Page 82 of Rancher's Return

He gripped her hips and pulled her firmly against his mouth, his tongue working her with firm strokes. She wanted to keep her head, not because she was afraid, just because she wanted to remember this in detail. Because this was a vacation out of time. Because this wasn’t a declaration, it was only a reclamation, and eventually, their family would be here. And they would have to pretend this hadn’t happened. So she was going to memorize it all in vivid detail, except she felt her grip on the earth begin to dissolve. She felt herself beginning to crack. And when he pushed two fingers inside of her while his tongue pleasured her, she shattered. Utterly and completely. And then he was over her, capturing her sounds of pleasure with a deep kiss. She could taste her own need on his mouth. He grabbed a condom, and he applied it with expert finesse, before cupping her chin and looking her in the eye. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said.

“This is a long time coming, Lily Rivers.”

“It sure is,” she said.

The blunt head of him pressed against the entrance to her body, and he pushed inside of her slowly. So slowly. And it felt amazing. She arched into him, urging him on, wrapping her legs around his hips as he thrust into her one last time. It hurt, but it didn’t matter. Because she was finally with him. Like this. It felt like a reckoning. A homecoming. It felt like her due.

And then he began to move. And it was like the earth moved with him. And so did she.

She was caught up, completely enraptured by the moment. He drove them both to the heights, again and again, before setting them back down. And building it all over again. And when she felt herself getting close to the peak, when she couldn’t possibly come back from it one more time, she jumped. And she took him with her. They both shuddered out their pleasure, and she could feel him pulsing deep inside of her as he gave himself over to the same madness that was overtaking her.

They held each other after that. Their skin slick, their hearts beating hard.

She put her hand on his chest, rested her face right next to it. She didn’t feel awkward with him. Not now. It was the strangest thing. She would’ve thought that being naked with someone she felt unspeakably uncomfortable around 90 percent of the time would be worse. Instead, it was right.

Instead, it felt like everything.

Like this was where they were supposed to be all along.

“I’ve waited a long time for that,” he said.

She wondered if she should be offended by what he said. If she should take it to mean that he had been waiting to make this conquest. But she didn’t feel like being offended. She wanted to luxuriate in the moment. That was all.

“I feel the same way,” she said.

“I didn’t think I’d be giving thanks for bad weather.”

“I didn’t think I’d be giving thanks for being trapped here with you,” she said.

“No. I guess not.”

“I really did think that I was doing the right thing back then,” she said. “I wanted to be doing the right thing. I hoped that I was. I wanted... I wanted everything to be perfect for my mom. Because she gave up so much to raise me. She never said that. She never acted like she was sacrificing, but I know she was. My dad... He was such an unforgivable asshole.”

“Really? She never talks about him.”

“She acts like she doesn’t care. She acts like she doesn’t care that he was never involved, and...that the way they hooked up wasn’t super problematic. But I’m furious for her. I always have been. You know her brother died when she was a teenager? And she was hurting. Older men took advantage of her. The guy that got her pregnant was already in college. She was still in high school. And of course she plays it off. She acts like she was just as much at fault in it as he was. But... I remember when I fully realized how crazy it was that she got pregnant with me when she was sixteen. Sixteen.”

“Maybe that’s a little bit why you stayed away from men.”

“It’s a lot why,” she said.

She wondered if it was partly why she had pushed him away initially too. That thought was a revelation. A strange, shocking one. She knew it was why her mother had been so nervous about Lily and Colton. Because they were getting too serious, too fast, too young. Because her mom wanted her to do something with her life.

“I don’t envy my mom,” she said. “I can’t imagine the tightrope that she had to walk to make sure her child felt wanted, while trying to make sure I didn’t make the same decisions she did. I mean, she did a great job. I never felt like she resented me. But I understood that her options were limited because of her circumstances. She had to work. She had to make her life about me. She wanted me to be able to live for myself longer than she did. But she also made it clear that having me changed her life for the better. I think she just never wanted my life to be as difficult as hers was. Of course she didn’t. But it made me want to protect her. And maybe myself too.”

“I just wanted to protect myself,” he said. “I was lonely for so damned long. Everything in my life felt unstable and precarious.”

“And then I dropped a bombshell on you at a school dance. I’m sorry.”

“We were seventeen,” he said.

“Yeah. That was how old my mom was when she was being a mom.”

“Difficult to believe,” he said.

“How old was your mom when she had you?”

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