Chapter 24 #3
She wrapped her hands around my wrists and guided them to her shorts. “Take them off.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Yes, ma’am.”
While I worked her shorts down her long legs, she grabbed the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head. Each piece of clothing that was discarded was replaced with a kiss, with meandering hands and reverent caresses.
I bared her entirely as she did the same for me. But it wasn’t just our bodies. It was much more, and we both knew it.
“Open up for me, beautiful,” I said as I pushed her knee out to the side and grazed her soaked sex with my knuckles.
Catherine’s chest heaved as she sucked in labored breath after labored breath. The peaks of her breasts were cloaked in the same midnight haze as the mountains.
“So wet already,” I murmured while stroking my cock. I leaned forward and kissed her hip, then her pelvis, then her sternum.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, reaching for me.
“Let me look a little longer.”
“Hayes,” Catherine begged.
I captured her hands in mine and pinned them above her head.
“Men will spend their entire lives trying to paint these mountains or photograph this valley.” I smoothed my palm between her breasts and down her abdomen.
“And they’ll still never capture the magnitude of what I’m holding right now. So let me look just a little longer.”
I took her in as I eased my hips over hers and notched the head of my cock in her entrance. Her breath hitched as I pushed inside ever so slowly.
“That feel good?” I choked out when I was fully sheathed.
“Yes.” Her whisper was sharp. I felt a metal scratch along my thigh as her hands sought purchase.
The ring.
It glinted in the twilight, shining brighter than the first stars that glimmered in the sky.
I never wanted her to take it off.
Realization roiled in my chest, mixing with the fear of failure that still lingered after all these months. Maybe there weren’t ghosts, but there were scars.
That epiphany might as well have been an anvil anchoring me to the spot.
“I need you to move,” Catherine said as she squeezed my thighs. “Now.”
But I couldn’t.
“Babe.” Catherine’s hands softened as concern crept into her voice. “Are you okay? Do you need a minute?”
No. I can’t waste a minute. I can’t waste a second. Not with each passing day drawing Catherine and me closer and closer to the end of us. Panic crept in, strangling the impulsive desires we had indulged over and over again.
It was reckless to love her. I could feel the invisible touch of her ghost reaching for me. It stung; a grotesque preview of what it would feel like when we reached the end of this farce.
As if Catherine read my mind, she wrapped her hands around my biceps and squeezed until the strain released from my muscles.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
“Come here.” I hooked her leg around my hip and slid my arm beneath her head to support my body weight and cradle her close.
I pressed a kiss to her temple as I slid out. Her staccato breath as I thrust back in was a symphony. Every caress was met with an answering cry. Every kiss was punctuated with a plea.
I reached between her legs, savoring how slick she was. It was all for me. I toyed with her clit, drawing her to the edge time and time again as those pretty cries became my vice.
I craved the way her pussy clung to my cock with each thrust. Catherine nipped at my ear as I hung my head low and kissed up and down her neck.
“You feel so fucking good, