13. Sam
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
sam
The word is out of her mouth before she can stop it. There’s no time to reel it back. No time to retreat. No time to run. The moment her consent hits the air, the cowboy is on her. He crosses the threshold and takes her waist in his large hands, pushing her deeper into the room, all the way across that line. His fingers dip beneath her shirt to splay hotly across her ribs. His mouth devours her exposed shoulder, lips exploring every inch of bare skin. She’s awash in feeling, unable to think of the repercussions. Every reason to stop this madness flies out the window along with her sanity as he pushes his meaty thigh between her legs, just as he did the night before, the move demanding her surrender.
And she does.
She surrenders to whatever the hell this is—lust, passion, the sexiest moment of her entire life. It feels as though there’s a torch pressed up against her soul, lighting her insides on fire. His hands move to her back as he pulls her closer. She drags her fingers through his hair and grips his head as he slides his tongue across her clavicle, then runs his nose up the column of her throat.
“Permission to break rule number four?” he murmurs into her ear, his breath washing over her neck like a caress.
She can’t even remember the rules. Her answer comes out half a gasp. “Permission granted.”
“Thank fuck.”
He grabs her by the ass and lifts her as if she weighs nothing at all. She wraps her legs around him. Her spine hits the wall. She couldn’t say which one if her life depended on it. She has no sense of place. She’s lost in him. Lost in the feel of his hips stretching her wide, of the hard heat pressed against her center, of the muscled arms practically ripping the shirt off her body. When he realizes she’s not wearing a bra, he buries his face against her skin with a pained groan. A breathy laugh escapes her lips. He nips at her in reprimand then trails his mouth down the center of her sternum. She goes for his shirt, but he takes both her wrists in one hand and holds them above her head before circling one puckered peak with his tongue. Her head falls back as lightning zips down her spine. She’s completely at his mercy, a place she loathes to be, and yet all she can do is tighten her thighs and submit to the magic of his touch. The subtle scrape of his scruff against her breast does something she can’t explain. Stars work their way across her vision as he grinds against her. He fists her hair with his free hand, the gentle tug on the right side of painful as he moves her where he wants her and lifts his head. Their foreheads press together as their panting fills the air.
“Samantha.” He pauses to breathe.
She speaks just to prove she can. “Cooper.”
He lowers one of her arms and places a soft kiss against the inside of her wrist, just above her racing pulse. The move is too tender, too intimate. It clears the heady fog of her desire and replaces it with a sudden panic. She sobers just enough to retrieve her wits from where they’d been discarded on the floor alongside her shirt. When he looks at her with those piercing green eyes, she’s ready.
“I think it’s time to renegotiate the terms of our agreement, Cuj.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Let me kiss you.”
He looks at her lips. His breath touches them like a promise. Tingles dance over her skin as her entire body clenches with anticipation. But it’s that very need that terrifies her. “No.”
“Cuj—”
It’s a weak line to draw, but it’s better than nothing. “Not on the lips.”
“Which lips?”
She frowns at him and he barks out a laugh.
“Just checking.”
“No lips and no tomorrow,” she says. “This is one night, to get it out of our systems, and tomorrow we go our separate ways, like we always planned.”
“No lips and no tomorrow.”
“Those are the new rules.”
He mulls it over for a second, two. She digs her heels into his firm ass cheeks and rolls her hips to speed him up. Heat flashes in his eyes. He resecures her hands above her head and drops his mouth to her throat. Nipping and licking, he tastes her sensitive skin like a starving man given food.
“I can agree to those terms,” he murmurs between kisses.
“Are you positive, cowboy?”
“Sure, Cuj.”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“I don’t need to be convincing.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” He finds a spot that brings a gasp to her lips and presses his advantage. When she’s a breathless wreck of a person, her entire body tense with wanting, he finally continues, “I’m not the one you’re trying to fool.”
He pinches her nipple and the entire world lights up.
Goddammit.
She moans despite herself, unable to find the words to refute his claim. But she can’t let him have the last word. She just can’t. “I need to know one more thing.”
“Anything, Cuj.” He breathes the promise into her skin.
“Did you sleep with my sister?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“And the dream suite?”
