Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AVA
Iknew as soon as I walked into my father’s office yesterday that I would end up back here, wrapped in Kasey’s arms while he looked at me like I was indeed his sun. I think I knew it all along, but it hit me hardest when I realized that I wasn’t there to defend my choices or defiance.
I was there to give him my truth.
And the truth is, plain and simple, that I’ve loved Kasey for just about as long as he’s loved me.
Even when I played games with his heart.
Even when I ran from him and made him chase me into the depths of my own fears.
Even as I sit here and wonder if I’m even worthy of everything he gives me.
I love him, and it’s about damn time I sat still with something good in my life.
“Why are you crying?” Kasey asks, voice deep and shaky, like the rumble of an old tractor over the pasture. His thumbs swipe at my tears as he looks at me with so much reverence that my heart kicks against my ribs like a wild stallion.
I’m so tired of all the ghosts of us haunting my every waking hour. I’m ready to start again, ready for something new with him. “I’m crying,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut, “because you smell so bad. It’s making my eyes water.”
Kasey’s mouth falls open, the corners of his mouth lifting.
“You’re a fucking brat, you know that?” He shakes his head and sighs.
And then he’s launching me up into the air, those bulky arms carrying my weight as my legs wrap around his waist. The blanket from his bed falls to the ground.
“This is the smell of a real man, sugar,” he says, eyes devouring every inch of me.
“Take a shower, you dirty cowboy,” I say, watching the way his mouth changes. The way his cheeks pull. “And take me with you.”
He kisses me so hard everything around us disappears.
I feel him moving, carrying me into the house, but I’m dizzy by the intoxicating way his tongue parts me open and strokes deep into my mouth.
This man, this perfect man, who loves me enough to heal parts of me that he had nothing to do with.
Who has the patience to wait for me, to hold me through it, even at the risk of his own heart.
His nose scrapes along the underside of my jaw, grip tightening around my waist. He grunts.
Nips into the flesh below my ear. Roughly pushes his hips into mine, pinning me tightly against a wall.
“Never again,” he says, pulling back to catch my eyes, his full of so much need.
We’re in the darkened hallway, mere feet from the bathroom.
“I mean it, Ava. I won’t lose you ever again. ”
It feels like a cannon blasts inside my chest, everything all at once becoming too vast and shapeless and heavy with a pressure that both terrifies and grounds me.
“You never lost me,” I tell him. “I’m the one who lost myself, Kasey.
I’ve always been yours. There’s no version of life I could ever live that would keep me from wanting you.
” I fist the front of his shirt to pull him back to my mouth, desperate for him.
And then we’re moving again. He smacks the switch on the wall to turn on the light, and I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror: him, utterly breathtaking in dark jeans and a black tee, his hair a rumpled mess from being stuffed into his hat all day; and me, naked and wrapped around him.
He must sense that my attention has been pulled elsewhere, because he leans away from me again, eyes trailing across my face.
When he follows the line of my gaze to the mirror, his eyes turn black as midnight, pupils blown wide.
“Ava,” he grunts again, fastening his mouth to my neck.
It takes three tries to get the shower faucet turned on, mostly because he’s not looking.
The water comes out freezing cold at first, so we pass the time dragging our fingers and mouths over each other with a shared hunger that burns bigger and brighter with every moment that passes.
Once the room is filled with steam and the ends of Kasey’s hair begin to curl, he sets me gently on the ground so he can get undressed.
I step into the shower as he pulls off his shirt, letting the warm water glide over my skin while he watches in rapt fascination. “Fuck,” he groans, fumbling at the button of his jeans.
I let my fingers trail down the center of my breasts, dipping below my navel and further still.
His eyes are anchored on me as he roughly shoves the denim of his jeans down his broad thighs, struggling to get them past the swell of rock-hard muscle, growling in frustration.
And then they give, and he kicks them off, and within seconds he’s in the shower with me, pushing me against the wall with a fever that floods my bones.
“Easy, cowboy,” I murmur, rising to my tiptoes to lick into the hollow of his throat.
And then I playfully push him into the running stream of water, grabbing the bar of soap from the small shelf and lifting it to his skin.
Mint green streaks across his tanned skin, washing away the day’s sweat and grime. “I want to take care of you too.”
He closes his eyes, beads of water collecting on his lips, his chin.
I drag the soap across his chest, lifting my other hand to rub the suds against him, feeling the ripple of his chiseled chest. Kasey’s hands reach for me, gripping tight against my waist and pulling me against him.
He’s hard, hungry, pressing into my stomach with unmitigated want.
“Ava,” he whispers, bending down until his forehead rests against the top of my head. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” I tell him. And for the first time, it feels like a glimpse of everything we might get to have instead of everything I might not be able to give him. “I love you more than—oh!” My eyes widen and I look up at him as a huge smile grows. “Kasey!”
His eyes bounce back and forth between mine, a deep groove forming between his brows. “What is it?”
