A Photo Finish: A Small Town Second Chance Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 2)
A Photo Finish: Chapter 21

I’M HAVING AN OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE. I’m batting so far out of my league. Cole Harding is so fucking hot. I thought he was from that first day he came storming toward me in the winner’s circle. Older. Richer. Better looking. But the sight of his inky, disheveled hair between my legs is something else.

It’s primal. It’s delicious torture.

The way he wraps his arms around my legs. The rasp of his stubble against my inner thighs. That goddamn tongue.

I feel so small with him holding me open. So exposed. But not like last time. This time he’s here, and the way he looks at me—dark and possessive—makes my stomach flip.

I moan, making a sound I’m positive I’ve never made before this moment. A sound that would normally make me blush. But I’m beyond blushing. My entire body is on fire. I’m one big blush.

I roll my hips up toward his face, and he pushes back in harder, devouring me, propelling me higher. Tongue, lips, teeth, everything in perfect proportion. The man is a master.

“Cole . . .” I tangle my fingers into his dark hair and give him a gentle tug.

He pauses only long enough to pepper a few sweet kisses right along my inner thigh.

“Don’t stop.”

He chuckles, and it rolls across my skin like electricity. So deep and so private. Every time he laughs with me, shares that pleasure, it feels like more. He doesn’t just hand out laughs like they mean nothing. With him, it’s a true sign of affection. And I eat it up.

When he slides two fingers into me again and curls them just right, I fall apart.

“Cole!” My legs shake as I clamp them around his head, and my fingers twine in his hair, squeezing in time with the pulsing of my body. Pure heat surges through me as my orgasm overtakes me, making my back arch to its limits.

I swear I see stars.

But as I come down, I don’t feel boneless. I feel ravenous. I want more. I want to watch Cole hit that high. I want to see him come apart for me.

I want him inside me.

My fingers dig into his toned shoulders, trying to get purchase, but they’re clammy and just end up sliding over every muscle. “Get up here. I need you.”

He looks up at me from between my legs, lips glistening, eyes wide and dark like coal. “Violet, it’s okay. We can go slow.” He unwraps his arms and slides his hands up the top of my thighs, gaze flitting down to my pussy again.

I grab his wrist and pull him toward me right as I lean down and capture his mouth. He groans as my hands roam his shoulders. I can’t get enough of his shoulders. Big and round and broad.

Holding him close, I whisper against his cheek, “I think I’m done going slow. I’ve wanted you for long enough.”

With a deep growl, he grabs me as he pushes himself up into the chair and flips our positions. Now I’m straddling him just like I was last night in the forest shelter. Except this time, there’s nothing between us, and the length of him is pressing right against me. I can’t help but rotate my hips, to slide myself on him, to finally feel his skin on mine.

He stares at his hands wrapped around my waist and lets his gaze trail up over my body. “Lose the tank top.” His voice is all heat now. Any hint of uncertainty has fled his tone.

I pull it off instantly, not feeling shy about being completely naked in front of Cole. Not at all. I’ve been here before. I knew less about him then—less about the type of man he is. Because if I’ve learned anything in the last month, it’s that Cole Harding is a good man. Broken, and sensitive, and so fucking good.

I also didn’t have the benefit of seeing the way he’s looking at me right now, which is with pure awe. Unadulterated lust. Intense hunger.

“I don’t have a condom.” He doesn’t even look up at me as he says it.

I push up on my knees, hovering over his lap, feeling the head of his cock bobbing against my inner thigh.

“I’m on birth control. I don’t care. I want to feel you inside me.”

“Jesus Christ, Violet.” The pads of his fingers pulse on my waist as he lifts me to line us up perfectly. “I’m going to watch you take every inch,” he mutters as he lowers me back down down on him. I feel the stretch, the overwhelming fullness, as I glide down the length of his cock slowly, his fingers digging into me tightly. I gasp with the feeling. With the knowledge that he’s really inside of me. “Good girl. Every fucking inch.” With the brazenness of his words.

His voice is raw, and my nerves are frayed. I want him to undo me and never put me back together again. We both look down at where we’re joined. Nothing between us. Just the two of us. Together.

Finally.

His grip replaces my chin, and he kisses me roughly, with so much passion that it winds me. I taste myself on his tongue as it swipes into my mouth, and I move my hips in time with the pace he sets.

Every pass of his tongue matches the swivel of my pelvis. His spare hand roams my body, leaving a trail of blistering heat. I feel every ridge of him, every thick inch, as his hips buck and meet me, shoving his length into me with growing abandon.

We clash. We melt. We heal.

I don’t need poetic words or grand apologies from Cole. That’s not the man he is. Just this. Opening up to me like this—loving me like this—it’s how he shows me. The phrase actions speak louder than words has never applied to another human more aptly.

Cole Harding wouldn’t be fucking me like this if he didn’t care about me, and I know it. I feel like a queen writhing in his lap as he pulls his mouth from mine and drags it down my throat and over my collarbones.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers as he captures my nipple in his sinful mouth. His teeth graze, and I hiss. “And so fucking precious.” The flat of his tongue soothes the sting. And then he glances up at me, looking completely and utterly blown away. He looks like he’s worshipping at my altar in this darkened living room. His hands hover shakily over my ribs. “You are so fucking precious to me.”

