She laughed, the sound almost a sob as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, pressing her naked body against his bare chest.
He growled, moving his hands down her back, to her hips, to her thighs. Then he lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried them both to the center of the bed. He was still wearing his jeans, and she arched against him, his erection, covered in denim, hard still against her body. Rough.
She moaned, rolling her hips against him.
She was so desperate for him. So filled with need, but it wasn’t just physical. She felt like she had been alone for two years. While this person, the one person that had ever got to her in this way, was just out there, away from her. Gone from her. And it had been hell.
Singing about it... All the time. Hearing it over and over again, her own pain, unfiltered and raw, playing in her ears all the time...
It was hell, and this wasn’t heaven. Because it had a time limit on it, like it always did. Like it always would. And it made her want to hide from truth, from reality, from the intensity of what was rioting through her, but she wanted it too much to hide from it. And that, in the end, was the hardest thing. To know that you were running square into the thing that had mortally wounded you before, and to accept that you were making the choice anyway.
That’s what she was doing. She would never know better when it was him. Or maybe she did. Maybe she did, and it would never matter as much as being touched by him.
Maybe it would always be worth the burn to play with his brand of fire. She would despair of it in the morning. Maybe. She would despair of it for years. She knew that already, because she already had.
But now... Now she had him. Now she was with him. And it was everything, and so was he. She skimmed her hands over his chest, down his back. Up to his face again. And she cupped his cheek, and whispered against his mouth, “I want you. I want you so much.”
“Tell me,” he growled, flexing his hips against her again, her internal muscles pulsing as his hardness hit her right where she needed him most, unerringly.
“I’m wet for you,” she said. “Only for you. Only ever for you. I can have anyone. I’m rich and famous. I basically have groupies. Men, women, I could have anyone I want, but I just want you. I just want you. You fucking broke my heart. And look at me, I’m desperate for you. You, Flint Carson.”
He growled, and undid the buckle on his belt. Stripped his jeans off, and her breath caught when she saw him, totally naked. Glorious. Beautiful. She needed him. Needed this. More than anything.
“Take me,” she said. “Make me yours again. Please. Please.” And maybe she said other things, but they were incoherent. Other things, but she didn’t understand them. She didn’t understand anything except him. He was like a map to herself. This desire a guiding star, bringing her home.
And maybe it would never, ever make sense to anyone else, but she didn’t need it to.
She only needed him. Only ever him.
“Take me,” she whispered, and he thrust home.
She gasped, tears forming in her eyes, because it felt so right. To have him in her. So deep, she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. And she didn’t want to. She wanted this. This feeling of being one. This feeling of being his.
And he began to move, and it was like an ignited spark within her soul. She clung to his shoulders, and she kept her eyes open, because she didn’t want to look away.
His name was her every heartbeat.
Flint.
Because whatever happened after this, he was here now. Whatever happened after this, he was hers now.
Whatever happened after this, she would be okay. She had to be okay. Because this had to be worth the risk. This had to be more than a sad country song about being drunk and lonely and missing the one you shouldn’t.
Because they had to be more than that. More than a country song. More than a few verses, a chorus and a bridge.
More than her anger. More than her hurt. More than his grief.
Right then, she felt like it might be true. Like they weren’t just Tansey and Flint, but all the stars and everything else. Like they weren’t just the bad things, but a whole universe of possibility.
She didn’t want the moment to pass, because once it did, there would be reality to contend with.
And she didn’t want it.
She just wanted him.
That was the scariest thing. After all this time, after all of this.
Knowing better. Knowing he was the cowboy her mother had warned her about...
She just wanted him.
As orgasm crashed over her like a wave, she let herself get taken under.
His heart was still beating so hard he could barely breathe.
He was back in bed with her. With Tansey. And he could pretend that sex was all the same. That he had been the one with experience, so he was the one who was armed against this kind of thing. The one who knew what it was. Whatever that meant. Because there was no defining what this was. Not easily. It wasn’t that simple, and it never could be.
It was something different, though. It was something he’d never experienced before, and it was why he hadn’t been able to touch anyone since.
She shifted beside him, and he rolled onto his side and looked at her.
And there was something still about it. Something peaceful.
A feeling that he hadn’t let himself feel in more years than he could count.
“I’m not really sad that I’m stuck up here anymore.”
“Good to know.”
