Love me ... Again (10 page)

Shaking I slump back into the barricade of his arms.

His shadow looms over me and even in the darkness I can trace the shape of his head and broad shoulders looming above me. It comes closer and the prickly scratch of his chest hair across my swollen nipples makes me groan in torment.

He swallows it, captures my lips in a kiss that’s the opposite from the delicate touch of his lips moments before. It’s hard and brutal. A hunger that drives into my mouth and ravishes the softest recesses of my tongue.

He groans as he pulls away from me, our lips unlock with a decadent plopping sound. He flips me onto my stomach. The soft flesh of my ass rams into the muscles of his carved thighs, he bends and dips a finger into me.

“You’re ready,” he grinds out behind me. . He bends and whispers in my ear, “I’ve wanted to fuck you like this since the first moment we met in Anatomy class.”

I gasp, reliving the shy, innocent smile he’d sent me as he’d reached across my table and introduced himself.

Lost in these first moments, a hiss of air escapes my mouth as he rams into me. I brace expecting him to surge deeper but he holds back.

Gripping my ass he anchors me as he pummels me with slow, shallow strokes that tease and cajole me. Greedily I strain back against him.

“Stop!” he snaps low at me, “I want this to last, I won’t be able to stop myself when I’m all the way inside you,” his finishes raggedly.

“No,” I insist and grind my ass back against him, “I won’t wait!”

He laughs, a wonderful deep sound of male dominance and contentment.  I whimper and he finally appeases me and slips a little bit deeper, spreading the sharp, growing burst of pleasure in a wider circle that starts to push outwards from the slap of his body into mine. The heat spreads and keeps spreading and all protests die on my lips. I disappear into a place where nothing matters but how good Jett is fucking me. Each rapid, hard thrust is all I want.

I start to scream, my face buried in the mattress, I clutch frantically at the sheets, needing something to hold onto to as I start to come apart. I burst around him, my heart hammering and I can’t feel my legs as I slump forward. Jett doesn’t miss a beat, he hikes up my pliant body and unleashes the rest of his strength, he sends me hurtling back onto him for unstoppable heartbeats until his own grunts start to grow. He throws his head back and a low growl fills the moist air all around me. Moments later he collapses beside me and instinctively we spoon

Time passes with no words, then he speaks so low I have to strain to hear it.

“Dammit,” he bites out behind me in the darkness.

My heart seizes. Sorrow dries in my mouth, his arms around my middle is still warm and slick with sweat from our lovemaking. I wait for him to say something else. Anything.

He doesn’t.

Minutes pass and his breathing deepens to sleep. I disentangle myself and turn in his arms. The night is still thick in the room but this close the lines of his face are clear shadows. I reach out tentatively and trace the line of his jaw. The rasp of his stubble graze my fingertips, I brush the strong, square expanse of his forehead.

“Oh Jett,” I cry, my throat tightens with sorrow. There is no doubt that he regrets what just happened between us.

I pull myself together with a supreme effort. I will not cry.  If this is all there is between us I will be content.  Leaning forward with all the gentleness inside me I brush his stubborn lips with mine, “I love you,” I whisper.

Chapter sixteen

I’m back in the moonlit meadow. And I know I’m dreaming because Colt is standing in front of me. A bouquet of wildflowers clutched awkwardly in his huge hands.

I run up to him and stop. There’s a scowl on his face and his golden eyes study me curiously, “What’re you doing here?” he asks softly.

“I don’t know,” I answer looking around at the dark trees and smelling the bittersweet tang of flowers under our feet.

He laughs, a hungry sound, “you made me the happiest here.”

He steps forward and offers me the flowers, I take them and bury my face in their silken petals, I pull their strong scent into my lungs and then look back at him and I start to weep, “You died and I broke Jett’s heart.”

He clears his throat roughly, “Yeah, we both screwed up.”

A wobbly smile stretches my lips, “You should see Teag, he looks like-” I trail off.

He groans but then a dry laughs comes from him, “No shit.  My son looks like Jett?”

Tears burn the back of my throat, “Yep,” I nod.

He takes a step towards me and the meadow around us begins to grow darker, the trees closer, he’s coming to me yet it looks like he’s moving away. He holds out a hand and there’s a fierce smile on his face, “don’t worry Ang. Don’t worry.”

His voice fades and the flowers disappear from my hands.  Startled I look around for him, “Colt! Colt!” I yell but I’m suddenly alone and suffocating.

I wake with a choked scream trapped in my throat, It comes roaring out. Teag whimpers and starts to cry.

