by Lauren Dane
He flashed her a grin and she knew to her toes that everything was going to be okay.
“There’s more.”
“Hit me.”
“All my life I’ve felt deeply about stuff. I’ve craved that depth of emotion. Adrenaline, lust, fear, pleasure, whatever, I wanted it and I wanted it in heaping quantities. And then that bit me in the ass.” He sat with her, taking her hands. “So I had to wipe it all out and figure out what was okay to find pleasure in. I had to relearn what it meant to feel good. For a while I felt nothing but intense guilt. It was like the drugs had fucked up my brain. Like I was beyond being moved by normal, everyday things that make people happy. I couldn’t connect. And then it came back slowly. I tried to live and take care of all the stuff my system needed without getting obsessive and so I had my animals and my family and sometimes meaningless sex to keep from exploding.
“And then you. You came into my view and I was no longer choosing what to feel deeply over, easy things usually. You made me feel no matter what I did or didn’t want. Everything was bright and loud and I touched you and things quieted. When I’m with you, everything is manageable. You know me, ugly skeletons in the closet and all, but you see through it. You see right to my heart and I can’t do anything else but tell you I love you. I crave you and over many, many hours of talking to Jeremy and staying up late watching black-and-white movies while writing songs about you, I can say it and be okay with that.”
“Well, okay then. This is getting better and better.”
He leaned in to kiss her quick and hard before speaking again. “Missed your taste. You let me be when I need it and you shake my life up and show me what I’ve been missing. I’m a mess—you know that already. But I’m your mess if that’s cool with you.”
She hugged him, climbing into his lap, raining kisses all over his face. “I think I could probably be all right with that. I love you. I’m glad you’re here.”
“You trusted me to work through it.”
“And you trusted me enough to know I’d be here when you did. I think we’re pretty awesome and also both of us look great naked. And speaking of that, I just realized that standing mirror is perfect.” She kissed him and then got up to aim the mirror a little better so they could watch.
* * *
SHE NEVER CEASED to amaze him. He took in the sight of the cheeks peeking from her panties as she made it possible for them to look at themselves as they had sex. Delightfully and perfectly sexy.
He’d got up to Vancouver and then he and Jeremy had gone out for a ride in Stanley Park and to dinner and back to the apartment they were staying in, talking pretty much all night long about life for both men since their friendship had started to fade.
Jeremy had been nursing guilt, feeling as if it were his fault. Like he’d dropped their friendship and of course Ezra had the same guilt. It had been stupid and once they’d starting talking it was like the old days. Only better because each of them had weathered personal storms and came out the other side better off.
“I knew going up there on the plane that I’d be coming back to you. I just had to find my way there.”
She whipped off her tank top and stepped free from her panties and he grinned. “Hot damn.”
She pointed. “You, too. I want to see you.”
He stood and got naked and she looked him over. “You look good, Hurley. Good enough to be in my bed.” She grinned at the tease and he grabbed her quick, sitting with her in his lap. “I’d have been here tomorrow, too, you know. But I sure am glad you’re here right now.”
He cupped her breasts as he nuzzled her throat. “Me, too. It startles me sometimes, how deeply you make me feel. How much more of it I want from you. I’m greedy. I was stupid to fear any sort of comparison.”
“Yes, you were. But I understand. And if you tell me when you’re having a hard time and I tell you when I am, we can probably do this thing.”
“Okay. I’m in.”
“Ooh! Wait a sec.” She got up and hurried around to the table on the side of the bed he normally slept on. Holding aloft the little foil square, she headed back to him.
She settled again in his lap and he watched her, content to just be for those few seconds before his cock reminded him it had places to be deep inside her. Inside Ezra’s woman.
He’d turned the concept over and then the words all the way back to her. And found that she’d known she was his before he’d been able to accept the very idea.
He snatched the condom from her fingers and got it on.
“Hey! I have plans.”
His amusement sharpened. “So do I. I need to be in you.” He craved that connection they shared, especially now that they’d both bared their souls to one another.
