Chapter 9 #2
His lips parted under hers, the hiss of breath between.
Kyla slid both palms along his face, fingertips slick with his blood, feeling the steadiness of his jaw despite the tremor.
Her world contracted. The press of him, scent of livestock and dirt and man, and the unrelenting need to keep this, to keep him.
Titus growled.
Animal, greedy, nothing like the man who spoke in riddles behind doors. His grip wrenched tighter, hauling her clean off the dirt. Kyla’s toes barely brushed packed earth; she wrapped herself around his hip, legs in the air, skirt bunched, boots still dust-caked and proud.
The kiss stretched. The arena was a blur of heat and smartphone flashes, whistling, the distant voice of an old-timer who never believed a Black woman from away could have a home here. None of it made a dent.
His tongue brushed the cut at the corner of her mouth, wild and searching, insistent with need and relief. Kyla caught the salt of blood, the bark of his pain muffled in the touch of her lips. Every line of her shouted to the world.
His or not at all.
Applause broke like a tidal slap. Kids howled, a ranch hand’s whistle trilled. Titus broke the kiss with a gasp, pressed his forehead to hers, both breathless. He cradled her in the span of his hands, every line of him vibrating with exhaustion and triumph.
“Three thousand people,” she mumbled, throat hoarse, not quite mocking.
“Don’t care,” he gritted, his words a vow, a dare, a flag stuck deep in contested ground.
This was hers now. The hurt and the want, the way the crowd receded from everything vital.
Pickup men moved in with horses, dust rising in new waves, crowd thunder riding the arena fence. Titus didn’t step away from Kyla. If anything, his arm tightened, hand dragging her firm against his bruised ribs.
She took in his smell, a catalog of what it cost him to stay upright. Her fingers, steady now, slid beneath the hem of his vest, seeking out heat and hardness beneath the cotton.
She skimmed knuckles along the ladder of his ribs, counting beats under her palm. He hissed when she pressed at the worst spot, but gave her a dare with his eyes. Still here, still unbroken.
“You’re a damn fool,” she muttered low enough only he could parse, voice scraping rough with fear twisted sharp.
He let go a rough huff of breath. Equal parts laughter and challenge. “Yeah. Yours.”
Her thumb pressed over his heartbeat, searching for the rhythm she needed. Steady, stubborn, as if nothing on earth could kill what belonged to her tonight.
Arena noise howled outside, names shouted, but inside this too-tight huddle, she counted breaths, steadied her own against the wild thump beneath his skin.
She checked his side. Under her palm, a tremor ran along his thigh. He tried to step back, pride stiff in every muscle, but she braced her weight forward and forced him still. He grunted, shifting for balance, eyes half-lidded but never ceding an inch.
Titus let his forehead tip against hers, breathing her in, jaw slack, lashes blinking dirt and sweat away. His voice came bruised, like he’d burned it raw on her name. “M’fine. Let’s get out of here.”
She brushed her thumb once more under his chin, the gesture a promise and a boundary drawn deep. Someone called for EMTs. A flashbulb pulsed nearby, their image snapped for the county record. None of that scraped their bubble.
Kyla pressed her forehead to his, drinking the ragged breath from his lips, world reduced to dust, blood, sweat, and the relentless proof that he was still upright in her arms.
She closed her eyes. Stilled herself long enough to taste the beat of his heart through skin, bone, willpower. Here, even with the noise crashing outside, she made her claim in silence.
Titus’s hand locked around Kyla’s wrist and she let herself be dragged, boots cutting new lines through dust, her head ducked beneath the wash of noise that followed them.
Someone called his name but he kept his grip unyielding, limping but fast, refusing to let the crowd or the pain gain on them. They slipped past the outgate, over uneven boards, through a tunnel of scattered hay and empty beer cups.
Her heart ricocheted, sweat cold under her arms, the relief of hard ground giving way to adrenaline-soaked want.
The competitor trailer squatted at the edge of the field, a battered rectangle lit inside by a sick-white overhead. The AC clanged at them the second the door banged shut.
