“Sadie, I . . .” He reached for her, thinking to pull her off before he lost control, but his hands smoothed over her head and shoulders as she sank back down and took him deep again. He let go. She moved up an inch, he rocked forward, and let loose the reins on the last of his control. His dick pulsed in her mouth. She rose up, her tongue sliding up his whole length. She pulled his sweats back into place and collapsed on top of him, her head on his heaving chest.
“That one was to thank you for the one you gave to me,” she whispered.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Wild horses couldn’t have stopped me.”
“How the hell did I get this lucky?”
“You save her, you get to keep her.” Sadie’s groggy voice held a lilt of humor.
“Only if she’s you. You I want to keep forever.”
“Promise.” The word came out on a soft exhale, like she hadn’t meant to say it at all.
“Promise.” He wrapped his arms around her as she lay down his entire body. He kissed the top of her head, knowing he held the center of his world.
Her hands gripped his sides. “Don’t let go.”
“Never.”
He held her close, falling into sleep happier than he’d ever been in his life, and woke up alone, pissed and desperate to find the woman who righted his tilted world, brightening every dark corner of his heart, and made him love her.
CHAPTER 20
Rory sat up and swung his legs off the couch. He planted his feet on the floor and raked his fingers through his hair, remembering that he needed to get a haircut. Though maybe he’d leave it alone. Sadie sure did like running her fingers through it.
Sadie. Where the hell was she? After what they shared last night, he couldn’t believe she’d leave without a word.
“Hey, man, you’re up,” Colt said, walking in from the kitchen.
“Where is she?”
“When I came down this morning, she was sleeping on top of you. I hated to wake her. Looks like she didn’t get much sleep last night.” Colt wiggled his eyebrows, suggesting without words that Rory had kept her up late last night. He had, but he wasn’t about to give Colt the details, or let on that he was right.
“We had coffee together, then she went out for a ride.”
He imagined Sadie sitting at the breakfast table across from Colt wearing nothing but her thin white tank nightgown and nothing on under it. “And did you get an eyeful of her in her nightgown this morning?”
Colt held up his hands. “No. She ran upstairs, showered and changed, and came back down fully dressed and covered while I made the coffee. Chill, okay.”
“Sorry.”
“She’s like my sister, man. Get a grip.”
Rory stood and stared at his brother. “You mean that? You think of her like a sister?”
“She’s your girl. It’s not hard to see how much you love her. I figure it’s only a matter of time before you make her a part of the family officially and all.”
“Did you finally ask Sadie to marry you?” Ford asked, coming down the stairs.
“Finally?” Rory couldn’t believe his brothers’ acceptance of his relationship with Sadie, though why he was surprised, he didn’t know. They’d given him grief about other women he’d dated. Women they didn’t particularly like. They seemed to take to Sadie right away.
“You’ve been staring at that girl from a distance for years,” Ford said, like it was common knowledge.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Every time we go to the diner we sit across the room from her section. You sit with your back to the windows so the only view you see is her. The question is, why did you wait so long to ask her out?”
“She’s a lot younger than me,” he pointed out the obvious.
Colt and Ford stared at him with nothing to say.
“Colt went to school with her. I didn’t know her at all.”
“I never dated her, man. I hardly spoke to her at school growing up. She took care of her family, worked, and kept her head down in class. She was brainy, not exactly the party girl I went for back then.”
“Back then,” Rory and Ford said in unison.
“Shut up.”
“So let me get this straight, you two are fine with me asking her to marry me after only the short time we’ve been seeing each other.”
“Intense situations lead to intense relationships,” Ford said. “You love her. She makes you happy. That’s good enough for me.”
“That’s all we want for you,” Colt added. “You smile when she’s around. You laugh.”
“You’re like the guy you used to be before Mom and Dad died,” Ford added.