by Marie Force
“Holy… What the… How did you…”
Wade laughed and came down on top of her, finally relaxing. Somewhat anyway. He could never fully relax when he was still inside her. “That was awesome.”
“I didn’t even know it could happen like that, without moving.”
“I’ve never done that before.”
“How’d you know to do it?”
“I didn’t. I just went with what felt good, and being still inside you felt better than anything ever has.” It occurred to him that he’d once again had unprotected sex with her, but he’d decided to trust her, which meant he trusted her when she said she was taking the pill. He’d seen them on the counter in the bathroom, but he hadn’t actually seen her take them. He hoped they would have children someday, but not right away. Not when they were still getting to know each other and getting used to living together.
They had time for babies and every other thing life had in store for them.
“How about a shower?”
“Followed by a nap? Marriage is exhausting.”
Wade laughed and withdrew from her, wondering how long it would be before he could have her again. If this was madness, sign him up. He loved every minute of it.
In the shower, they took turns washing each other, and he was fully aroused again by the time they toweled off and slid into bed together, their bodies wrapped around each other.
He stared down at her gorgeous face, drinking in every detail as he kissed her, noting that the bruises were beginning to fade.
Mia wrapped her arms and legs around him, trapping him in her sensual web.
He’d never been so happy to be trapped anywhere. For the longest time, all they did was kiss. They made out like teenagers about to get caught by parents. The frantic urgency of it made him forget that they’d planned to nap, that she was exhausted, that he’d just had her fifteen minutes ago. He needed more. He’d never get enough.
He wouldn’t have done anything about the urgent need, but when she curled her hand around his cock and raised her hips, he followed her lead and slid into her again, breaking the kiss to take a badly needed deep breath. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
“Never too much. I can’t get enough.”
Groaning, he gorged on her, desperate to touch her and taste her and consume her. “Mia…”
“Tell me. What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about how much I love you.” He kissed her face, her lips, her neck. “That I’ve loved you from the first time I ever saw you. That I’ll never have enough of you or this or us.”
“I love you, too, Wade. I’ve never yearned for anything the way I did for you when I couldn’t see you or be with you.”
Those words had never been more powerful or packed a greater punch than they did coming from her. For the first time in years, he felt like he could breathe again, that he wasn’t missing the most essential thing in his life by missing her. He gave her everything he had, holding her so close to him that her sweat became his. And then, abruptly, he withdrew from her and began to kiss his way down the front of her.
She squirmed beneath him, but the lower he went, the tenser she got.
He looked up at her. “Tell me why you don’t like it.”
“You… You don’t have to… If you don’t want to.”
His brows arched toward his hairline. “Don’t want to? Why would you think I wouldn’t want to?”
“I… Not all guys like to. That’s all.”
“This one does, especially when it’s you.”
Her heart beat so hard, he could see it in the wild pulse in her neck.
“It’s not one of the bad things, is it?”
She shook her head, but he wasn’t convinced.
Kissing her belly and making a circle around her navel with his tongue, he said, “Tell me.”
“I shouldn’t… Not now.”
Her thighs quivered against his ribs when he moved down, kissing her hip bones and the crease where her leg joined her torso. “Yes, now.”
“He said I didn’t, you know…”
“Taste good?”
Her entire body seemed to blush as she looked up at the ceiling and nodded.
Wade wished he could kick the shit out of the asshole who made her doubt herself. What he wouldn’t give for five minutes alone with that guy. “Mia.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
“No.”
“Mia…” He kissed her inner thighs and used the width of his shoulders to ease her legs farther apart.
She gripped the sheets like a lifeline, her knuckles white and her body tense.
That wouldn’t do. “Sweetheart, look at me.”
“I can’t.”
He playfully bit her inner thigh, which got her attention. “There is nothing about you that I find unattractive. Not one single thing. Do you hear me?”
“How do you know you’ll like that when you’ve never done it?”
“I’ll like it because I love you.”
“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to—”
Wade buried his tongue in her, and her body went completely stiff. At least he had her attention. He held her legs apart with his hands and went to town on her, licking and sucking and fucking her with his tongue. He never let up for one second until she came, nearly pulling the hair from his head as she did.
“Any other questions?”
She was breathing so hard, she couldn’t talk, but she shook her head.
Wade wiped his face on the sheet and moved up, stopping to give attention to each of her nipples before continuing to kiss her lips. “Are we good now?”
“Mmm-hmm. Very good.”
“And we agree that he was a fool who had no idea how lucky he was to have you?”
“We agree.”
“And you believe me when I tell you that every single sweet inch of you is beautiful to me and that nothing, and I do mean nothing, could make me not want you?”
“Yes,” she said between deep breaths. “I believe you.”
