Page 87 of Second Chance Saloon

His teeth nipped the skin below her jaw.

She moaned. “You’re torturing me, Mitch from Portland.”

“Answer the question and we’ll keep going.”

“I could snap your dick in half, you know that?”

He grinned. “Ah, but you enjoy it way too much. What would we do, then?”

She huffed. “Good point.” Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “I was going to say slow and tender, but now you’ve worked me up so much that if I don’t come, and fast, I’m going to explode. So, rough and fast. Please.”

He took her lip between his teeth, biting on it. “See, wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

Jackie didn’t get a chance to respond as he captured her lips in a searing kiss, tension flaring through his veins. The way he wanted her, always …

It was the worst way; it was the best way. There was nothing that could compare to the feeling of their bodies and souls joining together.

He drove into her core, rough and fast, as promised. With every thrust, her moans grew louder, melting his own restraint note by note.

The orgasm washed over him right after she came, her body softening around him.

For a long moment after, neither of them said anything—they just breathed, still connected, still one. Whenever they came undone, it was like a new stitch was added to the tapestry of their love, weaving their souls into a masterpiece.

A shrill sound pierced the air, morphing into a series of high-pitched piping notes.

Their heads snapped up.

Mitch blinked, unsure if he was hallucinating. “Are these—?”

“Bald eagles,” Jackie whispered with reverence. “How …”

The rest of her question was drowned in the eagles’ call as their talons linked, wings and bodies flapping and tumbling through the air, in a cartwheel display.

Mitch’s hold tightened on her waist as they watched the rare sight of two magnificent birds mating for life.

As if Jackie could read his mind, she put her head on his shoulder, not taking her eyes off the sky. “Like we are,” she whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Jackie

Fending off concerned texts from both of her parents, followed by the Brooke’s Plains ranch’s group chat, from which Colt refused to remove her, Jackie threw herself into work as a distraction.

Fred threatened to call one of his many acquaintances to help pull all the photos off the internet. Sharon admonished him that it’d only make things worse. Kit wrote that him and Colt could go to Lionel Webster’s next show and throw tomatoes at him; this one Jackie wasn’t sure was meant to be in solidarity with her or Mitch, but she chuckled to herself all the same. Even Mimi sent a text, something she still hated doing, simply saying: I knew that boy was a keeper.

What was Jackie supposed to do with that?

She folded another gold linen napkin into a neat arrangement and put a Swarovski crystal snowflake above the plate. Stepping back, she admired her handiwork on the last six-person round table. This wasn’t something she’d normally do but she welcomed an opportunity to clear her head after the paparazzi ambush an hour before.

Everything in the ballroom gleamed and sparkled. The sheer opulence of gold and white, mixed with green eucalyptus leaves, would stop anyone in their tracks.

Jackie hoped the happy couple and their guests would be pleased.

Did Mitch’s wedding look anything like this?

Her heart stuttered; her lungs paused mid-breath. It must’ve been because she was upset on his behalf regarding the whole ordeal, that was it. Despite missing him to varying degrees over the years, she knew that chapter of her life was closed. She needed to think that, with her brain trying to prevail as her heart started weakening its resistance. The hug in the barn had lowered her barriers. The kiss in the cenote vanished them. Seeing his scar. Those damn photos floating all over the internet. Hearing he kept in touch with Lyla, all these years …

She swallowed, unexpected tears stinging her eyes.