Page 67 of Catching Mr. Right

“Relationship? You didn’t? Love with me?” Her smile is radiant. It’s irresistible. I adore the way she lights up for me. “Cas, did I hear you correctly? Because it’s hard to tell when you’re all growly like that. I know you said Je suis amoureux de toi, or whatever that actually—”

“I’m in love with you.” I reach out to hook her around the waist and draw her against me. “That’s what it means. I’m in love with you, Mandy Pearce. I want to date you for real. I want to be your boyfriend and talk about houses and weddings and children and whatever else you need behind your white picket fence. I want to be your family and you to be mine.”

“You want all that?” she asks, breathlessly. “With me? You’d stay here for me? You’re serious?”

“I’m certain.” Even if it meant giving up Soldier, I’d stay for her. I glance over her head at him. He’s watching us with those big brown eyes that seem to see far more than a human can. Is Juliette with him the way she’s been with me? Carried around inside us, all memories and soft laughter and quiet words? Have the two of them guided me here to this woman who holds my heart, and lets me have hers in return?

He lifts his nose to the back of her head and nudges her. She can’t go anywhere, already enclosed in my arms, but she loses her balance and falls against my chest. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to take Soldier and go to wherever the two of you are heading?” She glances back at the big oaf. “You didn’t seem all that interested in staying here when Claire offered you the kitchen.”

“Because of Soldier,” I tell her. “Because we’re used to moving around.”

“Oh.” She screws up her brow. It probably doesn’t make sense, because she doesn’t know he doesn’t belong to me. “Is that all?”

“No, that’s not all.” I whisper my mouth across the supple flesh of her cheek. “I didn’t want to stick around and watch you make smoochy faces with Sam fucking Sweets. I couldn’t hack the idea of watching you be happy with him.” Fuck, I’m glad I don’t have to watch that, or imagine it, or think about it anymore.

“But if I’m making smoochy faces with you, you can handle it?” She stares at me like she can’t wrap her head around the idea that I could be jealous, and that I could feel so strongly about her.

“Handle it? Hell, I want it. I want you.” I glide my lips over hers. “I thought it was going to be just me and Soldier until you waltzed into my kitchen and drove me fucking crazy with your flirty, happy attitude. I thought I was going to be a miserable asshole for the rest of my life.”

“You’re saying you won’t be?” She bites her lip, smiling.

“I’m saying you make me happy.” I pick her up and she locks her ankles together behind my back while I take her mouth with mine. Her shoes thud on the ramp along with her purse. Soldier nickers softly, as my tongue wars with Mandy’s. She makes me hard as hell with her kisses and her hands roaming my flesh and the heat of her so close to my crotch.

“I make you horny too.” She squeezes her legs around my hips, tugs at my shirt, drawing it up over my torso.

“Fuck, girl. You’re the only one who I trust to handle me. You gave me life again.” I break the kiss long enough to pull the garment over my head, and she kisses my pec and runs her tongue across one of my nipples until I moan.

“You’re the only man who knows me intimately, Cas.” She whimpers as she grinds down on my bulge. “I have to feel you inside me. Right now.”

“Fuck.” I stumble up the ramp. “We’re parked in the driveway of the stables with nowhere to go except the horse trailer.”

“I don’t care,” she says.

It smells like hay and must and horse inside the trailer as we crash against the wall, but all I notice is her arousal, and the aroma of her skin. I lower her to her feet so she can undo my pants, and I can tug up her dress. “No panties?”

“No,” she says as I lift her up, balancing her between me and the wall of the trailer. “The only reason I’m still wearing this dress is because I didn’t want to waste time while trying to find you. The thought of you leaving, of me never getting to tell you how I feel—”

“I don’t care that you didn’t dress for me tonight, or that you lost your panties because Sam saw them earlier.” I press the head of my cock to her entrance, her wetness making it easy to slide in with a roll of my hips. Her eyes glaze with hunger and bliss. These past few months she hasn’t been mine. But now she is. That’s what matters. “Now. Here. Us. This is where we start for real. Whatever stupid decisions we made before now don’t matter. Let me be your Mister Right. Let me be the guy who gives you everything you want.”

“I think you already are.” She whimpers as I thrust into her. We’re bare together. Hot and wet, her arousal dripping down my cock as I fuck her slow and deep while I lace her skin with kisses. She squeezes my heart and my dick at the same time until I’m breathless, until my head spins and my chest swells, and I feel like a giant of a man because she looks at me like I am.

“I love you,” she whispers in between pants while her pussy starts to tighten around me over and over.

“Fucking love you too,” I whisper back as she screams my name and squeezes my climax from me.

“Come out with your hands up,” a voice blares from outside the horse trailer.

Red and blue lights flash in the dark.

Mandy jumps and lets out a yelp.

With a groan, I pull out of her and lower her to her feet.

“What do you think is going on?” she asks while she smooths her dress down over her hips.

I tuck my dick back in my pants. Picking up my shirt, I give it to her to wipe up the mess I’ve made of her thighs. “Soldier isn’t mine. He belongs to Juliette’s parents. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to give him up.” He was all I had for so long. I take her hand, squeeze it. “But maybe I’m supposed to let go now.”

We walk out of the enclosed space into the balmy night. Above us lightening cracks the sky. Soldier neighs and bobs his head as we make our way down the ramp to where he’s grazing. Moira approaches from one of two squad cars, a police officer in tow.

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