“Excellent.” He pushed inside her again. “Now, where were we?” When he was fully encased in her heat, he used his hips to pin hers to the bed and pushed himself up on his arms so he could look down on her. He didn’t want to miss any of her myriad reactions.
Her back arched and her breasts thrust.
He’d never seen anything sexier. Ever. She was it for him. Had been from the start, and he was so, so glad he’d waited for her, even if the waiting had been torture at times. That they got to do this, anytime they wanted, for the rest of their lives was the best thing to ever happen to him. He wanted to be the best thing to ever happen to her, too, and as he made love to her, he focused exclusively on her pleasure. Kissing and touching and caressing her into a series of orgasms that made him feel like he was on top of the world because he got to make her feel good.
They’d taken the edge off earlier for him, so he was able to make it last until her legs trembled with exhaustion and his arms threatened to give out.
“Come with me,” he said, picking up the pace. “One more time.”
Her fingertips dug into the muscles on his back, and her legs tightened around his waist. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” He moved his fingers lightly over her clit.
She was so primed that her body seized in response to his touch.
“Told you,” he whispered. He gathered her into his tight embrace and buried his face in her hair as he lost himself in her. Rolling to his side, he brought her with him when he collapsed, completely spent and happier than he’d ever been.
Chapter 21
“Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul.”
—George A. Smith
Mia slept like a dead person and woke to darkness.
Wade was wrapped around her, his body heat keeping her nice and warm.
> For the first time in years, she’d found true contentment with him—and his incredible family. She’d never experienced anything like the dynamic between Wade and his siblings and cousins. The family was a bonus. He was the true prize.
She snuggled in closer to him, breathing in the woodsy, outdoorsy scent of his skin, running her fingers through his hair—because she could—and touching him anywhere she could reach.
He loved her.
She loved him.
She’d never had a dream come true until now. And she’d never dared to dream anything like what she had with him. Earlier, when he’d shown her that no part of her was unattractive to him, he’d undone years of damage done by Brody, who’d made her feel less than desirable in every possible way, even as he kept her in his iron grip. Once, she’d asked him why he was so determined to hang on to her if he found her so unattractive. He’d told her to shut the fuck up and not ask questions she didn’t want the answers to. That had been her life.
If only she’d had the strength and courage to leave him long before she did. But if she had, he might’ve gotten away with his criminal activity—and he might’ve made good on his frequent threats to kill her if she’d ever had the audacity to leave him.
Perhaps that was why things happened the way they had. Maybe she was meant to be there just long enough to stop him. She’d paid an awful personal price for that sacrifice, but she’d do it again if it meant one less kid would be introduced to heroin because of him.
In the message she’d gotten from Larry earlier, he’d mentioned that they were talking to Brody about his supply chain, hoping they could entice him to flip on his suppliers in exchange for a more lenient deal for himself. She doubted Brody would take the deal, but it gave her hope that perhaps the nightmare could end sooner rather than later.
The most important thing had already happened—she could never be forced to marry a man she’d grown to despise. Again, she relived the horror of him telling her to get ready for their wedding because he was coming home with a justice of the peace and had already gotten a marriage license. He’d never expected her to run. He thought she was so afraid of him that she wouldn’t dare defy him. She wished she could’ve been there to see his smug face when they told him she’d married someone else.
“What’re you thinking about?” Wade asked, his hand moving gently over her bruised ribs that felt a thousand times better since they’d applied the smelly cream from the store.
“I wish I could’ve been there when they told Brody I was permanently off-limits to him. I would’ve liked to have seen that.”
“You don’t need to think about him anymore. He’s the past. The present is so much better than the past.” He cupped her breast and ran his thumb over her nipple.
Her body tingled in response. How was that possible? She’d lost track of how many orgasms she’d had earlier. How could she want more? “The present is absolutely delightful.”
“I’m glad you think so. Still want to go out to dinner?”
“Only if you do.”
“I do, and not because I need to keep an eye on my buffoon of a brother, but because I’ve never once taken my wife on a real date, and I need to fix that.”
“Your wife would be perfectly content with a night at home with her sexy husband.”
“There’ll be plenty of those, but tonight, we’re going out.”
“What should I wear?”
“Jeans are considered dressed up in this town.”
“I might be able to do a little better than that.”
“You could wear a burlap sack and be sexy.”
“You might be a tiny bit biased.”
“Mmm.” He nuzzled her neck. “I’m extremely biased. I have the sexiest wife who ever lived.”
“I have the sexiest, most insatiable husband who ever lived.”
“I’ve never been insatiable until I had you. In fact, you’d better shower alone, or we might never get out of here tonight.”
“True.” She sat up, letting the covers fall to her waist, and pushed her hair back from her face.
Propped up on one elbow, Wade watched her.
“What?”
“I never want to stop looking now that I can.”