“We threw some shit on the floor, and then she spent most of the night crying to me about her ex.”
“Thank god.”
Sam wriggles her hands free and yanks off his shirt.
Holy man chest.
There’s just so much muscle. She doesn’t even know where to begin. Michelangelo himself couldn’t carve it better. The rippled contours. The firm, hot skin. The sinewy curves. She places her palms on his wrists, then slowly runs them up his forearms and over his biceps to his broad, sculpted shoulders. His muscles flex as she passes over them. She dips low, trailing her fingers over the ridges of his washboard abs, tracing every stacked crevice. Finally, she pauses at the deep V disappearing into his waistband. She swallows, throat dry as his muscles tense. He sucks in a soft breath as she grazes the top edge of his worn jeans. It would be so easy to dip her fingers beneath the denim. So easy to wrap them around him. So easy to fast-track to the good stuff the way she usually does.
But with him, it’s all good. And if they only have one night, she wants to savor it.
Sam looks up.
He’s watching her, eyes nearly black. The term smolder must’ve been created for this exact moment. His expression burns her from the inside out. He puts his hands against the wall on either side of her head, caging her in every way possible, body, mind, spirit. The intensity of his gaze overwhelms her. There’s a dare buried deep inside that look, a silent challenge, as if he’s giving her one last out. She flattens her tongue against his pec in response and glides it all the way up to his throat. He slides his hands beneath her shorts and tightens them around her ass.
Suddenly, Cooper swings them around.
Without the pressure of the wall against her back, she feels airborne, as though she’s being launched out of the real world and into some sort of a fever dream. She tightens her arms around his neck. His mouth finds her ear.
“If you won’t give me your lips, Sam, I’m going to claim every other goddamn inch of you before the night is through.”
Then she actually is flying. He tosses her onto the bed and leaps after like a panther on its prey. Her shorts disappear in an instant. Then his mouth is on her stomach, his scruff deliciously rough against her soft skin. Calloused hands find their way to her panties and pull them off. True to his word, he devours every bare inch of her skin, teasing her with his lips as they drift closer and farther then closer and farther from the center of her need. He licks her hip bone, kisses her inner thigh, works his way over her knee and down her calf to pull her fuzzy socks dramatically off with his teeth, earning a laugh. She knows exactly what he’s doing. Trying to drive her wild and it’s working. Luckily, she’s always been the sort to give as good as she gets.
As he makes another taunting pass along her lower abdomen, Sam grabs him through his pants. He jerks with a groan. While he’s distracted, she hooks her legs around his hips and flips them so she’s the one on top. Then it’s her turn to strip him. She works his pants slowly down his thighs, momentarily distracted by the rather impressive bulge on display beneath his boxer briefs as she runs her fingers softly over his muscled thighs. The idiot still has his cowboy boots on, so his pants bunch around his ankles. He tries to kick them off but it’s a no-go. So she hops off the bed and yanks at the heels in what has got to be the least seductive pose in the history of sex, but gets the job done. He’s practically cackling by the time the second thud sounds. Her lips curl. She’s determined to make him pay. But right as she fondles elastic, he sits up and wraps his arms around her back, pulling her tight to his chest. Her arms go instinctively around his neck. He grins up at her as she arches a brow.
“I wasn’t finished yet, cowboy.”
“Too damn bad, darlin’.”
He pulls her breast into his mouth. She grinds her hips as he works his magic, that point of pressure growing harder, wetter. The desire mounts within her. At some point he flips them so she’s on her back, but she’s too far gone to notice. He works her with his fingers, then his mouth. For every move of his, she mounts a counterattack. It’s like a battle, each one fighting to gain more ground. The first time she cries out, it’s a concession. He growls against her skin.
“Say my name.”
“Cooper.”
“Like you fucking mean it, Sam.”
She arches her back as stars dance across her eyes. “Cooper!”
“Good girl.”
He’s focused, relentless, making her scream his name again and again, until it’s no longer a surrender but a plea to keep going, to not stop, to give her more and more and more. When he sinks himself deep inside her, she finally understands what that look in his eyes was before. Not a dare, but a promise. To make this night count. To break down her walls. To wreck her for anyone else.
And dammit, that’s exactly what he does.