Page 53 of Protected Hearts

“Now sink down on my cock. Nice and slow.”

Breath hitching, she did as he instructed. The thick head spread her pussy before he slid inside in one smooth glide. She took him to the hilt, her core pulsing around his swollen head settled so deep.

“Fuck, honey! I feel you milking me. Jesus fucking—aghhh!” His eyes rolled back in his head, and his jaw clenched hard as she began to ride him.

Over and over and over again.

Each soft slap of their bodies filled the silence. Their moans were the background music. Every stroke shot her to the brink of insanity. And she never wanted to return from the ledge where she teetered.

With his callused fingers stretched across her ass, he angled her to take him even deeper. Their mouths melded in a long kiss that sent new sensations to her heart.

She could love this man.

She was halfway there already.

When she felt his muscles stiffen around her, and his fingers dig into her backside, she watched his face ripple with passion.

“I’m close. I’m right…” he jerked his hips, lifting her, “fucking…there!” His release sent her careening down the other side of that ledge she’d been clinging to. On a cry, she came with her man.

Claiming him in a brand-new way even if he would never know the truth of it.

* * * * *

“How’s it going over there, Dutch?” Oaks called across the horse stalls.

His friend and fellow former SEAL glanced over the wooden stall at him, the noise of his pitchfork scraping the wooden floor pausing.

The watery sunlight stretched across the floor, but it cast more shadows than it did patches of light. Oaks’s brows drew together as he realized the path of his thoughts weren’t positive. And whenever he happened to be with Decker doing barn chores, he always focused on the bright side of things.

Together, they’d seen so much. Done the unspeakable. Their team barely got Decker out of that torture pit in Gaza where he spent three days as a captive. Since that day, Decker hadn’t uttered a single word.

Oaks scrubbed a hand over his face to dispel the expression he was sure to be wearing. The last thing his buddy needed was to pick up on Oaks’s own stress.

Decker offered him a single nod—about the only thing he got by way of a response.

He finished sprinkling fresh straw on the stall floor and stepped out into the middle of the barn. “You know, back when I was a kid, this barn only had six stalls.”

His friend turned his head to give him his attention. The scars he bore on his face were livid white in the glimmer of light streaming in through the high windows, but the ones on the inside would take much longer to heal. If they ever could.

The doctors were hopeful that in time, Decker would have a breakthrough, and Oaks held his breath, waiting for that day to come.

“Six stalls for six Malone kids. That was before Willow came along, of course. When she got her own pony, we had to build on.” He looked along the row of stalls. The ones on the left were set aside for Willow’s horses. The ones on the right…well, some of those were Willow’s too.

Decker knew this too and gave a soft snort—the closest he ever came to words these days.

They continued to work in companionable silence. Oaks hooked a dusty horse blanket over his forearm and walked outside. The cool breeze was refreshing over his face. As he shook the dust from the blanket, he automatically looked to the house.

He almost hadn’t been able to leave Shiloh’s bed. Gently extracting his limbs from the tangle of hers had left a hole in the middle of his chest where a dull pain still throbbed.

He brushed his fingertips over the spot, thinking of the night they’d spent together.

He couldn’t feel these things—shouldn’t. When he enlisted, he always swore he wouldn’t have a woman in his life because he couldn’t guarantee he’d return from a mission. Then hedidreturn, and that vow changed to staying single because he never knew if some trigger would throw him into a PTSD episode that landed him in treatment in his own facility.

Dammit, he wasn’t getting a choice in this, was he? He wanted Shiloh too much. And that protectiveness he felt toward her was impossible to ignore.

Decker came outside carrying a feed bucket. He walked over to the hose spigot on the side of the barn and sprayed out the metal until it gleamed. Oaks watched him for a long moment.

Ranch life helped the guys who came here. The peace of the land imbued every person who visited with a sense of serenity, including Shiloh.

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