Epilogue #2
I reached behind me, fingers fumbling with the clasp of my bra.
His eyes tracked every movement, darkening as the straps slid down my shoulders.
The fabric caught for a moment between us before falling to the wood.
I hesitated, suddenly shy despite everything we’d already done, then slowly hooked my thumbs into the sides of my panties.
His breath hitched audibly as I pushed them down my thighs, the evening air kissing every inch of newly exposed skin.
I let my gaze wander before dropping pointedly to the part of him still confined by denim. I arched a brow, lips curling with mischief. “You’re overdressed,” I whispered, the words trembling on my tongue like a dare.
He followed my gaze, grinned, and opened his mouth as if to say something cocky, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
My skin already prickled with anticipation, every nerve ending live wired from his touch and the memory of his hands, his mouth.
So, I spun on my heel and dove, headfirst, straight into the lake.
The shock of cold hit every inch of me as I sliced through the water, and I gasped for breath as I finally surfaced. I rolled onto my back and floated, limbs splayed, and I peeked open an eye toward the dock. Colt stood there, arms crossed over his bare chest, eyes tracking my every move.
He made a show of slowly unbuttoning his jeans as if he had all the time in the world.
I watched as he tugged them and his boxersdown his legs, casting them aside and kicking them, boots included, into a careless pile on the dock.
Then he paused at the edge, feet planted wide, and just watched me, his eyes gone dark with intent.
My gaze drifted down to his thighs, lingered on his hard cock, then traveled slowly back to his face.
Heat flooded me despite the cool water lapping at my skin.
I arched my back as much as I could and let my breasts break the surface as I tilted my head.
“What's taking so long, cowboy?” I teased. “You’re not afraid of a little cool water, are you?”
He didn’t move at first, just stood there watching me, and I could see every sharp cut of his muscles and the ravenous look in his eyes.
I stretched out more, trailing a hand across my chest and let my fingers drift down, my eyes glued to his.
“I could do this on my own, you know? I’ve done it so many times to the thought of you. ”
Colt’s mouth ticked up, and his eyes lazily roamed over me as if he were in no hurry to break the moment. He let his eyes graze every inch of me, lingering on the places he knew could make me blush, but I refused to flinch. I wanted him to see me, all of me.
“Maybe I’m just savoring the view,” he finally drawled, his voice a lazy honey that threatened to sprawl out and settle over every nerve ending I owned.
“You always did look good like this. Unashamed and so fucking beautiful. Kinda makes a man wanna take his time.” The words rolled off him, and I had to bite my cheek to keep from grinning.
I watched the slow tilt of his head, how his eyes roved from my throat to my waist to the place where my legs fluttered beneath the surface, and it was so boldly possessive and so very Colt that I found myself arching into the attention.
“Suit yourself.” I shrugged, letting my body sink lower until the water licked just beneath my bottom lip, my eyes never leaving his as I started swimming away from the dock.
I heard his rough chuckle before the splash. Three powerful strokes and he was on me, his hand circling my ankle underwater, tugging me back through the ripples. My breath caught as he pulled me against him, water slipping between our bodies then pushed away by the heat of our skin.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he whispered, his lips so close I could taste his words. His thigh slid between mine beneath the surface, and I bit back a moan that threatened to betray exactly how much I wanted him.
He kept one arm locked around my back, pinning me to him, while his other hand skated up the inside of my thigh beneath the water, claiming territory with the slow confidence of a man who knew every inch, every secret, every quake I had to offer.
I tried to twist out of his grip, but all that did was grind myself against his cock. “Colt,” I gasped as his fingers skimmed over my pussy.
“Yes, Strawberry?” He grinned, slow and wolfish. His fingers on my back bit into my skin while his other hand was still unbearably light. “Did you think I was just going to let you float away?”
He was moving us back toward the dock, but I was barely paying attention as his finger slid over my clit until I whimpered.
“There’s not a chance in hell, Strawberry,” he whispered, his mouth grazing the shell of my ear. “You’re mine.”
And with that, he lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and set me up on the edge of the dock, legs dangling just where the old wood met the lake. Right between the rails of the ladder, exactly like that first night when he made me come while he watched.
My skin prickled, cold and hot all at once, every inch of me exposed for him. I could feel the wild thud of my own heart, loud as thunder.
“What are you doing?” I breathed, but he was already reaching past me, the brush of his forearm sending a shudder up my spine.
He popped open the cooler then grinned as he fished out a jar of Saddle Up Strawberry Jam.
“You’ve been so damn successful with the launch of June’s Jams.” He set the cold jar between my thighs, and I hissed as the glass pressed against my overheated skin. “But as your boyfriend, I don’t feel like I’ve done enough product testing.”
