Page 71 of Wild and Wrangled

I sighed. I couldn’t run from him, and I didn’t really want to. Not again. I met his gaze, and for the first time in years, I unlocked the little box in my head, and I was totally and completely honest with myself. “Everything,” I whispered. “I want you to be everything.”

His eyes stayed on mine as he got off the bed and kneeled in front of me. His hands were on either side of my thighs. “I’m ready for that,” he said. “Are you?”

“No,” I said honestly. “But I think—I think I’m getting there.” I saw something flash in his eyes: hope. Dusty laid his head on my lap, and I brought my hand up to stroke his hair and the side of his face without thinking about it.

“I missed you,” he whispered. “I loved traveling around the world, Ash. I really did.” His hands on my thighs squeezed them a little tighter. “I loved meeting new people and seeing parts of the world that teenage me could only dream about in this small town. I loved sleeping under the stars and listening to cowboy poetry and getting stupid tattoos.

“But most of all, I love that at the end of it, I got to come back here. To you.”But would he stay?He nuzzled his nose into my bare thigh.

“Dusty…” I breathed. He lifted his head and looked at me. I held his face in my hands. “Your tattoos aren’t stupid,” I said, and the grin that stretched across his face could’ve powered me for weeks straight.

“Do you…” He swallowed nervously. “Still have yours?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I do.”

“Can I see it?” he asked. I nodded, and both of us stoodfrom the bed. It felt like someone had cranked the heat up in the room. Before I lost my nerve, I dropped my towel, and Dusty’s eyes wasted no time in darting to my left hip. Right next to the bone, a small, black “T” in the same font as the “A” on his neck.

I couldn’t tell if he dropped to his knees again on purpose or if it was the sight of it that did him in, but now he was eye level with my tattoo. I felt his thumb brush over it as he stared at it in disbelief. The sound that left his throat was somewhere between a groan and a whimper as he brought his lips to it. He kissed and licked and sucked at it as I knotted my fingers in his hair.

“Get back on the bed,” he said against my skin.

“Which one?” I asked on a breathy laugh.

“Mine,” he said on a growl. “I want you in mine.” He stood and gripped my waist, turning me so my back was toward his bed before lifting me up and tossing me onto it. A shocked laugh came out of me as my back hit the mattress, but it got cut off by Dusty getting on top of me and sealing his mouth to mine.

It was intentional, slow, and hungry. He kissed me like he was starving but wanted to savor every last bit of his meal.

“I missed you,” he said against my mouth. “I missed you every day.”

I gripped his shoulders. “I’m here now,” I said. “We’re here now.” He kept kissing me slowly. He moved from my mouth to my cheeks to my neck and chest—tasting me. I felt the tip of his tongue and the edge of his teeth. He hadn’t even put his hands on me, and I was already gasping underneath him.

He pushed up on his hands so he was hovering above me.His eyes dragged down my body, and it felt just like his tongue. “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

When we were in the bathroom at the gala, things were going so fast. We were so frenzied and hot that I forgot that my body was something I was usually self-conscious about—when I was naked, at least. I waited for the doubt to creep in—after all, my body had changed completely since he’d last seen it, because I’d carried a whole-ass baby in it—but it didn’t show up.

When Dusty told me I was beautiful, I believed him.

“So are you,” I said. I looked up at him, at his inked arms and chest. I traced the dagger on his sternum with my fingers, and he closed his eyes. His nostrils flared. “I want to know all about these.”

“We have time,” he said and then he was kissing me again. Dusty was the one who taught me how much I liked kissing, and damn, did I still. Mostly him, especially him.

One of his hands started to wander—across my collarbone, down the side of my abdomen, to my thigh—while the other kept him hovering above me. He touched me reverently, like he couldn’t believe I was here with him.

I couldn’t believe it, either. But I wanted more, so I dragged my fingernails down his spine and grabbed his hips. I tried to tug on them so they were flush with mine, but he stayed steady.

“Don’t rush me,” he said against my ear. “I want to spend all night worshipping your body—learning all of the things I don’t know about it and remembering all of the things that I do.”

“Can you at least do that with your pants off?” I breathed.

Dusty lifted his head from where he was kissing my neckand looked down at me. He brought his hand to the side of my face and brushed his thumb over my bottom lip. “Open,” he said, so I did—always the rule follower. He pushed his thumb into my mouth, and I immediately bit down and sucked on it. A growl came from Dusty’s throat. “I’m not a fumbling teenager anymore, angel, and when I tell you I want to take my time, I’m going to take my time, and you’re going to love it. And then, when you’re ready, I want you to take what you want. I want you to take everything from me that you’ve missed in the last fifteen years, yeah?”

He pulled his thumb out of my mouth, so I could answer. “Yeah,” I breathed.

“That’s my girl,” he said, and then he kissed me again. Harder this time, and when his hand found the wetness between my legs, my back arched, and I moaned under him.

“I have a condom in my wallet,” he said.

“Were you hoping to get lucky tonight?” I asked playfully. Dusty’s tongue went inside my mouth at the same time one of his fingers went inside of me, and I went boneless on a moan.

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