Page 126 of Ride the Sky

Wyatt swears.

I pull back from his chest, finding his eyes wet and pained. “And you know what the worst fucking part about it all is?”

“What?”

I inhale a deep breath. “I didn’t want Aiden. I wanted you.”

Shock crosses his handsome face before turning to something heated and hungry. “You have me,” he says, clutching the back of my head to press a kiss to my brow. “Do you hear me? You have me, Fallon.”

“No.” I whimper, shaking my head. “You’re too good. You’re too good for me. I don’t deserve you.” More words fight their way out of me. I squeeze my eyes shut. “Any of you. Especially after what I just said. I deserve nothing.”

The world around us quiets, the dark seeming to even listen.

Finally, Wyatt’s rasp shatters the silence.

“Look at me,” he orders fiercely, and I do. He grips my chin. “You deserve everything good and beautiful, Fallon. You deserve wild horses and sunsets. And you deserve me.” He grins. “Hell, we deserve each other. Too reckless, too stupid.”

I choke on a sob, smile through my tears. “I’m too broken.”

“We’re all broken, but you don’t need to be fixed.” He strokes a callused thumb over my cheekbone, swiping away my tears. “Baby, you are the toughest cowgirl I know. You’ve been tryin’ to heal all this time, but it won’t work if you push us away. Let us in. That’s how you heal, Trouble.”

Wyatt leans down until our brows touch.

A warmth spreads inside of me. Like broken pieces of myself being filled with gold.

“Don’t push me away,” he murmurs.

I clutch at his broad shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

He chuckles, the deep sound rumbling through his chest to mine. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I’m not goin’ anywhere. You have me as long as you want me.”

I stare up at him, this man who’s been there for me, who’s never walked away, even when I raged. Who’s always been patient and kind. A sure and true cowboy. A cowboy who stays.

In his bottomless blue eyes, a plea. A promise. I read it so loud and clear it nearly steals the breath from my lungs.

God. What is this? What are we?

Suddenly, I ache to know. Ache for him.

“Yes,” I say, knotting my hands in his shirt. “I want you.”

“Good,” he says, his handsome face sobering. “Because if it ain’t you, Fallon, it’s no one.”

And then he kisses me, heat building between us like a bonfire, and that bomb that exploded inside of me is no more.

The next morning, I wake to the shadows cast by the sun through the blinds. A new day.

A new world.

And beside me, Fallon.

So goddamn gorgeous in our bed.

A tangle of tan limbs, her caramel hair spilling over her back like silk. She’s burrowed deep into the pillow, one hand tossed across my chest like even in sleep she’s claiming me.

I run my hand down the arch of her spine, palm shaping to her curves.

Claiming. It’s damn near what we did last night.

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