I can’t keep my hands from fluttering over his face, my fingers from tracing that scar that cuts through his brow, as I look back down at him, knowing I’ll never want to let him go after this. “Don’t let me go this time.”

His throat bobs, and I think his eyes might sting, just like mine, as he nods back at me. “I won’t.”

“Good. Now make me come again.”

He moves hard and fast in me, gripping my hips and manhandling my body in the most dominating way. My thighs slap against his as he lifts me and slams me down on his length over and over again.

Perspiration dampens his chest, and his cheeks are ruddy when he puffs out, “Let me see you rub that clit, Violet. Come on my cock.”

My hand darts off his shoulder as I lean back a little. I think his words might be enough to push me over the edge, and all it takes is a few slick swipes with my fingers to have me hitting that crescendo again. Heat pools at the base of my spine as my orgasm roars to life.

“Cole!” I cry out just as that spot below my hipbones aches and the arches of my feet cramp up.

I collapse forward onto his chest, damp and spent, and completely at his mercy as he pumps into me a last few times, hitting every tender spot as he does.

And with one powerful thrust, he freezes.

He clamps his arms around me, caging me in as he holds on for dear life and pours himself into me.

Chest to chest.

Heart to heart.

A HOT BATH has never felt so good. Partly because my body is gloriously sore from the best sex of my life, and partly because I’m sitting across from the most deliciously sexy man I’ve ever known.

After our time in the living room, we were both a sticky mess. Boneless, breathless, sticky messes. I didn’t know what to say after sex like that, but I knew his stump was rubbed and sore from the spare prosthetic, so I got up and ran us a bath.

This bathroom has the best deep claw-foot tub. I thought it was big before, but looking at Cole sitting at the other end, it doesn’t look so spacious anymore.

Steam wafts up from between us. It smells like eucalyptus from the Epsom salts, which has the added benefit of being good for soreness—and for perfectly clear bath water.

And yeah, I can’t stop sneaking peeks at the monster between his legs.

Cole’s hands are wrapped around my calves as they rest across his thighs, and his head is tipped back against the tub, eyes closed. I am positively bursting with questions, but I also can’t stop admiring his body. It’s like a piece of art. A testament to long hours spent healing, adapting, and surviving. Living proof of his strength and resilience.

A goddamned treat.

My eyes wander over his leg, the one that ends just below the knee. The angry red scar at the end of the stump, the puckered skin all pulled together to close off the leg they couldn’t save. But mostly I stare at his huge dick. In fact, I have a hard time looking away from it.

Yeah, I’m perving hard, and I don’t even feel bad. The man looks like a well-hung Ken doll and he’s somehow magically into me. A scrappy ranch rat from a small cowboy town. Scrawny little Violet Eaton.

“Are you sure you haven’t had sex in years?” I blurt out, because I can’t reconcile this hot, rich, successful older man being interested in me or keeping it in his pants for years.

He doesn’t look up, but I see one cheek quirk and feel his thumb rub in a circle on my calf.

“I knew you had questions. It’s like I could hear the gears in your head turning.”

“I mean, come on. Look at you. You really mean to tell me you haven’t had sex since—” Ugh. I don’t even want to say her name. I’m jealous, and it’s so lame. “Since what’s-her-face took off?”

His shoulders shake on a silent laugh, but he still doesn’t open his eyes. “There were a few off the start. Random encounters with a stranger where I wouldn’t have to take my clothes all the way off. Like just bent her over and—”

“Okay. I’ve got the gist.”

He chuckles again and peeks one eye open at me and catches me nervously chewing on my lip. He knows I’m jealous, but he doesn’t call me on it; he just says, “All that taught me is that I don’t like casual sex.”

“Okay . . . but years? You could have anyone you want.”

He grunts. Like he doesn’t quite agree with my assessment. “Maybe I don’t want just anyone. I think I like being in a relationship. It’s probably why I rushed into an engagement before. But she didn’t want me; she wanted the idea of me. The status.” He sighs and sits up straighter. “You . . . ”

My heart lurches in my chest. I what?

“You stuck around when you knew nothing about me. Like you enjoyed my company or something—and no one enjoys my company. Not anymore. But you were like a moth to flame that knew it would burn them, eventually. Beautiful and innocent. And strong. And I was so fucking scared of letting you get too close, of opening up. But you never forced my hand. You just quietly made me need you…” He scrubs at his stubble with one hand. “And then you left, and I told myself I was right all along—that everyone leaves me. Until the universe laughed in my face and shoved you right back into my life.”

I let out a breathy laugh and blink rapidly, turning his words over in my mind. “It sort of did, didn’t it?”

“And then you were just yourself. You didn’t miss a beat. You came back for more. Forced me out of my shell. So relentless. So fucking consuming. It’s like you’ve seen all my darkest corners and don’t give a shit about them. You’re not scared. You don’t look at me like I’m tragic. You look at me like we’re inevitable.”

My throat aches, and my eyes go glassy. I look at him with a watery smile because I don’t trust myself to speak. What I don’t say is . . . that’s what scares me.

We are completely inevitable.