He ignored me. Hell, he didn’t even pause. Slow hands made their way up the inside of my trembling thighs. When he touched me intimately, my body jerked from the contact. He worked his two thick fingers back inside me, slow and deep, and lapped at my swollen clit with his tongue.

My heart stalled as my knees locked into position around his head and my hands fisted his hair. I think I even whimpered a little.

He stopped momentarily. “Darlin’, I’m not going to have any hair left if you keep pulling it all out.”

Closing my eyes, I let go of his hair and breathed out a sigh. “I need you to stop for a moment.”

“Uh-uh,” he said, nipping into the flesh of my right thigh and sending sparks through my central nervous system.

I started to move off him, but he gripped my hip with his free hand. “Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?”

“Stop, please. Just for a second.” Reluctantly, he released me and let me move off him. I turned around quickly and mounted him again, climbing astride his shoulders and situating myself over his mouth in the opposite direction. “If you don’t want me to pull all of your hair out, then you’re going to give me something else to hold onto,” I said, taking a firm hold of his manhood.

He released a guttural groan and swore under his breath. “Christ, Anna.”

I smiled at the strain in his voice and pumped his throbbing length in my hand, working it with the same pace as his tongue. I took in the planes of his body and nibbled on his stomach, giving him love-bites that left teeth marks. When his body stiffened, I considered apologizing for them. But his erection grew stronger in my hand and I got the message: no apology needed.

The sounds of his grunts delighted me as he dug his heels into the mattress. The vibrations his mouth provided sent me into overdrive, and my hips swiveled in circles, grinding into him as he continued to coax me to euphoria. Fingers here. A nibble there. Tongue everywhere.

When the blinding orgasm he facilitated hit me, I dropped my mouth over him and swallowed him whole. His hand shot downward and clasped my head, his fingers twining in my hair, as he tried to deter me from my mission.

“Anna…God… You need to stop. I’m about to—”

The only answer I gave was firmer suction as I took him deeper into my throat. I knew he tried not to thrust, but he did a little, anyway.

Quivering beneath me, Cowboy gripped the back of my thighs to steady himself as he vocalized his completion in grunts and groans and let himself go.

I came out of the bathroom swaddled in a robe with my wet hair wrapped in a white towel on top of my head. Cowboy still lay on the bed in all his blatant nudity while already sporting another massive hard-on. I shifted my eyes away, but my face flushed. “Oh, I guess I thought you would’ve gotten dressed by now.”

He chuckled. “Can’t seem to get past that shyness, can you?”

“I’m trying,” I said softly, keeping my back to him.

“Turn around, Anna.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Come on, darlin’. I want to see your pretty little face.”

“Fine.” Begrudgingly, I did as he asked, but kept my gaze above his waist. “There. Happy now?”

He grinned wide. “Sweetheart, if you keep twisting your fingers in your robe like that, you’re going to break them off.”

I settled my hands at my side. “Sorry. Nervous habit.”

Cowboy shook his head. “I just don’t get it. Why does seeing me naked make you so nervous? You weren’t this jittery when you were sitting on my face a few minutes ago.”

I gave him a stern look. “Do you have to refer to it as…that?”

“Well, what the hell do you want me to call it? It’s what you were doing…and you liked it.” He licked his lips and winked lewdly at me. I rolled my eyes and wheeled around to return to the bathroom, but Cowboy shot off the bed and clasped his hands around my waist, turning me back to him. “All right, I’ll stop, I promise.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll keep saying things like that because that’s who you are.”

He smiled at that. “Okay, probably. But I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’m trying to understand how one minute you’re a sex kitten and the next you’re like a virginal blushing bride on her wedding night. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “I was raised by my stepfather. We didn’t really talk about sex, or anything else for that matter, openly. It was very much his household, and he never let me forget it, either. I always knew that the day I turned eighteen I would have to find somewhere else to live. That’s why I started working at the summer camp when I turned sixteen. I had to save money, but needed a job that didn’t interfere with school. When school started back up, I babysat in the evenings to help get me into my own place.”

Cowboy’s jaw tightened. “All because that bastard kicked you out?”

“I wasn’t his responsibility. After my mother died, he was nice enough to take me in and keep a roof over my head until I became an adult. It’s more than most foster kids get.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for him.” His voice lowered and his eyes narrowed. “What he did to you wasn’t right.”

“Maybe not, Cowboy, but I understood why looking at me every day was so painful for him.”

“Because you weren’t his?”

“No. Because I look just like my mother.” Lowering my head, I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. So I tried again and managed to find my voice, even if it was a little shakier than before. “I reminded him every day of what he lost, and he hated me for it. That’s part of the reason I spent so much time at the library when I was younger.”

“It was a place to hide out…from him?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I lowered my gaze. “Anything to make it easier for him to—”

“Goddamnit. What about him making it easier on you? You were just a kid.”

I glanced back at him and shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. My stepfather provided for me when I had no one else.” My voice cracked with the desperate need to make him comprehend the guilt and shame that overwhelmed me. “He lost someone he loved dearly—my mother—and it broke him, but he didn’t abuse me or anything.”

“Neglect is a form of abuse, Anna.”

I didn’t expect him to understand why my stepfather treated me the way he had. But since I was responsible for my mother’s death, I couldn’t blame the man for hating me. For years, I hated myself.

I sighed heavily. “I don’t want to talk about this. It’s in the past and it doesn’t matter anymore,” I told him, hoping to change the subject. “Why don’t you go hop in the shower while I run out and get my mail? I forgot to check it after you showed up yesterday, and I still have to get ready for work.”

He frowned, but didn’t press the issue. “I can go out and grab it for you, if you want.”

My eyes glanced up and down his nude figure and I plastered a grin on my face. “Not like that, you can’t.”

“All right, fine. I’ll shower, and you get the mail.” He leaned down and pressed a sweet kiss to the corner of my mouth and then turned and walked toward the bathroom, the muscles of his tight buns flexing with the motion. Within seconds, the water was running while he whistled a low tune.

I had a good mind to sneak over to the door and watch him soap up that magnificent, firm body of his, but thought better of it. Knowing Cowboy and his insatiable nature, he’d probably pull me into the shower with him and have me do it for him. Although it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a girl.

No, Anna. Damn it. Mail first. Otherwise the “male” will have his hands all over you making you forget…well, everything. I released a long, slow breath and headed for the front door. Being responsible and logical really sucked sometimes.

When I stepped outside, I squinted in the bright morning sun as I strolled across the yard to the end of the driveway where my weathered mailbox sat just off the road. I grabbed the stack of mail inside and headed back to the house, shuffling through the pile of bills and junk mail as I walked.