Page 101 of An Unfinished Memory

“Shit.” He buried a hand in my loose hair. “I’m not going to last long if you keep doing that.”

I was sucking him off with more pressure than normal, and I eased. I gazed up at him, knowing he liked seeing my caved cheeks and my lips around his cock. Also knowing I was more raw about finding theposters than I was about the town flirt trying to worm her way into his warm house.

He gently pulled himself out of my mouth and lifted me to my feet. He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and put his lips on mine.

“I fucking love you.” He spun us more smoothly than if we were on the dance floor. Next, it was my ass up against the edge of the table and Wilder kneeling to take my leggings off.

When he stood, he shoved his pants down farther and hitched my legs around his waist. Was he feeling the same, or was this all physical for him? Was his head continually trying to yank him out of the moment with insidious doubts and insecurities?

“I’m going to have my favorite dessert after we eat, but I’ve got to be inside you before the oven timer goes off.” His urgency had to be more than biological. Being unable to physically touch for months hadn’t been easy for him either.

The steady thrum between my legs needed him inside me too. I gripped his slick shaft and guided him in. When he was close enough to thrust, he tipped me back until I had to grip his shoulders to keep from falling backward, and he buried himself to the hilt.

“Wilder,” I moaned. He’d hardly touched me, and I was about to explode. My peak was right there, and I was ready to careen over.

“We’re going to fuck on this table for fifty more years, aren’t we?” He pulled out and thrust in, the sound of our slapping skin filling the room.

His question moved the climax further away. “Fifty?”

“Fifty.” He scooted me closer to the edge and penetrated deeper.

My brain gladly clung to the pleasure.

“You’re mine.”

I hugged my legs tighter and let the energy between us build until I didn’t care to know where I ended, and he began. The explosion that catapulted through me carried the echoes offifty yearsand the questions of how that length of time would be possible living apart. He grunted and released inside me, going rigid in my arms.

I said I wouldn’t marry Wilder again, but I was in a committed relationship with him. Committed. To commuting. To trying to connect when we had a free night or day. To scaring other interested men and women off so they could find someone to spend fifty years with.

But we weren’t committed to each other. Not completely.

Did I want fifty years of that?

If not, what was I willing to give up to get what I wanted?

Wilder

A switch had flipped in Sutton. I’d narrowed the time to when we were having sex the first night she was in town. Her ass had been on the campaign logo sheet. The rest of the weekend, if I wasn’t with Ray, then I had my phones in a drawer by the dining room table and was with Sutton.

There hadn’t been much time. Yesterday had gone long. Instead of going to the out-of-town basketballgame, Ray had stuck around. Had he heard Sutton was in Buffalo Gully and at my house?

Sutton hadn’t sat around the house while I was gone. No, not her. She’d packed her kit and went to the ranch to help Eliot for the day. She’d done the same today, too, but I’d cut Ray off early, telling him I had to get my beauty sleep for a week of night shifts. I needed to be home when Sutton started for Crocus Valley.

I needed to see her walk out the door and know she’d be back.

“Thanks for letting me crash.” She hugged herself, and we were back to being an awkward divorced couple. She was dressed similarly to when she’d arrived, back to being my snow angel—and melting out of my life.

I frowned. Where had that thought come from?

I scratched the back of my neck. “So, next time. I’m not sure when that’ll be.”

She gave me a regretful smile. “We knew this time of year would be busy for you, and now it is for me.”

She was working more before her vacation, the camping trip where she’d be farther away and gone longer.

“Maybe I can get a few days off and hunt you and Oreo down at camp.”

Her eyes lit, and a bright smile began and then dimmed. “That’d be cool. But do you really think you’re going to get away? There’s going to be calving too.”

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