Kyla drank in the temperature drop. Her skin went goose-prickled under the thin cotton dress, nerves alight with the whiplash from spectacle to privacy. Titus pressed her against the wall, knocking loose a tray of spurs; they crashed to the linoleum unnoticed.
She ran greedy hands under his vest, tracing fresh bruises already blooming along his ribs. He grunted when she hit a tender spot, bit her ear in silent rebuke, then took her mouth in a hard, open-mouthed kiss that ground want and pride together.
Her hips arched toward him, shoving his hands down to where she needed him. He broke away long enough to yank at the hem of her skirt. He fumbled her dress higher, the fabric bunching above her hips, exposing skin gone hot to the air and cooler metal at her back.
Kyla hooked one arm around his neck, used the other to claw at his belt, the familiar western buckle sticking just enough to draw a curse between her teeth. She managed the zipper, the relief a hiss across his skin. His cock was already heavy in her fist.
Her hand trembled, but she lined him up, the tip wet, urgent. He caught her leg, pulled it high around his waist. The movement forced her against the mirror. She steadied herself, palm splaying, leaving a foggy print that marked her route.
He spun her, back pressed flat to his chest, ass to pelvis. She braced both hands above her shoulders, forehead thudding glass, hair half-unraveling from its knot. The cold felt criminal against her heated skin.
His free hand split her thighs. He thrust into her in one hard, slick stroke. Nothing slow or gentle. She gasped, half pleasure, half bright flare of ache.
Every nerve lit up. Him thick and unyielding, the pressure perfectly wrong, perfectly hers. Her hips jumped back against his, friction translating into a need that left no space for anything but the present.
Titus slid a hand around her waist, grip bruising. He jerked her higher, so both feet barely scraped linoleum, her knees shaking as he pounded into her. Each thrust sent the mirror clattering on its hook, the trailer rocking with their rhythm.
Kyla watched her own face reflected. Mouth open, brows pinched, eyes dark and wild. Sweat trickled down her throat, catching in the valley between her breasts, old lipstick gone, teeth scraping at her bottom lip.
He bent to her neck, bit at the spot below her ear, tongue leaving wet heat on sensitive skin. She whined, caught between praise and desperation.
“God, Titus. Don’t stop. Harder.”
He obeyed. Motivated when her voice lost its veneer. His breath painted the back of her shoulder. Their bodies smacked, slick and unyielding.
She met every snap of his hips with one of her own, skin sticking to glass, thigh shaking. A hand threaded over her chest, under her bra, rough and sweet. A palm squeezing just tight enough to court pain.
Her orgasm hit with the next thrust. No build, no warning, her body tightening and shuddering around him, voice breaking on a cry that was more relief than anything.
She clawed at the glass, fingernails screeching a ragged harmony to the distant roar of the crowd.
His name broke from her mouth, bitten and raw.
He lost rhythm, stuttered in place, clinging tight, losing every ounce of control he pretended to have left. He jerked inside her, face hidden at her neck, whispering her name in a hoarse, broken litany that would’ve been worship if either of them had a lick of godliness to spare.
She braced for collapse, lungs heaving, sweat flooding the bend of her spine, his weight sheltering her from everything else.
Their reflections ran together. His broad back, her narrow waist, streaks of fog and handprints marring the mirror. Kyla’s heart jackhammered, every aftershock sending little tremors into Titus’s thighs. Neither of them spoke, too busy clutching the proof of each other in that small space.
Then she turned in his grasp, hair falling loose, lips swollen. Pressed her forehead to his, every inhale sticky and ragged, said the one thing she’d never surrendered on anyone else’s ground.
“I’m not leaving.”
He answered with action. His mouth closed over hers, wild and desperate, his body sliding into hers once more, deeper than the last, as if he could put her claim into bone and sinew.
The crowd outside surged into fresh applause, Titus’s name echoing through a haze of steel and rodeo pride, but in the trailer, he belonged only to her.