Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“I’ve underestimated you,” he says, voice rough and ragged as he pushes his fingers deeper, searching, wanting.
“You won’t make that mistake again, will you?” I groan.
He crushes his mouth back to mine just as I come apart around him. My nails dig into his shoulders and I try not to scream because there are other people on the ranch who don’t need to know exactly what we’re doing in here.
I come so fucking hard.
Slowly, so slowly, the world comes back into focus—the sound of the storm outside the barn, the smell of hay and leather—and Jensen is still kissing me like he never wants to stop. His hand finally slips out of my pants and wraps around my waist instead, pulling me close enough that I can feel how hard he is through his jeans.
I run my tongue along his lower lip and feel him twitch against me. It’s satisfying as hell knowing I have the same effect on him that he has on me.
Then suddenly it’s as if the lights in his eyes go out. The heated haze is replaced by something dark, something sharp.
The kind of clarity I don’t posses at the moment.
It’s a look like…regret.
10
AUBREY
Asharp knock pulls me from another nightmare of ice and blood. I bolt upright, heart pounding, wincing at the bruised feeling on my side. I lift up the hem of my top to look at the ugly red mark near my ribs. That actually happened. A motherfucking wild horse attacked me last night, trying to take a chunk out of me like some rabid wolf.
And that wasn’t the only thing that happened, I remind myself, which makes me wince once more.
The door sounds again, louder now, just as my head begins to pound in unison. Of course, my hangover is starting to kick in.
I carefully slip out of bed and put on the robe, still a little damp on the shoulders from the falling snow of last night, and make my way to the door. I peer through the curtains and see Jensen on the other side, looking as gruff and handsome as ever.
“You’re burning daylight,” he says as I open the door, all business. No hint of last night in his voice, no acknowledgment of how his hands felt on my skin, how his mouth had—
I shut that thought down hard.
“Storm’s cleared. Snow’s melting. Weather window looks good.” He gestures vaguely toward the mountains. “Time to get yourself ready. We’re heading out in an hour.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” His eyes meet mine briefly before sliding away. “The horse didn’t break skin, so you should be fine to ride. Though you might want to take some Advil.” He pauses, something passing in his gaze as if he’s reminding himself to care. “How are you feelin’?”
“Like I drank too much whiskey and got attacked by a rabid horse.” And then got fingered by a grumpy cowboy, but I keep that last part to myself.
“We can hold off on the trip if you want, give you another day to recover and get your head on straight.”
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m fine. We’re going.”
“Glad to hear it,” he says. “Not sure how long this latest weather window will hold. Best to take advantage while we can. See you at the barn in an hour.”
“I’ll be there,” I tell him, but he’s already stepping off the porch and heading to the barn.
I take a moment to watch him go and take in the surroundings. The sun is still behind the trees, but the air is soft and light, the sky a pale blue. Snow dusts the ground in the shadows, the eaves of the roofs dripping with melt. It’s hard to imagine what happened last night when everything feels so fresh and new this morning.
But it happened, I tell myself.
All of it did.
I just can’t make heads or tails of it.
I shake my head and start getting ready. My reflection in the bathroom mirror looks tired but determined. At least I’d had the presence of mind to stop things before they went too far last night. The last thing I need is to complicate this mission with sex, no matter how tempting Jensen might be when he’s got me pressed against a wall, his mouth hot on my neck, strong fingers pumping into my—
Focus, Wells.
But the problem is, if I’m not thinking about Jensen, I’m thinking about that wild horse. He had said that some of them are pretty feral in the area, but despite my fear of them (which is now at an all-time high), I know enough about horses to know that it wasn’t acting like a normal wild horse would. For starters, wild horses are prey animals, which means they’ll run away from predators at the drop of a hat, and like it or not, humans are predators. A horse would only act in such a vicious and violent way if it was defending itself, its family or the herd as a whole and that’s not what happened last night. Last night that horse was alone and it found me. It came for me. It’s like it was…hunting me.