“The baby—she’s moving!” I drop the soap, letting it fall to the bottom of the tub with a loud smack. Peeling his hands off my waist, I press them to my stomach instead, just as another burst of fluttering movement bounds through me. “Do you feel that?”
“I—” Kasey closes his eyes in concentration. Both of us go silent and utterly still. When it happens again, Kasey’s eyes shoot wide open. “Fucking hell,” he says, his wet smile rippling. “That’s her?”
I nod, matching his smile with my own. “That’s our girl, Kasey.”
He looks down at the place his hands cup the swell of my belly with so much reverence it knocks the wind out of me.
“Hi, my little love,” he murmurs softly.
“You have no idea how happy I am to know you.” He drops to his knees, pressing a warm kiss to my belly, just below my navel.
Water from the faucet hits the back of his head and ricochets around him, droplets of water spraying against the wall of the shower.
If it’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t seem to care.
“I saw your foot,” he says proudly. “And your perfect beating heart. You’re already so beautiful.
I’m going to spoil the heck out of you, sweetheart.
And I’m going to protect you and your mommy with everything I have, I promise.
I’m going to take such good care of you. ”
“Kasey,” I say, breath hitching with the force of my tears.
He looks up at me, so, so happy. “I mean it, Ava. I’m going to love and protect you both forever. I fucking promise.”
“Come here,” I say, tugging him up. He rises back to his feet and crowds into me, kissing me with a new wave of hunger that has me curling my toes. I pull away and bend over for the soap. “Behave, Kasey. I haven’t finished cleaning you up yet.”
He pouts, and I laugh. But he tries to hold still while I wash the rest of him.
He eventually loses patience again, and this time when he presses me into the wall, I don’t stop him.
He keeps me there, pinned and at his mercy, for long, languid kisses that burn low in my belly.
I slide my fingers through his hair, pulling at his nape.
Blaze a trail down his spine so I can get a good squeeze of his ass.
When I reach between his legs to wrap my hand around his hard length, he sputters out a low groan that rumbles straight through me. “Turn around and put your hands on the wall,” he says roughly.
Anticipation curls tight as I do, turning my back to him and lifting my hands high on the wall above my head.
He takes hold of my waist to keep me steady as he nudges his knee between my legs, pushing side to side until my feet are spread wide.
And then he’s pulling my long hair back behind my shoulders, collecting it in a pile against my spine.
“I don’t think you understand how fucking turned on your swollen belly makes me, sugar.
” He grips the end of my hair, wrapping it around his fist. His other hand slides between my legs, fingers swirling in my need for him.
His voice is low and dark against my ear.
“You want me too, don’t you?” I nod and he hums, teasing featherlight brushes against my clit.
“I know, I know. Let me give you what you need.”
He pulls my waist back until my ass is hovering in front of him and uses my hair to angle my face up to the ceiling. And then he presses deep into me with a single, hard thrust.
We both groan loudly over the sound of the running water.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck, sugar.”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Fuck me, Kasey.”
He’s not gentle about the way he moves inside me, the way he drives his hips into mine, hurling me higher and higher as pleasure blooms through me.
His free hand lifts to my breast, squeezing and kneading and pinching.
When he pulls my head back further, licking up the side of my neck, I come so hard my vision blanks.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, breath curling around the shell of my ear. “I’m greedy tonight, sugar. Give me one more.”
He frees his fist from my hair and turns us until I’m facing the back of the shower, his body blocking most of the water from hitting me.
Pressing his palm against my spine, he bends me over until I’m hinged at the waist, facing my own shins.
The speed of his thrusts increase as the rhythm becomes erratic.
Wild. “Give me one more,” he says again, voice straining.
I’m so close, feeling him move this deep inside of me. My skin begins to tingle as he drills harder and faster. I reach up between our legs to feel where we’re joined together, to feel the way we fit so perfectly like this, and it sends us both straight over the edge.
Later, after cleaning ourselves again and finally getting out of the shower with pruned fingers and toes, we lie naked in his bed.
His comforter is still out on the porch, but he pulled the one from the guest bedroom and brought it in here.
I listen to the sound of his breathing while he trails a light touch up and down the length of my arm.
“My dad asked me if you treat me well,” I whisper.
His eyes seem to hang from mine, the weight of his heart right there for me to take. “Oh yeah?” he says with a low rumble. “What’d you tell him, sugar?”
I press my palm to his cheek. Trace the slope of his jaw with my thumb. “I told him that, twice now, you’ve found me at my darkest, at my loneliest. And you’ve shown me how to breathe again.”
His eyes squeeze shut as his face leans into my touch. “Marry me,” he says, an open mouth pressed to my collarbone. “Marry me for real, Ava. On this ranch. The way we wanted.” When he looks up again, there’s a tenderness in his expression that soars through me. “Please?”
“Yes,” I whisper, clutching his face. I pull him to me for a hard, watery kiss. “Absolutely yes.”