Slow Burn Cowboy(36)

She had been poised on the brink for so long she had forgotten what it was like to feel anything else. She was lost in a haze unlike anything she’d ever known. But one thing was clear. As her hands roamed over the muscular body so close above her, she couldn’t deny that she knew exactly who it was.

She was touching Finn’s shoulder blade, dragging her fingertips down the line of his spine, moving her palm over his well-muscled ass.

It was Finn inside of her. Finn who had her strung out in sexual limbo, suspended somewhere between heaven and hell.

And when the tension inside of her finally fractured, splintered and shattered completely, there was absolutely no doubt that it was Finn’s name on her lips as she cried out her release.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SUDDENLY, THE LIGHT seemed too bright. He was the one who had insisted it be on. He stood by that. Because he would be damned if he was going to let Lane pretend it was some other man bringing her pleasure. Would be damned if he allowed her to hide from him when he had spent so long fantasizing about her naked body.

Oh yeah, he had wanted to see everything.

But now, in the aftermath of his release, it all felt a little too sharp.

All of his nerve endings were fractured, on fire. His orgasm had nearly blown his head off. Among other things.

This was a new experience for him. Wanting somebody for so long and finally having them. Lane was the only woman he had ever wanted for an extended period of time. Usually, he mostly wanted sex, not one woman in particular.

She was the exception. She always had been.

And now she was pressed against him, her full, soft breasts crushed to his chest, her thighs parted, cradling him inside of her body.

He flexed his hips lightly, the shock of pleasure assaulting him.

He looked down at her face. Her eyes were closed, her chin tilted upward, as though she was resolutely not looking at him. But there was a smile tilting her lips upward.

He lifted his hand, brushing her hair away from her eyes, then let his fingertips drift down her face. He stroked her lower lip, like velvet beneath his touch. Her eyes fluttered open then, a glassy, dazed expression in them.

It hit him with full force, like a horse kicking him in the chest.

He moved away from her, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

She didn’t say anything, but a moment later, he felt a hesitant touch against the center of his back. He didn’t react. He was still trying to catch his breath.

For the first time he questioned himself. He wondered what the hell he had been thinking. What he had hoped to accomplish with this. Because one thing was certain, sleeping with her hadn’t dealt with his desire for her.

All he wanted to do was kiss her again. Sink into her body again. Again and again and again.

This hadn’t even been a Band-Aid to put over the throbbing, insistent desire he felt for her. Nope, it hadn’t done a thing to lessen it at all.

And when you slept with your best friend, you kind of had to know the end game. With other women, Finn knew the end game. Sex a few times, and then a mutual parting. He didn’t deal with ex-lovers, and if he ever did, it was easy. Done in passing, and without any difficulty because both of them had dealt with their need for each other. Were likely satisfying that generic need with other people.

His need for Lane had never been generic. It had always been specific. It had never been about sex. He could be sleeping with another woman and still be caught off guard by how beautiful Lane was. Occasionally get stabbed, deep and low in the gut when she turned to smile at him in the sunlight filtered through her dark hair, illuminating it like some kind of halo.

Which had always seemed somewhat ironic to him since the thoughts he had about her were anything but angelic.

What was wrong with him? He had finally gotten the one thing he’d wanted for years, and he didn’t feel any closer to satisfaction. If anything, it had opened up to a deeper, darker and even more fathomless cavern of need inside of him.

He felt like the world’s biggest jackass. Sitting on the edge of the bed, having experienced the most explosive sexual encounter of his life—and brooding, instead of reveling in his physical satisfaction and his conquest.

He didn’t feel like Lane was a conquest. Maybe that was a problem. He felt much more conquested than anything else.

He got up and walked into the bathroom on unsteady legs, disposing of the condom. He looked up at his reflection in the mirror and wanted to punch it. He had thought—because hell, he’d wanted Lane long enough—that being with her would be the resolution to something.

Instead he felt like there was something large lodged in his chest keeping him from breathing.

He walked back into the bedroom and looked at her. She was still lying down, naked and sleepy looking. Soft and warm. “You okay?” He didn’t know what else to say, but that seemed like a caring angle to take.

He slid back into bed beside her, his gut going tight as he did. Getting into bed with Lane, bare-ass naked, was not a usual occurrence.

She nodded slowly. “Yes.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you?”

There was no good answer to that. So he leaned forward, then wrapped his arm around her waist, shifting his weight and bringing her beneath him again. “That’s a complicated question.”

Her cheeks turned red. “Is it?”

“Do you mean am I satisfied?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. But, are you?”

“Not by a long shot. I have a feeling it will take more than once to accomplish that.” For some reason, as soon as he said those words, some of the tension in his chest eased. Maybe that was the problem. He wanted more. And as he sat there on the edge of the bed, he had seen himself plunge right back into the hell he’d been living in for the past decade. Wanting her, but not wanting to push her.

Because once wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be. He knew that.

What he didn’t know was whether or not she was going to retreat back inside of herself again. Whether or not she was going to try and put distance between them. It was her modus operandi and they both knew it.

But he wasn’t having that bullshit.

“We have all night,” she said, brushing her fingertips against his face.

A night. Yeah, right. She was trying to control it. Trying to put a limit on it.

Hell no.

He curled his fingers around her wrist, drawing her hand forward and kissing her palm. Not an innocent kiss. The pressure was firm, and he darted his tongue out so that he could taste her skin. It didn’t matter that it was only her hand. Every single part of her was a sensual delight. A feast he intended to sate himself on for as long as he could.

“You think tonight is going to do it?”

She wiggled. He was hard again already. All of Lane Jensen, every soft, supple inch was pressed up against his body. Damn, it felt good.

“Something has to,” she said, her tone laughably pragmatic given their positions at the moment.

“What if it doesn’t?” Might as well ask the question.

“I don’t know.” She frowned, a wrinkle appearing between her brows. “Can you not be on top of me when we talk about this?”

He moved his hands down to her ass, squeezed her tight and drew her up against his arousal. “Are you sure about that?”

She gasped. “I’ll take What is I can’t talk with my best friend’s penis pushing against my hip for five hundred, Alex.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“Unless you want delicate appendages to be in jeopardy...”

“Your flawless game show metaphor leads me to believe that your brain is working just fine. Perhaps even too well.”

“I need...” She wiggled out from under him, moving up to the top of the bed and sliding beneath the covers. “Just for a second.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, rolling to the side and getting up from the bed. He moved back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.

The color in her cheeks got darker. “I’m also not sure I can talk to you while you’re naked.”

“You have a lot of rules.”

“I’m making them up as I go. Sadly, there is a dearth of rules for how to handle having just had sex with your best friend.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dammit. I had sex with my best friend.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Aren’t you going to...get dressed?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

She clearly wasn’t, but he wasn’t interested in making her feel comfortable. He wasn’t interested in cutting the tension that stretched between them. He knew it was what she wanted. But she wasn’t in control here. He didn’t have to give a wide berth to her denial. Not anymore. He had spent long enough doing that. But now? Now he had been inside of her.

He wasn’t interested in games now.

“I’m going to tell you some things, and they’re kind of personal,” she said.

“This is kind of personal,” he said, gesturing to his naked body.

“You are such a guy.”

“I think that’s very evident at the moment.”

She laughed, flopping onto her back, covering her face with a pillow. “You are ridiculous right now. Aren’t you supposed to be serious and making bedroom eyes and whatever else you normally do after sex?”

He pushed off the wall, moving back toward the bed. “Well, I can’t do what I would normally do after sex. Because this wasn’t normal sex.”