Page 82

“Baby, I know.” He lowered himself over me, his chest against mine, his stomach against mine, and angled his tip at my entrance.

As he pressed himself inside, I cried out. With pleasure, with pain, with hope, and everything in between.

“Magnolia,” was all he said, shuddering over me as he carefully controlled his movements.

I wrapped my legs around his hips like he’d said earlier and brought him closer to me, deeper inside me.

He filled me in the best possible way, but even better was the way he held my gaze. He looked at me so lovingly, adoringly.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he said, increasing the rhythm of his thrusts. “You’re irresistible. Funny. Kind. Beautiful. Everything I could dream of having in my life.”

All these years, I’d dated men who found my flaws and had trouble seeing past them, but Rhett saw all of me. And loved me anyway. Tears filled my eyes, rolling down the sides of my face and dampening my hair. “Rhett,” I choked out.

He lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me, capturing everything I couldn’t say with our kiss.

And the intensity, the closeness, it broke something inside me, the last piece that was holding back from everything we could be.

The realization pushed me over the edge, making me come around him and cry out against his kiss.

Feeling me come set off his own orgasm, and he grunted against me, releasing everything he’d been holding back.

When all the waves had passed, he slowly rolled away from me. Once he removed the condom, he pulled me into his arms, holding me close against his bare chest, both of us spent.

He kissed the top of my head, his voice raw as he said, “I know I shouldn’t say it this soon, but I love you, Mags. I have since I was sixteen years old.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I held on to his arm draped across my chest. “I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to say that I forgive you. And that I love you too.”

He cupped my face, kissing my forehead.

Warmth spread from the point of contact, and I lay with him. Enjoying his warmth, this closeness, the feeling of his arm around me. I glanced down, noticing the black ink on his bicep.

“That’s new,” I said, nodding toward it.

He lifted his arm as if to check where I was looking. When he spotted the windmill tattooed in black, he said, “My siblings and I got that a couple years after I graduated. Gage and Dad had a big falling out, and Liv had this idea that we could get a sibling tattoo to remind him that we’d always be there for him.”

I ran my fingertips over the ink. “The windmill from your family’s ranch?”

“You know how windmills are always spinning in the wind?” he asked.

I nodded.

“No matter how much they move, they’re always there. Just like family’s always there for each other.”

I lifted my lips in a smile. “That’s sweet of you.”

“I can be sweet sometimes,” he said.

I blew out a small laugh.

“What was that?” he asked, mischief in his eyes.

“Nothing,” I said quickly.

He tickled my side. “Is that so?”

Giggling, I squirmed to escape him and rolled to his other side. He stopped tickling me, but I got a view of the surgical scars on his back, one on his shoulder, another on his neck, and one farther down his side.

It felt hard to get air. “Rhett, what are these scars from?”