Free Marry Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) by Lilian Darcy Page A

She grabbed at him, feeling her breath shorten into impatient little pants. No time to waste. They both wanted to get to the heart of it.
    He wanted to get to the heart of her , and he did, as soon as he’d rolled the condom on. He made it smooth and slippery with her own moisture from his fingers, then lifted her against his body. She wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck and he slid into her right where they were standing, and it took about three minutes for them both to climb to the top of the wave. He bucked into her, grazing her breasts against his chest, filling her full to aching point. Breaking point.
    The wave broke for both of them at the same time, and the shuddering groan that built deep in his chest joined with the moaning sound that tore out of her. They were trying to be quiet, believe it or not. She ground her mouth into his shoulder to keep herself under control... well, her voice under control. He did the same, burying his sounds in her hair.
    “Need to put you down,” he said, as soon as they settled.
    “Sorry.”
    “No. Don’t be.” He softened his hand against her jaw, the caress incredibly gentle for the short moment it lasted. “Shoot, you weigh nothing.”
    “This was definitely not romantic,” Tegan said. And yet she felt shaken to the core. She felt changed.
    New.
    Awakened.
    As if life had started all over again and gone off in a whole new direction.
    Jamie looked at her sideways. “Real question, though - was it good?”
    “Ohh, yeah!”
    They grinned at each other again, satisfied with themselves, feeling awed and amazed and sort of guilty about the possibility that maybe someone had heard and would be wondering who Jamie had in his trailer. “Bet they don’t guess it was you,” he said.
    “We’d be the hot gossip item of the whole circuit.”
    “You want that?” He gave her a sideways look.
    “Not really.”
    “Me neither.”
    But he didn’t say what he did want, and Tegan wasn’t sure either. All she knew was that she’d liked it, loved it, and that her feelings about Jamie bloody MacCreadie had turned upside down almost as fast as a rider getting flipped by a bull.
    She barely dared to breathe, barely recognized herself or the emotions churning inside. Everything seemed different. Everything. The slant of October sun through the window that needed cleaning. The sound of a horse being led past, outside.
    He began to reach for his clothing, then shook his head and blinked as if something had made him dizzy and he needed to fight it off. “I have to get going. Dawson will ride for me, I’m sure, if I can get hold of him.” He was already pulling his phone from his jeans pocket. “Horse isn’t going to get enough of a warm-up, though.”
    “Same here.”
    “Think we had a pretty good warm-up, though.”
    Another grin flashed between them, still full of secret amazement, and Tegan couldn’t think when she’d last felt this good.
    Which was weird, because this was Jamie.
    Forty minutes later, with champion tie-down roper Dawson O’Dell making him a more-than-capable partner, he and Faro shot out of the chute to chase down their steer. Tegan’s heart was in her mouth. She was proud, scared, aching for that strong, gorgeous, precious, denim-clad body so vulnerable out there.
    It was going to hurt watching Jamie ride rodeo from now on, she realized.
    He slid sideways off the horse, lay back and skidded across the dirt with his steer grabbed by the horn, and got it down in 3.8 seconds, a time that wouldn’t have shamed him at the National Finals. Then he jumped to his feet looking like a man who’d only just begun his day and who had a heck of a lot more planned. His belt buckle from a previous win gleamed at his waist.
    The crowd whooped and cheered, and so did Tegan. She was lightheaded with relief and pride and something else she didn’t have a name for. The place was full and the sun was out and she could smell hot salt and oil from the