She kissed him, her fingers dug into his hair, tugging him as she nipped at his lips and licked the sting away.
He slid a palm from her shoulder down her side to her hip while he angled his cock and pulled her down onto him.
She opened her eyes once he’d got all the way inside. “Yes,” she murmured, her eyes on his.
“I love you.”
She smiled at him so pretty. “You better.” She circled her hips and he tsked.
He tightened his hand at her hip and levered them to her rug. “Now I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll find out how you like rug burns on your ass as well as your knees.”
She moaned and he made that sound he knew she loved. She pleased him so much. So sexy and beautiful.
He got to his knees as she lay flat on her back, her thighs wide so he had a perfect view. He watched himself disappear into her body over and over, watched her nipples darken. She urged him in, rolling her hips to meet his thrusts.
There was sex, which he’d had plenty of to compare with what he did with Tuesday, which was sex times a million. He wanted to be in her as deep as he could. Wanted her to wrap around him like a cat.
He wanted to do things to her that left her begging for more, that left his touch burned into her heart and soul. Knew, too, that she’d already marked him that deeply.
Tuesday sheltered his battered heart. She was his safe place to be.
He sped up, pulling out to roll her to her side and slide back in.
Her answering gasp of surprised pleasure told him this angle was one he’d be trying again.
“I need you to come around me. I need that so bad right now,” he nearly snarled as she writhed, tightening her inner muscles around him.
Her hand burrowed between her legs and soon after came the slick brush of her fingertips as she got herself wet. Then the slow ebb and flow of rolling waves of her inner muscles as she drew closer to climax.
Her body was a siren call around his. She smelled good. Partly the light citrus of her body lotion teased with the earthy, rich scent of their sex.
She came then on a whisper of his name and he was so close behind her he couldn’t remember if he’d waited or they ended up coming that close together. Whatever the case, he continued to thrust until it felt like his knees were going to give out and he finally ended up on his back, gasping for air.
After they’d got up, they’d tossed on some clothes and headed downstairs to get something to eat and power them through two more rounds before they fell asleep.
Right as he was nearly unconscious, Ezra kissed the shoulder nearest his mouth. “Thank you for giving yourself to me the way you do.”
“I’m yours. You’re mine. That’s how it works,” she answered sleepily. “You were born to be mine. That’s what my mother said. She also said you’d be way too much for any normal woman to handle so that’s why I came along.”
He snorted, hugging her a little tighter. “That’s probably true. I should confess to you, though, that in my rush to get back to you, I left the chocolates I bought for you at the place we were staying. They’re going to mail the box here.”
“I suppose I can let you off with a warning this one time.” She pushed her butt into his crotch as she wiggled to get clo
ser.
“Playing with fire,” he warned her,
“I just did three times. Surely even you can’t go...well now,” she nearly purred as he ground his fully revived cock into that sweet ass.
“Don’t worry. I’ll save it for when we wake up in a few hours.”
She hummed. “You’re on my approved-vendor list for all time. I love you, Ezra Hurley, rock star rancher with a heart of gold and a very large cock.”
“I love you, too, Tuesday Easton, woman of my dreams, artist, my beauty.”
“Yeah, that’s nice.” She sighed happily and when he fell asleep again, he knew he’d always have a place to return to.
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I was eighteen years old, I met a boy with long hair, holes in his jeans and a muscle car. That was nearly three decades ago, and that boy and I moved 1200 miles away from home and started a life and a family in the northwest. That boy is now a man, with gray in his beard, who spends his life wrangling the wild spawn we’ve created together and being my heart. I love you, Ray.
Angela James, you are magic. Thank you for being as amazing as you are.
Thank you so much to the Harlequin art department for the covers for this series. I do believe the beard on the model for Broken Open is the finest cover beard in all the land. And you got Tuesday so perfect.
I’d be absolutely awful without the support and love of my tribe—my writerly community whom I routinely turn to for information, help, a shoulder, expertise, a rant and sometimes a kick in the pants. Thank you all for being my people.
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ISBN-13: 9781460343371
Broken Open
Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Dane
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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