She smiled at him. He was so sweet to her and always had been, even when they were just friends. But honestly, had they ever been just friends? “I know what you mean. Anytime things got to be too much for me in the last couple of years, I would close my eyes and picture you. It used to make Brody so mad when I’d do that. He had no idea what I was thinking about, but he knew I wasn’t thinking about him.”
“I thought about you all the time. When I was supposed to be clearing my mind during meditation, there you were. When I was in meetings at work or at dinner with my family, you may as well have been sitting right next to me, because you were always on my mind.”
“That should be our song. ‘Always on My Mind.’”
“I love that song. An old classic, and yes, it should be ours, because it’s the truth.” He traced the tattoo on her ribs with his finger, following the path of the vine. “What’s the meaning behind this?”
“It represented the possibility of growth to me, of something more in the future. Plus, I thought it was pretty.”
“It is pretty—and very sexy, too.”
She smiled. “I’m going to shower now. Don’t you dare join me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
Mia laughed and got out of bed, feeling his gaze on her as she headed for the bathroom. In the shower, she stood under the warm water and closed her eyes. Being with Wade was the easiest thing she’d ever done. It came naturally to her, like breathing or blinking.
She washed her body and rinsed off the soap, feeling as if she was rinsing away the filth of her past with every day she spent with Wade and his family in the magical town of Butler.
In just a few days, she felt more at home here than she ever had in Rutland, where she’d always felt like an outsider around people who’d known each other all their lives. She was an outsider here, too, but Wade made her feel welcome.
She toweled off and put on Wade’s red plaid robe that hung from a hook on the door. Belting it around her, she went to the bedroom to find something to wear to dinner with her husband.
Her husband.
The words made her giddy and excited for everything still to come for them. Now that she was here, where she’d wanted to be for so long, there was nowhere else she wanted to be but with him. At some point, she needed to call her mother and tell her she’d gotten married.
Mia couldn’t wait for her mom and stepfather to meet Wade. They would love him, and her mother would be relieved to hear that Mia wasn’t with Brody anymore.
They’d drifted from each other during the years Mia had spent with Brody, and now she hoped they could bridge that gap. Maybe Wade would be up for a trip to New Mexico at some point. Mia had never seen her mother’s new home and would love to.
Through the bedroom door, she could see Wade crouched before the woodstove, stoking the fire. He’d put on jeans, but his torso was bare and gilded from the glow of the fire. He loved her. He really did, and he had for as long as she’d loved him.
Miracles had been few and far between in her life until she found him in the most unlikely of places—a yoga retreat that had attracted all women except for the one man who’d captured her attention from the start. That man had put the rest of them to shame with his incredible flexibility and intense focus, not to mention the killer body honed from years of yoga practice. And now that man was her husband.
Mia hadn’t known what to expect when she came here looking for his help, but he’d given her everything without hesitation. She would love him and care for him for the rest of her life—if he let her. She wouldn’t ever be able to repay him for the enormous chance he’d taken on her, but she would try as hard as she could to make sure he never regretted it.
There weren’t many things Lucas Abbott took seriousl
y, but a date with a beautiful woman who was also an expert on sex toys? That was something to be taken very seriously. He showered, scrubbed the grime off his face and shaved the beard he’d been sporting since Christmas. He usually kept it until mud season, but Amanda seemed like the type who would prefer clean-shaven to burly-bearded.
Not that he knew her well enough to judge such things, but he hoped to know her much better after tonight.
He combed his hair, put on a bit of cologne and buttoned the shirt he’d ironed for the occasion and smoothed his shirttails over dark jeans. This was as dressed up as it got for him, and he hoped it was good enough for a classy woman like Amanda. Women liked him—and his twin. They had never suffered from a lack of female attention. But lately…
Things had gotten a little… boring. It was too easy. The thrill was gone. He hated to think he might be growing up—horrors—but it had happened to his older brothers. It being maturity. Lucas usually hated that word and everything that went along with it—responsibility, commitment, adulthood.
Watching his younger brother, Max, dedicate himself to single fatherhood had been sobering, and Lucas knew that Landon agreed. They couldn’t have Max making them look bad. That wouldn’t do.
Lucas had been thinking for a while that he needed to expand his playground, so to speak, beyond the local women who’d kept him and Landon—and Max, once upon a time—entertained in recent years. They were all nice people. Well, most of them were, but none of them presented much of a challenge.
He could walk into any bar in the Northeast Kingdom, strike up a conversation with a pretty woman, and be warming her bed within an hour, if that was what he wanted. He wasn’t necessarily proud of his track record where women were concerned and would never deny that he’d had more than his share of fun with women.
But that was all that it had ever been. Fun. Watching his siblings with their life partners had him wondering if maybe there wasn’t something beyond fun that might be worth exploring. That wasn’t to say he was ready to settle down with one woman for the rest of his life, but it might be fun to have… a girlfriend.
