“I want you to leave the poor man alone,” I say, settling comfortably in his embrace. “It’s not his fault the wrong person saw us.”
“No, I know it’s not his fault. Just like it’s not ours for getting the picture done. But still, the wrong person did see it,” he rasps, and the tortured emotion in his voice hurts my soul. “I didn’t think things would end up like they did. Always with that bastard dead because I went after him, but never with you being taken. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize sooner that the fire was because of him. I’d have left everything in Dalton’s hands and raced to find you if I’d known.”
“Oh, Warren, it’s not your fault either.” I slide my hands up his chest and to the roughened stubble on his cheeks. “Do you hear me? You’re not to blame in this. OnlyMontgomery, and we made him pay the price.” He sighs and leans into my touch. The oddity of me being the one to offer consolation instead of the other way around doesn’t escape me. But I love being able to console him. “I couldn’t see much on the way in, but how much damage was done?”
“Minimal.” As the word leaves his lips, he nips at my fingertips. “I’m sure he wanted it to be more, but we stopped it in time. Mostly because of the rain. Now that was an unexpected boon because I could’ve sworn there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day long until the fire started going.”
I still, mind racing at the irony of our different experiences with the rain. The very rain that I railed at God about when Emmaline and I were drenched was also salvation for Warren.
For our home.
Could this be a unique coincidence, or…?
I glance up to the ceiling.This doesn’t mean I believe in you. One good deed doesn’t justify the hell you left me to go through alone. But…just in case…thank you.
Warren’s heated breath hits my neck as his hands grip my waist and trail tenderly upwards. “God Almighty, but you don’t know the agony I felt when I got back to the house and you and Emmaline weren’t there. That a fucking son of a bitch had stolen you from me. It was like my heart and lungs had been ripped out of my chest, and I couldn’t breathe for the pain.”
The prickly stubble on his cheeks scrapes my palms as I stare into his tormented eyes. “I do know. Being forced away from my home…unable to hold my baby girl to comfort her. Wanting to scream to you to turn around and see we were being taken away while also just wishing with every aching beat of my heart that I could kiss you one last time. Just one…” I kiss the corner of his mouth. “Last...” The other corner. “Time…”
“I don’t like last times,” he growls, voice dropping to a deepness that gives me chills before his lips claim my mouth in a searing kiss that awakens every tired part of my body. Everything we want to say is poured into this unspoken exchange between soulmates.
“No more last times.” I slide my hands to the back of his neck when our lips part.
“No more,” Warren rasps, holding me as if I might disappear. “I need you, wife. But if it’s too soon, I can wait. If you need to rest. Or if you want to just talk, we can do that.” Even as the offer leaves his lips, his hips buck against me in protest.
“I need you, too. I don’t want this night to end with the memory of seeing him and touching him. Only one man.” I breathe his oath into his mouth, and he utters a filthy curse into mine as I undo his trousers. “You’re the only man I love. The only man I ever want to kiss. To touch like this.” I fist his thick shaft, loving the perfection of this part of him. If I thought his curse before was filthy, this one is outright obscene.
His lips slam down onto mine, and we shuffle backwards to the sofa. “I don’t know what to do with you, woman. Don’t know whether to be easy and lovinglike with you or if I should quit holding myself back.”
“Don’t hold back. You always put me and my needs first. You give and give and give to me, and now you deserve the same.” I pump his thickness the way I know will have him throwing his head back with pleasure. “This night could have ended so very differently. I want you to make me yours all over again. Give me everything.”
His eyes darken, blazing into mine as his fingers dig intomy hips. “Everything? Oh, you’re going to feel every inch of me inside you for days. Every time you take a step, every time you sit down, you’re going to think of me and this night. But not until I’ve had my fill of you first.” I close my eyes as his head dips down and lavishes hot, languid kisses over the neckline of my dress.
“Wait.” I somehow come to my senses. “The children! What if Sullivan wakes up?” After what he saw with Montgomery, it might traumatize him beyond just walking in on us.
Warren presses his forehead to mine as he tries to catch his breath. “Fuck. I’m gonna start building rooms for him and Little Bit tomorrow. But for now, we’ll just have to make do.”
A thrill courses through me when he sweeps me into his arms and carries me outside. “Your trousers are still undone!”
“Not going far.” His answer is pained and short.
And he’s right. He brings me to where the perfect beam of moonlight bathes the back of the house. Here, we’re out of sight of the bunkhouse, even though it’s in the distance, but still within earshot of the children.
When my shoes touch the muddy earth, he drops to his knees, rucks my dress up, and hitches my left leg over his shoulder. He doesn’t waste time with soft, slow touches. No, he’s a man who knows what he wants, and what he wants is his mouth between my legs.
I moan his name, threading my hands into his hair and holding on for dear life itself as he ravishes me as if he’s never tasted me before. My hips move of their own accord, seeking the pleasure that only my husband can give. Every sensation, every emotion, is amplified by the thought of how close I came to a life without him.
Warren adds in two fingers to stroke me inside, laughing low and deep against my wetness when I shiver at the pressure. “That’s my good wife,” he says when he comes up for a breath. His fingers never stop mimicking what I know his cock will do before the night is through. “No one ever gets to touch this perfect pussy except for me. And no one gets to look at what’s for my eyes only, do they?”
“No,” I whimper in complete and utter bliss before pushing his head back down. “Only you, only ever you. A million times over, only you. Now please make me come, husband.”
He growls his acceptance against me, and within minutes, my hips are bucking against his face as he takes me to the highest peak of pleasure. My mouth falls open, and when I realize the low, wanton sound is coming from not him but me, I throw my forearm across my lips and ride the wave of rapturous bliss until spots dance across my vision.
“That was…that was…” Unable to form the rest of my words, I laugh in crazed delight as I lean my head back against the house. Everything is right in my world now. Our children and dog are safe and asleep, and my husband just made me see more stars than are present in the beautiful night sky.
“Just the beginning.” Warren eases my shaking leg down and licks my essence from his lips as he rises. The moonlight adds a dangerous edge to his shadowy form, and my heart thumps wildly at the sight of his arousal. This isn’t the fumbling charmer who’d never touched a woman before he married me. This is a man who intends to possess me, body and soul. And I know he’s going to make good on it.
Without giving me much time to catch my breath, he bats my dress out of the way and picks me up. “Hold on.”
