Page 40 of Desert Sky (RB MC #4)

SKYE

I should’ve left hours ago.

Should’ve climbed into Cal’s truck, gone back to the ranch, and buried myself under flannel sheets and memories that refused to let me sleep.

But I couldn’t stop watching him.

JD.

Lit by firelight and rage and tequila. Surrounded by women like a king holding court.

I’d spent all night pretending I didn’t care. Pretending I could flirt too, toss my hair, laugh too loud. Wear the leather leggings Regan lent me and the cropped top that kept riding up like it had a mind of its own. I’d pretended I was someone who could play the game.

But the truth was—I was dying inside.

Dying to touch him.

Dying to be touched.

Six years. Six long, aching, lonely years of nothing but cold beds and pretending that heartbreak wasn’t a living, breathing beast curled around my ribs. Six years of motherhood and fake names and folding tiny onesies while my mind stayed locked in that summer we broke.

Six years of missing him.

And now I was standing under the stars, watching him lean into a woman’s touch, his jaw tight, his mouth smirking in a way I knew meant he wasn’t really smiling at all.

I didn’t even think. Just moved.

Found him by the keg as he peeled off from the crowd, his eyes still burning holes in me from across the bonfire pit.

“JD,” I said, voice barely above a whisper as he came close;

He stopped.

Turned.

The weight of him hit me all at once—those eyes, that stance, the way he filled his jeans like sin and salvation. I was dizzy from it. From him.

We pulled me away without a word behind the clubhouse where up against a wall, we kissed like lovestruck teens.

“Can you just…” My breath hitched. “Just forget, for one night?”

His brows furrowed. “Forget what?”

“Everything. The pain. The time. The lies. The betrayals. Just… for one night. Can you take me to the old field?” I tried to smile but my heart was already cracking. “In your truck. Like we used to.”

His jaw flexed. He didn’t speak. Just looked at me like he could already see where this was going. Like he wanted to say no—but couldn’t.

And then he jerked his chin toward the dark road.

“Get in.”

We didn’t talk on the way there.

His truck still smelled like leather and dust and pine. The seat squeaked when I shifted. My thigh touched his. My skin tingled like it remembered every inch of him.

And when he pulled into the clearing—just like old times—the stars above looked the same. But we weren’t.

He turned off the engine. The air between us grew thick.

“Skye…” he started, but I was already crawling across the bench seat.

“Don’t talk,” I whispered, sliding into his lap.

He caught me, hard hands locking around my hips like he’d dreamed of this too. His breath stuttered against my mouth and then he kissed me like he wanted to punish me for leaving and thank me for coming back—at the same time.

I moaned into his mouth, grinding against the thick ridge straining against his zipper.

It was angry. Desperate. Fire in the dark.

My hands were in his shirt, yanking buttons, dragging my nails down his chest as he growled into my neck. “Fuck, Skye. I’m not—this isn’t safe. I don’t forgive you. Not yet.”

“I know.” My voice cracked. “I don’t care. Just—make me forget.”

He cursed. Shoved my crop top up, mouth latching onto my breast as he unzipped my leggings, tugging them down with a force that nearly tore them.

He shoved his jeans down just far enough.

And then he was there.

Thick. Hot. Hard.

Sliding into me like a damn freight train and I cried out, biting into his shoulder, because I forgot how full he made me feel. How he stretched me. Owned me.

My thighs quaked as he thrust up into me, one hand tangled in my hair, the other gripping my hip like he was trying to anchor us both .

“You think I stopped wanting you?” he growled against my skin. “Six years and you still feel like fuckin’ heaven, Skye.”

“JD—”

“I hate you,” he whispered, kissing the tears sliding down my cheeks. “I hate how much I want you. Still.”

I rode him like I was drowning. Like my body knew what my heart wouldn’t admit—that this man was still mine.

My muscles clenched, building, burning, until I shattered around him with a cry I tried to stifle against his neck.

He followed with a growl, spilling inside me with a final, desperate thrust, holding me so tight I couldn’t breathe.

When it was over, I stayed there.

Pressed against his chest, listening to the thump of the heart I broke.

Neither of us spoke.

But in the silence, I hoped.

Maybe, just maybe… he still remembered the girl I used to be.

And maybe… I could still be her.

Just for tonight.

The night was quieter now. The kind of quiet that only came after what we did.

The bonfires in the distance had died down to glowing embers, casting faint orange halos in the smoky dark. Curled tendrils of smoke lifted lazily toward a sky so wide and full of stars it made my chest ache. Somewhere, a motorcycle rumbled low, but otherwise the world was still.

