Chapter 7: Claiming His Mark
The silence after the text vibrated through the sunny kitchen. Derek, oblivious, scooped up the last of his eggs. Sabrina’s appetite vanished. Cheyenne. The offer had come in a phone call three days prior—a modern, well-funded clinic, a significant salary bump, a city with art house cinemas and Thai food. It was everything she’d thought she missed. She’d asked for time to consider.
She hadn’t told Derek. They weren’t there yet, were they? And now Jo knew. Of course she knew. Small towns had their own brutal internet.
“You ready?” Derek asked, his voice pulling her back. He’d cleared the plates and was watching her, a faint line of concern between his brows. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just tired,” she said, forcing a smile. The lie tasted bitter. “Let’s go see this ranch.”
The Livingston Ranch was a twenty-minute drive from town, down a winding gravel road that cut through rolling hills of golden grass. It wasn’t the sprawling empire she’d pictured. It was modest, weathered, and beautiful. A white farmhouse with a sagging porch, a red barn that listed slightly to the east, a series of corrals holding a dozen head of cattle and a few dusty-looking horses. The air smelled of sun-baked earth, manure, and wild sage.
“It’s not much,” he said, killing the truck’s engine. The quiet was profound, broken only by the distant low of a cow and the whisper of the wind. “My granddad’s place. I’m holding onto it by my fingernails most months. Rodeo money keeps the roof on.”
He showed her around with a shy pride that was entirely new. This wasn’t the bull rider, the arena god. This was a man showing her his roots, the calluses on his soul. The barn was cool and shadowy, smelling sweetly of hay and old wood. He pointed out his first saddle, small and worn, hanging on a wall. He showed her a placid gelding named Gus, apologizing for the state of the fences.
It was in the barn that the distance she’d felt since the text finally snapped. He was being open, vulnerable, and she was a closed book, a secret ticking in her chest.
He leaned against a stall door, watching her stroke Gus’s nose. “Something’s eating you, Sabrina. It has been since breakfast. Was it last night? Did I…”
“No,” she interrupted, guilt sharp in her throat. “It’s not you. It’s me. This.” She gestured vaguely at the barn, the ranch, the sprawling emptiness outside. “It’s a lot.”
His expression closed off, just a fraction. The confident mask slipped back into place, but his eyes remained wary. “Right. The city girl.” He pushed off the stall. “Come on. I’ll show you the view from the west ridge. Might be more your speed.”
They drove to the highest point of the property in silence. The view was breathtaking, a panoramic sweep of land meeting endless sky. He stopped the truck and they got out, the wind whipping her hair. He stood beside her, not touching.
“This is what I fight for,” he said, his voice almost carried away by the wind. “Every time I get on a bull, it’s for this. To keep this. It’s stupid and dangerous and it’s gonna break my body one day, but it’s mine.” He turned to her, his gaze intense. “What do you fight for, Sabrina?”
The question was a grenade. She fought for independence, for a career, for a life that made sense on paper. She fought against the gravitational pull of this man and this hard, beautiful, inconvenient place.
“I don’t know anymore,” she whispered.
He saw the turmoil. He misread it. He saw her pulling away, and the primal response from the parking lot surged back, channeled now through a lens of hurt.
He closed the space between them in one long stride. His hands came up, cupping her face, but his grip was firm, demanding. “Look at me.” She did. His eyes were stormy. “You’re mine here, too. You understand? Not just in some fucking truck bed. Here. On my land.”
“Derek…”
“Say it.” His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “I need to hear you say you’re mine.”
The command, the raw need beneath it, shattered her last thread of resistance. The secret, the future, it all blurred into a now of desperate, physical truth. She could give him this, even if she couldn’t give him answers.
“I’m yours,” she breathed.
It was like releasing a dam. A growl tore from his chest and his mouth crashed down on hers. This kiss wasn’t an apology or a exploration. It was a conquest. It was hot and deep and tasted of coffee and desperation. He walked her backwards until her shoulders hit the warm metal of the truck, the hood hard against her lower back.
He made quick, rough work of her jeans, yanking them and her panties down to her knees in one forceful pull. The chill of the air on her exposed skin was a shock, followed by the searing heat of his hands palming her ass, lifting her. She fumbled with his belt buckle, her fingers clumsy, until he knocked her hand aside and did it himself, freeing his thick, rigid cock.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he ordered, voice ragged. She did, locking her ankles at the small of his back, denim binding her own legs together. He didn’t wait, didn’t tease. He guided himself to her entrance, already wet for him, and drove up into her in one brutal, stunning thrust.
“Fuck!” she cried out, her head knocking back against the truck window. The angle was deep, punishing. He filled her completely, a sharp, stretching invasion that melted almost instantly into a blinding wave of pleasure-pain.
“This is where you belong,” he grunted, pulling back and slamming home again. Each powerful thrust rocked her body against the truck, the metal groaning in protest. “Right here. Taking my cock. On my land.” His words were filthy, meant to brand her from the inside out.
She was helpless, suspended, utterly claimed. All she could do was cling to his shoulders, her fingernails digging into the hard muscle beneath his shirt. Each plunge pushed a choked sound from her throat. The wind whipped around them, carrying the scent of their sweat, her soft cries, his guttural curses.
“You feel that?” he snarled, his pace becoming erratic, a frantic pounding. “You feel how deep I am in you? That’s where I’m staying. You’re gonna come all over my cock and you’re gonna remember this. You’re gonna remember you’re fucking mine.”
His crude words, the sheer animal physics of him using her body against the truck, tipped her over. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and blinding, a silent scream tearing from her lips as she clenched around him in vicious pulses. It was too much, overwhelming, and she buried her face in his neck, sobbing from the intensity of it.
Her climax triggered his. With a final, wrenching thrust that lifted her off the hood, he came. A raw, broken shout was torn from him by the wind as he emptied himself into her, his body shuddering, his arms locking around her like iron bands. He held her there, impaled and trembling, as the last jets of his release flooded her depths.
Slowly, the world came back: the sound of the wind, the ache in her back from the metal, the warm, slick feel of him still inside her. He gently lowered her until her feet found the ground, but her legs buckled. He caught her, holding her up against the truck, his forehead pressed to hers. Their breathing was ragged symphony.
“Sabrina,” he whispered, the fight gone from his voice, leaving only a shattered exhaustion. “Don’t leave.”
It wasn’t a command. It was a plea. And in it, she heard the fear he’d been wrestling with all day. He knew. Maybe not about Cheyenne, but he knew she was a risk, a flight risk. She opened her eyes. His were closed, his long lashes damp. Seeing this man, this rugged, arrogant cowboy, brought to his knees by the thought of losing her, undid her completely.
The secret of the text became a crushing weight. She opened her mouth. The words I got a job offer were on her tongue.
His radio, clipped to his belt, crackled to life with a burst of static. “Derek, you out there?” It was his hired hand, voice tense. “We got a problem. That black baldy heifer’s down in the south draw. Looks bad. Might need the vet.”
The moment shattered. Reality, with its sick cows and decisions, came rushing back. He pulled away, his face hardening into its practical lines as he zipped his jeans. “You hear that?” he asked, his voice all business.
She nodded, pulling her own clothes up with unsteady hands. “I’ve got my bag in the car.”
He helped her into the truck, his touch now clinical. As they bounced down the ridge toward the emergency, Sabrina stared out the window. The intimacy of the act still pulsed between her thighs, but his plea echoed louder.
Don’t leave.
And Jo’s text, a silent timer, glowed in the dark of her pocket.