Fighting to bite back my cry, I look wildly around. Light is pooling softly on the bed around me and …

I’m alone.

I jump up, wrap the sheet around my naked body. Throwing a look at Teag whose sounds are dying down, I rush out the cabin and run barefoot down towards the tent.

But emptiness greets me.

The tent’s gone. I stop short of the spot and just stare.

I don’t have to look for his horse.

Slowly I walk over the trampled earth where the tent had stood. I collapse to my knees.

Dawn in still rising around me, shards of golden sunlight pierce the dark green of the pine trees spread out below me.

I turn my face up into it. Feel the first hint of warmth on my cheeks.

Tears rise from my gut, fill my throat and pelt like bullets down my cheeks to die in the earth around my feet.

I stay still for a long time, letting myself cry. Because I just have too.

The sun is above the top of the pine trees when the last tears stream down my nose.

I blink and open burning eyes. I push myself to my feet and stagger back towards the cabin.

It’s totally silent. Teag has fallen back to sleep. Systematically I begin to plan my day. Take a shower. Tidy up. Leave.

I stare at the Native American baby carrier tucked in the corner beside the sink. My brows knit. I bite my lip hard to keep more tears away.

I can’t strap it onto my back, how will I ride back with Teag? Jett’s desertion sucker punches me. Slapping a hand over my mouth, I fly to the cabin door, rip it open and leap over all the steps to the ground.

Running down towards the overhang where Jett had stood the night before I can’t stop myself, I keep going right towards it and the green valley of pine hundreds of feet below.

I pull up at the lip, hunch over and let it rip.

I scream so hard, my eardrums explode in pain. And I keep screaming.

In some dim part of my brain, I try to stop but I can’t.

“STOP. You’re making my ears bleed!” there’s a good natured chuckle beneath the stern words.

I whip around, my mouth hangs open.

Jett catapults easily off the side of his horse, covers the several feet of space between us and drops to his knees in front of me.

He lifts my violently shaking chin with his fingertips, his blue eyes rove tenderly over my swollen, snotty face.

He lets out a deep breath, “I couldn’t leave,” he says simply.

“What?” I ask stupidly.

He takes my hand and brings my fingers to his lips, he drops kisses on my knuckles.

Tears glisten in his blue eyes which I’d mistakenly thought were like Marjorie’s, cool and unchanging.  But they’re not like the summer sky, they’re more like the blue of a soft, bottomless pool that keeps getting darker and richer the deeper you fall into it.

He reaches out and wipes my wet cheeks, his eyes becomes serious.  “I don’t know if the pain of what’s happened will ever be completely gone. But I accept that it happened,” he offers me a crooked smile so guileless and perfect I feel my heart turn over in my chest, he says, “I loved Colt too.”

“Do you love me?” the words burn my throat.

He raises tender, vulnerable eyes to mine, his mouth twists in a grimace.  “I tried to leave you. To go after last night.” Agony lances me and I try to pull my hands from his grasp but he tightens his strong fingers around mine.  “Don’t,” he says tenderly.

I lower my chin, “You don’t have to say anything else,” I choke out.

He laughs and it’s the sound of renewed hope and he scoots down to search my downcast eyes.  “I came back home for you, Ang.”

Tears start in my eyes, blurring his eager, happy face, I reach out blindly for him.

“Ouch,” he protests, I open my eyes and see that I’ve poked him in the eye, he glares at me from one eye.

“I’m sorry,” I hiccup and too full of the need bursting through my heart I throw myself into his open arms.

He catches me, a sigh of acceptance rumbles in his wide chest beneath my cheeks.

He sighs and rests his face on my head, he says roughly, “After the hurt had passed I found that my love for you didn’t go away … It forced me to understand what happened with Colt.”

I flinch but don’t look away, “What about Teag?” My voice trembles too scared to hope.

Tenderly his callused fingertips touch my lips, trail along the smooth bridge of my nose and finally come back to rest against my lips.  I kiss it, his eyes smolder at my touch but they are completely clear.

When he speaks I know it will be alright, that everything that matters is finally the way it should be, “Naturally our son will come with us Angie,” he says gently.

My heart explodes, bursting apart all the pain and heartache it had carried. And every second of joy and agony I’d suffered since I’d stepped foot into this world of wild freedom and unlimited beauty had been worth every tear.

I relax into him and he holds me close.

Colt had told me everything would be okay, he’d even asked me to stay as he lay dying. Now I understood.

This is where I belong.

Coming in early May, 2015

“Falling Under.”