I started to laugh but it caught in my throat as Colt unscrewed the lid and dipped two fingers inside, scooping a glistening ruby glob from the top. He brought it to my lips, smearing a line of jam across the seam of my mouth, and used his thumb to coax my jaw open.
“C’mon, Strawberry,” he crooned, and I let my tongue dart out, licking the sweetness right from his skin.
He leaned in and licked the smudge of jam from the corner of my mouth, then kissed me until I was gasping.
I drank him in, clawing at his forearms and feeling the tremor in his muscles as he held himself in check.
Colt trailed a line of jam down my neck, between my breasts, each new touch a shock of cool stickiness that made my nipples pebble in the night air.
He followed each mark with his tongue, licking up every drop with a devotion that bordered on worship.
I squirmed, half desperate and half delirious, the feeling of being completely devoured more intoxicating than any drug I’d ever known.
When he reached my stomach, he paused and looked up, the jam-stained corner of his mouth quirking into a grin.
“Have I told you lately how proud I am of you?” he asked, and I could feel myself blush, heat racing to the very tips of my ears.
“You’ve created something really special here, Blaire.
” He nodded just as he picked up the jar and set it just outside my thigh.
“It’s a shame I haven’t figured out which one of you is sweeter though. ”
His hands slid up my thighs, widening me as far as I could go with the ladder on either side of me, and then he licked a slow path from my navel to the softest part of my thigh. Then he dipped back into the jar for another spoonful of jam.
This time he spread it along the inside of my thigh, sticky-sweet and cool, and the next thing I felt was the warm, careful press of his mouth as he cleaned every trace with the flat of his tongue. The sensation was dizzying.
I couldn’t keep still. My body went taut, muscles fluttering, fingers digging into his hair.
I arched my hips and moaned his name, not even caring if it echoed across the lake to the far pastures.
He was methodical, almost tender, and he took his time, alternating between the slow, lazy strokes of his tongue and the impatient nip of his teeth.
He chased every dab of jam with reverence, until I was shaking and begging in a way that would have made my old self blush and my new self proud.
“Colt, I can’t—” I started, but he just shook his head, the motion sending another rippling shock up my thigh, and pressed his mouth right where I needed him most.
He sucked, then lapped, then sucked again, and I cried out so loud I half expected to see fireworks behind my eyes. He braced his hands around my hips, holding me steady while his tongue worked me open with single-minded determination.
Every time I thought I might shatter, he eased up, teasing the edge of my sanity, then dove right back in relentlessly until all I wanted was to come apart in his hands. He finally looked up, lips shiny with my arousal and that damn mustache covered in my jam.
“I’m still not sure,” Colt drawled, shaking his head like he was genuinely disappointed in himself, though the glint in his eye told me he was anything but.
His hands bracketed my bare thighs, and he wasted no time dipping his fingers back into the jam for another glistening scoop.
“Suppose I better try again.” He smeared a thick, sticky ribbon of strawberry right at the apex of my thighs, painting a line of jam just above my clit, and I jerked.
His tongue darted out, catching the edge of jam, and then his whole mouth followed, warm, soft, and hungry. He flattened his tongue and dragged it slowly through the mess he’d made, gathering every last trace of sweetness before making a show of sucking it from his own fingers.
He bent his head again and licked another stripe, this time catching my sensitive clit with a teasing, gentle flick. My hips jerked up, an involuntary plea.
He glanced up at me, his pupils dark with desire but soft around the edges with something that made my chest ache. Jam glistened on his lips, and a strand of hair clung to his damp forehead.
“I could spend the rest of my life doing this, Strawberry,” he whispered, voice rough. “I want to trace every inch of you with my tongue until we’ve made up for all those sunsets when I was supposed to be kissing you.”
I reached for him with trembling fingers, tracing the sharp line of his jaw where a hint of stubble caught against my skin.
My thumb brushed the corner of his mouth where a smear of jam still glistened in the fading light.
“Ten years of dreaming,” I whispered, my voice breaking on the confession, “and not once did I imagine it would feel like coming home.”
“I'm never letting you go again, Strawberry,” he whispered, each word a vow against my skin. “I promise you that.”
It was like ten years of winter, gone in an evening.
I swear I could taste the sun on his fingers as they brushed my jaw, a clumsy, reverent touch, sticky with leftover sweetness.
When our mouths finally met, it was all strawberries and him , but something more lingered underneath, a flavor thick with memory that had been waiting for us, patient and inevitable, no matter how long the cold had dragged on.
I’d been desperate to find myself, desperate to find my home, but as I stared into those bright blue eyes something bloomed in my chest, unfurling like June’s strawberry blossoms after the last frost. The answer to every question I’d ever asked was written in the way he looked at me and the way his fingers trembled over my skin.
All this time, I’d been searching for something I’d already found years ago, beneath a Tennessee moon that had been waiting, patient as love itself, for me to finally come home.