I’ll wait until the end of time just to be yours when you need me, I think, my heart pounding desperately in my chest.
But she isn’t going to make me wait that long.
Thank. God.
With a determined look in her eyes, she leans in and exhales just before her lips caress mine. As if she wants her next inhale to be me.
Her mouth is as soft and lush as I dreamed, plump and giving.
I groan into her kiss, unable to hide my reaction. But I don’t take over. I just hold on to her, being that anchor as she licks my lower lip, then smiles.
Not shy, not now. Now she’s kissing me with her entire being.
Tongue, lips, a little teeth against the corner of my mouth as she pushes deeper, asks for more.
And she can have so much more.
“Tell me what you want,” I rasp when she breaks off, just for a moment, just to gasp for air and tighten her hold on me.
The look on her face is incredible. Shocked and delighted, and then very, very bold. “Kiss me again.”
Don’t. Have. To. Ask. Me. Twice.
I shift my hold on her, scooping her body into my arms, lifting her against me, andGod damnthat feels right. She’s soft against every hard plane in my body, and my mouth is perfectly slanted over hers, allowing me to kiss her deeply and thoroughly and endlessly.
By the time I finish showing her mouth a very good time, I’m sure the entire province can hear my heart pounding. I ache for more, but it’s a good kind of ache, a deep longing that’s going to fuel me through however long her healing journeyis. Maybe she won’t want to take me into her body until after the baby is born, and that’s all right.
I know that when she’s ready, it’ll be the best we’ve both ever had, and I don’t need to rush to get there. We’ll do it one kiss at a time, because this woman is my future, my destiny, my everything.
She presses her fingers to her lips as I set her back on her heels and brace my hands on the bookshelf behind her. “That was…wow.”
“Wow is good.”
Her eyes dazzle, emerald orbs of delight as she touches my moustache again. “It doesn’t tickle,” she whispers. “But it does feel nice.”
“Excellent. Let that chase away the nightmares, okay? I’ve got you. Now go to bed. I need to take care of some things.”
She searches my face. I can see that she wants to ask me what I mean, but she also doesn’t want to break the spell of our kisses.
So I give her another one, soft and gentle. And then I walk her to the door. “Sleep tight, City Girl.”
I stand in the doorway and watch her disappear up the stairs, then listen to the soft click of her door.
Then I drag both hands over my face.
She's pregnant.
The trust it took for her to tell me that… Fuck. And she thought she was sharing it because she needed to explain why she had to run again.
She’s fucking run far enough.
As soon as she says yes, I’m giving her the name on the ranch gate, the name I chose at eighteen, and making this refuge hers in every way.
That thought is a sweet balance to the deep fury that roils in my gut—a white-hot, marrow-deep rage at the man who put his hands on her, put fearin her eyes, put a tracker on her car like she belonged to him.
Derek Hitchkoff.
I call my brother next.
