesn’t stop. He licks me and sucks me through it, his tongue fucking sinful, and I’m a trembling, writhing mess beneath him.
I’m shaking, body twisting forward, but he pins my hip down with a hand.
He doesn’t stop until I’m completely spent, and my mind has left my body.
“I could do this all night,” he says, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “But the hour’s almost up. Can’t bail on my brother’s engagement party.”
Tonight has been everything I never expected it to be.
He made me feel incredible. But I can’t figure out how someone can look at me the way he does and still hold himself back.
I’ve seen him with that woman in the barn.
Why does it feel like with me, he’s always stopping himself?
I don’t even have to say anything. Somehow, this man can read every thought I wish he couldn't.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks.
I look away. “Nothing.”
“Say it.”
I look back at him. “You don’t want me to touch you?”
“Not yet.”
The answer shouldn't affect me the way it does. “But I know you’ve let other women?—”
“They’re not you, Winnie.”
I don't know if being me means I matter or if it means he's keeping me at a distance. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not someone I want to treat like everyone else.”
He sounds genuine when he says it. And maybe that’s what gets me—the fact that Danger Stetson, the man who seems impossible to read, is somehow the easiest person to believe. Even though I don’t understand why I’m different, I believe him.
“Okay. But I guess we still have to take the nasty boot shot. We didn’t break any rules.”
“No, we don’t,” he says.
I blink. “Why not?”
“Because I broke one.”
My mind races through the rules. No fucking. No feelings.
We never had?—
Oh.
That leaves only one.