Page 94 of Knot Her Cowboys
Germany could be a new start. I haven’t connected yet with Oskar and Karl, but I’m trying to make Bruce happy, to give this potential pack a chance. The harder it is, the more I think about you. I hate myself a little bit each time it happens. I don’t deserve any of you.
I miss home. Maybe it’s just the idea of home, but I miss it anyway.
I’m not going to try to find you when I’m there. I won’t try to find anyone. I don’t think I’m strong enough to face the people I left behind. I’m probably just torturing myself, but I already booked the flight. Turning thirty in Montana feels like closing a chapter I’ve held on to for too long. This indulgence will probably do more damage than anything else.
I’m doing it anyway.
I wish I could stop loving you. Everyone deserves more from me than I can give them.
With a few deep breaths to calm myself, I logged out and sprinted back to the big house. Riley was visible in the window, still upstairs in the room I made for her.
We stared at each other for a long moment before I broke the spell to run inside.
Riley was mine. She’d neverstoppedbeing mine, and if she needed to run again, we were all going together, because I for damn sure wasn’t going to let her go a second time.
Cooper’s thundering footsteps up the stairs were almost as loud as my heart pounding in my ears.
Mine.
Mine.
He always had been and he always would be.
Cooper swept in like a storm and my feet were off the ground before I could blink, locking behind his back as he spun andpressed me against the door. I’d dreamed of him touching me like this more times than I could count.
Was it actually real this time?
The grip of his hands on the back of my thighs had me hissing, a sharp burn from all those fucking splinters reminding me that I was indeed rooted in reality right now.
“Shit, sorry.” Cooper adjusted, using the pressure of his hips between my thighs and the wrap of my limbs around him to keep me where I was. “Did I hurt you?”
I held on tight, afraid that if I let go, he might vanish. “Not your fault the fence bit me.” My attempt to tug him closer for another kiss was met with him planting his forehead to mine.
He let out a shuddering breath. “If we’re doing this, you can’t leave again, but if you need to, we gotogether.That meansallof us. If you still love me, either we choose each other or we don’t. I can’t live in limbo.”
“No limbo,” I promised. “We were never meant to be apart, and I don’t want to let the past steal my future.”
“You’re not going to run?”
“No. I’m sorry I was too scared to come back sooner.” I shivered, tucking myself tighter against him, running the tip of my nose along his throat, refamiliarizing myself with him. “I’ve loved you since the day we met and I’ll love you ’til the day I die. Nothing is ever going to change that.”
His mouth on mine unlocked a thousand memories, a thousand kisses I’d tucked away to keep me going on my loneliest days. He moved with more surety than he used to. We were different people now, more confident, stronger, and more experienced than the last time we’d been tangled up in each other, but the love was the same.
How had I ever let him go?
How had I convinced myself a life without him was possible?
Cooper was inevitable, a bright shining ending I would always make my way back to. It didn’t hurt that he came with men who treated me well, who wanted me to be a part of their lives. Cash’s love was like the sun: bright, searing, and impossible to ignore. Dakota and Levi were softer, steadier, a peaceful haven among the chaos that was Cash and Cooper. Cooper’s love was closer to a tattoo, something indelibly part of me, something I would carry forever.
He brought me over to the bed and I sprawled back among the plush covers. I laughed as I sank into them.
“What?” he asked.
“Is this the first actual bed we’re ever going to fuck in?”
Cooper barked a laugh. “Might be.”
The lack of a proper bed had never stopped us. Neither of our homes had been safe enough to risk a liaison there, but teenage hormones were a veritable freight train even before either of us had presented or had any idea we were scent matches. Truck beds, barns, tents, or any available surface had sufficed. Anything worked so long as we got to touch each other. Still, I wasn’t going to balk at the luxury of usfinallybeing somewhere safe enough we could indulge like this. No rush, no worries about who might find us, just basking in the moment.
