Page 97

I laugh; it’s breathy. I kiss him. “I can’t get pregnant.” He stills for a split second before I add, “And you could be covered with syphilis and you’d still be given access.”

He responds by way of pressing all of him against all of me. And while everything has been frantic and urgent, everything now is like we’re moving through honey. Every touch slow, every move on purpose. Our flavors on our lips come together to make a taste that is so very distinctly us.

“You ready?” he asks, so sincere—so consuming—once again it’s hard to breathe.

I nod from beneath him, tilt my hips at the same time there’s a hitch of his, and he’s in. Stretching. Making my fingernails dig into his back.

“God, Scotty,” he groans as he moves between kisses. “You feel so damn good.”

I pull my mouth from his to watch where we connect, falling into an erotic trance of him. Us. The tension working the muscles of his arms and neck as he hovers over me. The movement of his chest and stomach as his spine undulates all of him in and out of me. The light from the window as it paints his silhouette.

It’s perfection. He is. Every damn inch of him.

Then there’s a shift; he’s close. His movements are less controlled with every thrust, and his jaw is in a permanent clench. Breaths shaky. His lids go heavy, dark in the dim light. And with the swelling pleasure building, there’s a familiar pang of desperate panic shooting through me I can’t ignore. I smash my mouth against his then push my palms into his chest. He pulls back butfollows my lead, repositioning himself behind me when I get on my hands and knees.

He stills, tracing his fingers down the length of my spine.

He sees.

Not now.

I look over my shoulder, and his eyes meet mine.

“No,” I demand. “Don’t stop.”

Hands at the crease of my hips, he nods and does what I need him to: holds me tight and fucks me hard. He slams me to the hilt, one, two, three more times, drawing all my attention inward to that glorious spot he’s hitting until I shatter with a cry, wave after pleasurable wave rolling through me.

He doesn’t stop. On the contrary, me hitting a peak prompts him forward with a new sense of urgency, amplifying every sensation as he drives into me. His fingers dig deeper into my skin and every thrust hits harder than the last until he finishes with a slew of sworn words that come off his tongue like a prayer. He empties, holding on to me the whole time, and we crash to the bed to the soundtrack of strangled breaths and soft laughs, two puddles of satiated bliss.

Grown man Ford Callahan absolutely lived up to every battery-operated fantasy I’ve conjured up about him.

On my belly with a sheet over my legs, I fold my arms under my cheek and face him. He’s on his back, one arm bent behind his head, the other resting across his chest, rising and falling with the cadence of his breath.

He looks at me, sexy smile on his talented mouth. “You’re louder than I remember,” he says.

“Really?” I hum, satisfied drawl in my voice. “You didn’t seem to mind.”

He rolls on his side, sheet draped across his beautiful body as he runs a finger up and down the music notes of my spine. The same as Zeb’s. The same as his. “You didn’t tell me about these.”

“Girl needs some secrets.” He makes an agreeable sound but says nothing, continuing the hypnotizing movement. “He ever tell you why he got them on his back?” I ask. He shakes his head. “He said, ‘Keep the things you love at your back and they’ll never break your heart.’”

He laughs softly. “That’s either incredibly insightful or terribly tragic.”

“That was him, right?” I say with a laugh of my own. “He probably just got a drunk tattoo and made that up later.”

He puffs a soft laugh, moving his fingers from my spine to my shoulder. “How long have you known you couldn’t get pregnant?”

“Umm.” I turn my head away from him, propping my chin on my folded arms, looking at the wood grain lines of his headboard. “I actually got pregnant once. A careless thing.” I clear my throat. “I got an infection and scar tissue kind of took over after that.”

His hand stills. “God, Scotty. I’m sorry.”

I force myself to look at him and speak around the boulder in my throat. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t have made any kind of mom, anyway.”

His mouth moves like he wants to speak, so I silence him by propping myself up and kissing him. When I start to pull away, hepulls me back, making it last longer. A sweet tangling of our lips and rubbing of our tongues.

“You’re more beautiful now than you were twenty years ago,” he says when we finally pull apart, his hands going to my hair.

I grin. “Liar.”