Page 62

“Fuuuuuck,” he groaned.

My clit was still sensitive from my orgasm, and when he canted his hips to slide against me again, the shock of pleasure and pain made me gasp.

“Too much?” he murmured, and bit my lip.

“More,” I panted. That was always my answer when it came to Seb. I wanted more.

I felt his lips tilt up against mine. “I’ve got more.”

He pushed my knees wide and shoved into me with a hoarse shout, so hard and deep on the first thrust that my back skidded across the concrete floor. My hands went under his shirt and with the second thrust, I raked my nails down his back.

It only made him go faster. Harder. Sweat rolled down his neck and I arched closer to lick up the salty taste of him.

“You’re going to take everything I have to give you,” he commanded through gritted teeth. I whimpered my agreement. “You still want more?”

“Yes,” I managed to whisper. “More.”

I locked my ankles around his hips, tightening my legs. He pounded into me like he was trying to send my body straight through the floor, and for a moment I thought he might actually be able to do it. My back would be bruised and sore for days after this, but I didn’t care.

My nails dug in harder, my legs held him tighter. I matched him thrust for thrust, my hips bucking up to meet him, and he pushed me back down, his cock hitting every needy place deep inside me. And still I begged for more with ragged whispers and desperate kisses.

“Jesus, Lila,” he murmured against my mouth.

And then he gave me more.

Harder, faster, rougher, more. He drove into me, merciless with his own need, and I came hard, my teeth in his shoulder, my nails in his back. With a string of growled curses in my ear, he gripped my thigh with one hand and sank so deeply into my body that his cock bumped my cervix, and he came with a shout. We held still together, panting, our bodies still pulsing where we were joined.

I slowly became aware of other things. The hard floor beneath my sore back. Footsteps in the hallway beyond the locked door. Seb’s heartbeat against mine. Gently, I stroked his back where I could already feel raised welts forming.

He let out a long exhale and his whole body relaxed against mine. He rolled slightly to take some of his weight off me and dropped his face into the hollow of my shoulder. His eyelashes tickled my neck when he blinked.

For a moment, it finally felt like enough.

25

SEB

“All right, the options for dinner are frozen pepperoni pizza with a gluten-free crust, or quinoa pasta with jarred sauce and parmesan cheese.” Lila opened the fridge and peered inside. “There’s some broccoli in here. We can have that for an appetizer with the hummus.”

I sat on the armrest of the sofa, watching her bustle around the kitchen. “The pizza is fine. You want me to cut up the broccoli?”

“No, no, I’ve got it.” She pulled out the dark green head, tossed aside the plastic bag, and moved to the sink to rinse it off. “Why don’t you grab a beer and enjoy the evening on the porch? I can handle dinner.”

Her back was to me so she couldn’t see my expression, but I raised my eyebrows anyway at her blatant attempt to get rid of me. “I’m good right here,” I said, because I wasn’t in the mood to be gotten rid of.

“Oh. All right.” She had the nerve to sound disappointed about it. But half a breath later, she was back to that fake chipper tone that set my back teeth on edge. “You know those photos I took of the calf weigh-ins? I spent the morning going through the SD card and doing some quick edits. There are some really good ones in there. I sent Emma some options for the social media accounts and the website. She thinks it would be fun to do a bloopers post. You know, all the moments that went wrong. The calf that grabbed the back of your shirt. Clay rolling right off his horse’s shoulder.”

She kept going like that. She had taken hundreds of photos, and now she was settling in to describe every last one in detail. I sighed. Lila hadn’t stopped talking since we’d gotten our clothes back on. She’d yapped my ear off about grizzly bear hibernation and followed that with a deep dive into the best gluten-free desserts. My input was entirely unnecessary to either topic, and I suspected she’d selected them for that very reason. Because if she let me get a word in edgewise, I might shift the conversation to what had happened in the tack room.

Or I might ask her why the hell she had filed for divorce now. We’d already been in this separated-but-not-divorced limbo for three years; why not wait three more? Give me more time to find the right words, the words that would make everything better. She had only just come back into my life. Would it be so bad to stay a little longer?

I couldn’t ask that.

If I asked that, she’d remind me that I was chickenshit and had frozen solid both times we’d had this conversation—and that wasn’t counting the one time we should have had this conversation and hadn’t, because I’d run away like the chickenshit coward I was.

Not talking was probably a good thing, actually. She was doing me a favor.

“Lila,” I said.