Except for us.

I sat sideways in the passenger seat of JD’s truck, knees drawn to my chest, wearing nothing but his T-shirt over my underwear.

The scent of him—smoke, sweat, sex—clung to my skin like a tattoo.

His warmth still lingered on my thighs. I could still feel the echo of him between my legs, beneath my ribs, deep in my soul.

He stood a few feet away, his back to me, arms crossed, staring out at the desert like he was looking for answers in the darkness. JD wasn’t the boy I left. He was a man now. Broader. Sharper around the edges. But that posture? That silence? I knew what it meant.

He was unraveling.

I slipped out of the truck barefoot, the earth cool against my toes. The wind tugged at my hair, tangled and messy from his fingers.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” I said, voice barely louder than the breeze. “Leaving. I didn’t want to break you.”

He didn’t turn. “You didn’t just break me, Skye. You wiped me out. Six years. A ghost trail. Nothing.”

“I know,” I whispered. “And I’ll carry that for the rest of my life.”

He turned then, slowly, like it hurt to face me. And maybe it did.

His eyes met mine—burning, conflicted, unreadable. “I don’t know how to start again. I don’t know if we can.”

“We can’t just go back,” I said softly. “Too much is gone. Too much has changed.”

He stepped closer, voice low. “Then what do you want?”

I swallowed. “To start slow. Over. A first date. Dinner at home. A Little League game. Ice cream after. Family things. Quiet things.”

His brow furrowed. “You want a real relationship.”

“I want us ,” I said. “The real version of us that could’ve been, if the world hadn’t torn it apart. ”

He looked up toward the stars, hands on his hips, head tilted like he was praying or cursing or both.

“I don’t know how to trust you again,” he said finally. “And I sure as hell don’t know how to forget.”

I stepped in close, touching his chest, right over the heart I used to know like a second home. “Then don’t forget. But forgive me, JD. Let’s build something from the wreckage. Please.”

His hand came up, fingers curling around mine against his chest. “You make it sound so damn simple.”

“It’s not. But it’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

His jaw flexed. He was trying not to cry, trying not to feel. But JD never could stay numb around me. Not really.

His voice cracked. “What if I let you in again... and you leave again?”

“Then I’ll deserve whatever pain comes next,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not this time.”

He looked down at me, eyes flickering with fire and memory and something dangerously close to hope.

“I don’t want to erase the past,” I whispered. “I just want to build something new. Together.”

He laughed, bitter and raw. Then his voice turned quiet. “What if the coin flips?”

“What?”

He stepped in closer. His hands were warm when they caught mine. “What if I’m the one who walks this time? What if I’m the one who breaks your heart?”

My breath caught. I hadn’t let myself imagine that. I hadn’t prepared for that .

“Then I’ll take the risk,” I said. “Because you're the only risk I ever wanted. The only one that ever mattered. ”

He searched my face like he was trying to find a lie. Some crack in the truth. And he didn’t find one.

The wind kicked up a little, blowing strands of my hair across my face. JD reached up and tucked them behind my ear with a gentleness that destroyed me. His thumb lingered on my cheek.

“Start slow?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I breathed. “Start with pancakes.”

He let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “You still like diner pancakes?”

“Extra syrup. Always.”

His mouth brushed mine, light as a breath. And I felt it. The shiver. The remembering. The ache that never died.

He didn’t say anything more. Just held my gaze, nodded once, and said, “Then you’ll have breakfast with me tomorrow. But don’t expect more than that for now.

“I won’t,” I lied.

Because I would always want more. But for now, one morning was enough. One chance. One small crack in the wall I’d helped build between us.

In the distance, the last bonfire hissed into ash. He drove me back to the ranch we didn’t speak much. The sex was mind blowing as always but everything else was gray.

“This is certainly different— you dropping me off at the ranch.”

He cut the engine. “It never felt like home to me. But it does to Jackson. That’s what’s important.”

“Cal made this place about the work. The horses and cattle. Your parents made it about expensive furniture and status.”

“Night, Skye.”

“Breakfast?” I hated how desperate I sounded .

He shrugged, “I’ll come by in the morning we’ll all eat together.”

“Right,” I nodded.

I took the hint and exited the old truck.

He waited until I was inside the house. I watched from the windows until his tail lights disappeared.

He was coming back but to be with his son.

I was no longer the only star in his desert sky.

But I wasn’t about to use my son to win his father back either.

I wasn’t that kind of a manipulating woman.

I’d earn his trust with his heart and hopefully maybe we’d have more children someday.