Slow Burn Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  No, familiarity had never been on the menu. So he had vastly underestimated just how erotic that might be.

  To know the woman he was kissing. To know the way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way her nose turned red when she cried during sad movies.

  When all of that knowledge collided with everything he didn’t know, it about lit him on fire. About made him embarrass himself then and there. And when she slid her fingertips down his face, traced the line of his jaw, he thought his cock might bust through the front of his jeans.

  He knew so much about Lane. He probably knew her better than he knew anyone. But he hadn’t known how it would feel to be with her like this. Not until this moment. Hadn’t known that she would sound like a little unsatisfied kitten when he slid his tongue along her bottom lip. Hadn’t known that she would arch into him and roll her hips forward like a needy, greedy thing when he slid his hand down her back and farther still to cup her ass.

  He didn’t know what she looked like naked. He’d only seen tantalizing glimpses of pale skin over the years as she wore a bikini, as she wandered around her house in cutoff shorts and ratty T-shirts. He had wondered. The mysteries of her body had kept him up at night. What color her nipples were, how soft that thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs might be.

  Yeah, they were friends, but there was a hell of a lot he didn’t know.

  And he was ready to uncover all those mysteries. To peel her clothes off, spread her legs open, look his fill, taste his fill, bury himself so deep inside of her that he would know every damn inch of her.

  And she would feel every damn inch of him.

  He slid his hands to her hips, gripped her hard, pulled her up against him so that she could feel just how hard she made him. He wanted her to know. He wanted her to ache the way he did. Wanted her to want him in the same way.

  His gut felt hollow with the need he had for her and he wanted her to feel that way too. Wanted her to know that the only person who could ever fill that empty space in her was him.

  Maybe it wasn’t fair to do this to her when she was vulnerable, but he was past caring. Because she was right. It was done now. They had kissed. And there had been a chance that their lips would meet and nothing would ignite between them; that possibility had always existed, even though he had thought it unlikely. But now he had proven there was plenty between them. That she felt it too. And there was no going back.

  He slid his hands upward, pushing his fingers beneath the hem of her shirt, feeling the bare skin of her back between his palms, growling when he felt just how soft she was. It was a helluva thing, to touch her like this after so much thinking about it. After all that fantasizing.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe he was a little bit of a jackass. Going to her house late at night, eating dinner with her, playing the part of devoted friend, then going home and imagining her when he got into the shower with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.

  He had tried his best not to do that. He always tried his best not to give in to his fantasies about her when he was left aching and unfulfilled. But more often than not it was a losing battle.

  But this wasn’t a late night spent sleepless, being inundated with erotic images he knew full well he shouldn’t indulge. This was real. And it was better than anything his brain had conjured up.

  It hit him then that they were standing in the middle of Ace’s parking lot about to violate a few public decency laws. And while Finn was on the brink of not giving a damn, he figured that Lane might.

  “We should go,” he said, his voice low, rough.

  She took a step back and froze, her eyes wide, and for a moment he thought she would balk again. But then she slowly nodded, and she took his hand and led him toward her car.

  * * *

  LANE QUESTIONED HERSELF no less than one hundred times as she drove down the highway that would take them to her house. Finn didn’t say anything, and neither did she. She wasn’t sure she could have. Right now, she was torn in two. Between the desire to turn around and take him back to his truck, and pull over quickly so they could just get all of this over with. On the side of the two-lane highway, for all the town to see.

  The sooner that happened, the sooner everything could go back to the way it was. At least, that was what she was telling herself now. As for the rest... The ache between her thighs, the restlessness inside of her, the feeling that she was being squeezed in a vise, pressed in on all sides and about ready to implode from the enormity of the feelings she had at the moment... She was going to ignore it.

  Because she couldn’t sort through it. Couldn’t articulate exactly what it all was.

  She just kept driving. In lieu of any revelations, that was what she would do.

  They made it all the way to her house without anything happening. Without Finn calling it off, without her losing her nerve. Without a white light shining down from the sky and blinding her, effectively stopping their progress. Any of those things would’ve been nice.

  But they didn’t happen. Instead, she parked her car in the driveway and they both got out.

  She had walked up her front porch with Finn any number of times, so many that the action was entirely unremarkable.

  Except right now. Right now the familiarity was weighted with something else. With this sense of the unknown that she had never associated with him before.

  Still, she swallowed hard and unlocked the front door, letting them both in. He followed her inside and rested his hand against the light switch.

  “Don’t,” she said, her heart lurching into her throat.

  He paused, turning to look at her. She couldn’t see his expression, and that was how she wanted it. How she needed it. This was inevitable—she knew that now. But she wanted... She wanted to keep this moment separate from real life somehow.

  To keep Finn, the most important person in her life, separate from Finn, the man she had nearly climbed like a tree in the parking lot at Ace’s. The man she was about to take to her bed. Yes, she needed to keep those men separate from each other. And once they got through this, once the sexual tension between them had been resolved, they could go back to the way things were.

