“So that’s why I hate coming home to the ranch or stepping foot in Devil’s Bend proper. Running into Kurt and Travis today brought it all back.” I wipe the rest of my tears away with the back of my hand. “I wish I could prove they were the assholes. Duke doesn’t deserve to be mayor. None of them should be living their lives like they didn’t do a damn thing wrong while I was vilified. It makes me mad. It’s not fair.”
“Come here.” He rolls me up in his arms.
It soothes the tension from my body. Takes away some of the pain. He believes me. He’s never doubted me or tried to justify what happened. He’s only ever doubted whether I could see my forever with someone with his reputation. His past. I love him so much. I don’t need a ring on my finger to spend the rest of my life with him.
He kisses the top of my head. His breath warming my scalp. “You’re allowed to be mad. You should be mad. They should be forced to tell the truth.”
“Yes, but that’s never going to happen. I need to let it go somehow. Because I don’t want to avoid coming home to see my brothers anymore.”
We fall silent for a while. Telling him all the details has been cathartic. It doesn’t change that I will always hate Devil’s Bend, or at least the people in it, but holding it all inside felt like a vice. It’s like I’ve had this pressure building up inside me since we got on the plane to come here. He might have stopped me from boiling over. “Duke sent me a card.”
“When?”
“I found it on the kitchen counter this afternoon.”
“What did it say?” He holds himself still, waiting.
I burrow in, hoping he’ll soften around me. “He was trying to scare me. It doesn’t matter. We’ll be home in a few short days, and he’ll go back to being a distant memory.”
“What did it say exactly?” He strokes my back.
“That I shouldn’t have come back. I’m not welcome.” That if I didn’t leave, he would make me. I leave that part out, sparing him the rage I know would come.
“Fuck him.”
Easier said than done. If it weren’t for my brothers, I would never come back here at all. But their lives are here. Our mom is buried here. My nephew is growing up on the ranch that I loved as a child. These threats are something I have to weather. “I know. I’m okay.”
“Of course you are, kitten.” His fingers trailing up and down my spine is relaxing at first, but they skim my hip and set off tingles between my thighs. I tip my head back to find his hooded gaze locked on me.
That look always gives me fireworks.
He lowers his mouth and catches my bottom lip. His tongue dips inside as his fingers trace my spine and down between my ass cheeks. He keeps going until he finds the hem of the body suit.
I smooth my hands over the ridges of his abs, his gray cotton T-shirt bunching up as I go.
In between kisses he strips out of his flannel before reaching behind his neck to drag the stretchy cotton over his head and toss it aside. I hook a leg over his hip and rub my pelvis against the hardness behind the denim.
“Fuck.” It’s punctuated by a dirty groan.
I love that sound. The way he responds to me is delicious. Gripping the tab on his zipper, I tug it down slow enough to tease before curling my hand around his cock and stroking it. “You want me?”
“There is never a time when I don’t.” He nibbles at my mouth hungrily. “I’ve been killing myself trying to give you space. Now that you’ve made it clear I don’t have to, I’m aching to make up for lost time.”
“Do it.”
“You need to come?”
I grab his hand and put it between my thighs, where there are studs holding this bodysuit in place. “I need you.”
He figures it out quickly. He punctuates the unsnapping of each one with a teasing stroke against my clit and slips his hand inside the material as soon as it is loosened. “Fucking hell, no panties.”
His fingertips brush across my pussy. “If I’d known earlier...”
“I was wearing panties earlier.” Until I committed to dressing like this thanks to a couple of jackasses telling me to put on more clothes. Taking off my panties was an act of rebellion no one was going to know about, but with the way Rebel’s touch is igniting heat in my core, totally worth it.
I shove at the waist of his jeans, pushing them off his ass as he rolls me under him. Lining himself up, he thrusts into me.
I buck my hips and he slides all the way in, filling me.
