Never is a Promise(36)
“You’re the notes,” I sighed, breathing her in. “The lyrics. The music. The paper. The ink.”
The wind played with her long hair, wisps tossing themselves in her face. We were all trying to get a piece of this beautiful woman. Me. The earth. Her fans. Her job. Everyone who’d ever come into contact with this fascinating creature had somehow dug their claws into her, and no one had the good sense to let go.
She pulled away from my kiss, resting her head flat against my chest. While the rest of the world saw an impeccably outfitted, successful woman with a dazzling smile who oozed grace and elegance the way most twenty-somethings never could, I saw a sweet-natured girl who’d been stuck in survival mode her entire life.
“Take me home, Beau,” she whispered. “I want to feel again.”
“Feel what, darlin’?”
“Everything at once. The way I used to when I was with you. I’ve missed that.”
I helped her into the car before hopping in myself and heading back toward the ranch. She stayed mum in the car, leaning her head against the cool glass and staring up at the starry sky through the glass roof of the T-top.
“You all right?” My hand found hers, resting on her thigh. I glanced over at one girl who epitomized a thousand feelings all at once.
Her lips curled slowly upward. “I’m fine. Honest.”
She flashed me a look – one I’d seen a hundred times before, and within minutes we’d arrived back at the ranch. Climbing the stairs to the porch, I reached for her arm, tugging her backward into me.
“Once we get inside that house, you’re all mine,” I warned, cupping her face.
Her blue eyes widened, locking with mine as she gave a slight nod. “You can have me, Beau. Tonight, you can have me. I won’t make any promises for tomorrow. But just for tonight, I’m all yours.”
She looked at me as if it was just something she had to do.
My body ached for hers as my lips found the soft flesh beneath her jaw as she tilted her head back. “I’m warning you, Dakota. Once I start, I won’t be able to stop.”
“Okay.”
One simple word was all it took for me to sweep her up in my arms. With her legs wrapped around my hips tight, I carried her inside with no intentions of letting her go until we were a heaving, breathless pile of naked bodies wrapped in tangled sheets.
Love is natural and organic in the way it moves. It breathes¸ softens, and decays. It spins and twirls, rocks and bends. It can be defined by one moment in your life or a million tiny ones. It can make your thoughts all jumbled and it can change everything you ever thought you believed about yourself.
Somewhere along the line, I’d thrown my bitterness out the window with reckless abandon. I’d grown tired of putting up a fight. I’d grown tired of festering hatred and resentment toward the only man I truly ever loved.
It wasn’t the alcohol at the bar, though that may have provided a little bit of lubricant for a complicated situation. But it wasn’t an act.
Matter of fact, I didn’t know what it was. It just felt like something I needed to do.
With my fingers locking around the back of his neck, I held onto him like my life depended on it as he carried me upstairs to his room.
Laying me down across the center of a sweeping, quilt-covered country bed fit for a king, he climbed over me. His hands finished unbuckling his pants as he pushed them down just enough to free himself in all his aroused glory. My hand found him, the warmth of his erect cock pressing against the smoothness of my palm and sending a burst of warmth to my core as I anticipated his next move.
He reached across the bed and pulled a condom from his nightstand drawer, sheathing himself before gripping the undersides of my knees and spreading my thighs. Sex with him back in the day was a bumbling mess of experimentation and exploration. This was a man who knew what he was doing; a sexually mature man with the power to liquefy my desire in two seconds flat.
“I’ve waited years for this,” he whispered while I ran my fingers through his dark hair. He gripped his cock and placed it at my apex, pressing inside me one tantalizing inch at a time. Beau lowered his mouth to my breasts, tugging down the fabric of my bra and capturing one nipple between his teeth before sucking and letting it go. My hips bucked against his, wordlessly urging him to keep going, though it seemed he had other plans.
As my fingers explored the satin-smooth brawn of his shoulders and trailed down the pulsing muscles of his corded steel arms, his mouth sampled every square inch of my body that lay within tasting distance. His triceps tightened with each thrust, and soft sighs escaped my lips in response.
“God, you feel so good,” he groaned, the speed of his movements picking up in intensity. Beau’s mouth was in limbo above mine, lowering himself and dipping his tongue between the crease of my lips. “I could do this all night long.”