  She needed that.

  More than anything she needed to ease this tension between them, the tension that had begun to build weeks ago, the tension that was not even completely his fault because it had started somewhere before he had taken her in his arms in her shop.

  “Don’t turn the lights on?” The question was asked softly, but there was an edge of danger to his voice. And she couldn’t entirely predict what he might do next. Mostly because he had been committed to being unpredictable for the last couple of days.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I haven’t... I haven’t been with anyone in a while. So I’m a little nervous.” She was lying about being nervous for that reason. She hated herself for it, even while she remained committed to the lie. “And I’m not really up to doing the looking-at-each-other-naked thing.”

  He moved to her, closing the distance between them. Then he brushed his knuckles along her cheek, the touch gentle. She still couldn’t see his face, but she could sense that he was looking at her intently. And even though she knew he couldn’t see her any better than she could see him, she looked away. Because she was ashamed for doing this again. For using carefully placed truths to try and place a wedge between the two of them.

  For taking that trust between them and twisting it to suit her ends.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice rough, the words pouring through her like honey. “And such a liar.” She didn’t get a chance to respond to that because he dipped his head, brushing his lips across hers, the touch as gentle as his voice and carrying that same edge of danger.

  It left her feeling dizzy, dazed. But when the fog cleared, she responded. “What do you mean?” It was a stupid
thing to ask, because she knew she was lying. But she wasn’t going to admit it unless he hit the nail on the head first.

  “You want to pretend it isn’t me. You want to pretend so that you don’t have to admit that I was right. That I could make you want me.” He grabbed hold of her chin, just like he had done earlier. “I’m not going to let you do that, Lane. I’m not going to let you have me while you hold me at a distance. I’m not going to let you pretend that I’m some other man getting you off.”

  Heat blasted her cheeks. “That isn’t what I was doing.” And that, at least, was true. She didn’t want to imagine he was someone else; she just wanted to blunt the intimacy of it. Just wanted to be able to look back on tonight and not have mental pictures of it. Clear and present images of Finn’s hands on her body. Of what he looked like naked. She wanted to be able to look him in the eye again when all of this was said and done.

  “I told you I was gonna make you beg for me. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Make you beg. But it’s going to be for me—you’re going to say my name. And you’re going to look me in the eye while I slide deep inside of you. Do you understand?”

  He said it so casually. That was what got her. That it wasn’t in a stranger’s intense tone, but in that voice she knew so well. The voice of her friend, the man she had been so close to for so many years.

  But were you close to him? He didn’t know anything about your past, and you didn’t know this. That you wanted him like this.

  She shut off that pesky inner voice. Pushed it away. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about any serious implications. All she wanted was for him to kiss her again. For him to touch her again. She wanted to screw her eyes shut tight and block out everything but what she felt.

  “You’re not just going to get this over with, understand?” he asked.

  That simple statement enraged her. That he had read her so well. That he knew what she was doing. That he wouldn’t allow her to make him a stranger for this moment.

  No one else would have known her ulterior motive. No other man would have called her on her BS. She knew that for a fact, because none of them ever had. There hadn’t been many. She’d had just three relationships in the past decade, and all of them had been casual. Because she had kept them that way.

  But already her relationship with Finn was anything but casual. He mattered. On some days, he felt like damn near everything. That was what made taking this step so deadly. That was what made all of this so sharp.

  And if she wanted to blunt some of that edge, who was he to try and force her to feel at all?

  “Why?” she asked, her whisper fierce. “You’re getting what you want. Why shouldn’t I have a little bit of what I want?”

  “That’s not how this works. I want it all. Or I walk out the door. But you need to ask me to stay because you want me, Lane. Not because you’re trying to keep me from leaving. Not because you’re trying to blackmail me into doing what you want. Into being what you want. I already told you, I’m not your pet.”

  “I know you’re not,” she said, pain welling up inside her and flooding outward. “I never said you were. I don’t know why I want this,” she admitted helplessly, the words spilling from her. “I don’t know why things couldn’t go on the way they were, because it was so much easier. It was so much better. I don’t know why I can’t seem to put this back away. It feels like things inside of me are cracking open, and all of this stuff that I just don’t want is taking over.” She hadn’t meant to be that honest. Mostly because she didn’t see the point. Not when it felt like rambling. Like some kind of verbal approximation of the desperation that was going on inside her.

  “Because it’s not new,” he said, his voice confident. And then he slid his hand back over to the light switch and flicked it up. Light flooded the room, washed over them, revealed that lean hungry look in his eye that made him seem much more like a predator than like her friend.

  And she knew it revealed her too. All the uncertainty, all the desire.

  They were both still fully clothed, but as it was, she felt like they might as well have been naked. That was when it hit her, how embarrassed she was to let him see that she wanted him. To let her friend see her like this, overcome with sexual desire.

  Because whatever else was happening inside her, that was no small part of it. She wanted him. And whatever the deep, complex reasoning, simple need was definitely layered over the top.

  Sex was a clear line with friends. She might giggle and talk about it with the girls, but they didn’t see each other being sexual. And Finn... Well, she didn’t talk about it, and she didn’t let him see her as a sexual person.

  But that veil had been ripped away. Like everything else, longer ago than she wanted to admit.

  Her face felt hot, and she knew that her cheeks were flushed, that he would be able to see just how turned on she was. Her breasts felt heavy, and she had a feeling her nipples were totally visible through her shirt, since she was wearing a bra that didn’t have much in the way of padding.

  And normally, she wouldn’t worry about something like that in front of Finn. But now she did. She was afraid she always would.

  He was looking too. And he didn’t make a show of acting like he wasn’t. His blue gaze was hot as it roamed over her curves, as he slowly examined her. Then he raised his eyes from her breasts and looked right at her. Which was even worse. She felt her cheeks get hotter still.

  Even more disturbing than him seeing her as a fully sexual being was her seeing him that way. As a man in every sense of the word. Not just with a vague knowledge, not just checking out his muscles on a dock by the lake, but as a man in every way that counted.

  A man she was going to touch. Taste. Have inside of her.

  For a moment she considered running into her room and locking the door. Or taking the slightly more grown-up approach of telling him to leave. Telling him this wouldn’t work.

  But in the back of her mind she kept hearing what he’d said earlier. That it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. She knew he was right. If she sent him away, she’d be left with hot coals burning inside of her that would be stoked the moment she saw him again. They would burst right into flame the next time they brushed against each other. And they would be back to this. To the push and pull, to the futile resistance that was just so pointless.

  He released his hold on her, letting his fingertips drift down the line of her neck. She closed her eyes, shivered. And then he grabbed hold of her shoulders, turning her away from him. She gasped as he wrapped one arm around her waist, pressing his palm to her stomach.

  He drew her hair back, exposing her neck completely. The gentle tug naturally tilting her head to the side. Then he bent his head, pressed a hot kiss to her delicate skin.

  Everything in her went tight. The breath in her lungs, her stomach, her core.

  She curled her fingers into fists, held herself steady as he kept his mouth on her, then, after a moment, lightened the pressure, tracing on down to her shoulder with the tip of his tongue. The heat, the chill that he left behind, made her tremble.

  “You don’t have to be afraid,” he whispered. “It’s only me.”

  But that was what made it scary. She didn’t have the ability to say that though, because she didn’t have the ability to say anything. Right now, all of the words inside of her, all of the language, had evaporated. Her thoughts weren’t made of language anymore. She was comprised entirely of feeling.

  He put his hand on her stomach, bringing her back into his body, the hard press of him against her a sensual shock that made her internal muscles pulse with need.

  He gripped her hips with both hands before bringing them up to her waist, then higher still to cup her breasts. He growled then, a low, feral sound in his throat that spoke of a deep, masculine satisfaction that echoed inside of her.
Called to a purely feminine part of her that wanted nothing more than to meet his needs. Those needs that she had created.

  Suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so weak. Instead, she felt powerful. And as that strength washed over her, she was able to fully appreciate the wonder contained in the fact that Finn Donnelly wanted her.

  He was...unquestionably sexy. The kind of man that women made fools of themselves going after. He could sell tickets to his bed, and he would have a line that rivaled any theme park.

  And he wanted her. Enough that he had detonated a bomb between the two of them. And now that she felt much more desire than anger, she could appreciate that.

  It made her feel... Well, it made her feel something much more than broken.

  And that was much rarer than she would like to admit.

  Suddenly, he whirled her around to face him, his blue eyes intense. It hit her, square in the chest. The force of his need. His need for her.

  It touched a place inside of her that she tried to ignore was there. A raw, needy place that she tried never to fully uncover.

  She realized that for them, sex wasn’t separate from their friendship. It was actually much closer to it than she had realized. Because for the past ten years he had made her feel like she might be worth something. Like she mattered. And being with him intimately was like that. It just reached deeper.

  It was the deeper that was terrifying.

  But more terrifying right at the moment was walking away. Not finishing this. Disappointing him when he was looking at her like that. Like she was all he needed, even more than air.

  Nerves skittered to her stomach like frightened creatures, and for a moment she was tempted to run. And so, instead, she wrapped her arm around his neck, stretched up on her toes and claimed his mouth with a kiss.

  His response was immediate. Incendiary. He parted her lips roughly, his tongue delving deep, tasting her like she was the best dessert he’d ever had. She wanted nothing more than to do the same. So she did. She shut everything out. All of the fear, all of the uncertainty as she clung to Finn and gave in to the desire that had existed in her, dormant, but very much there.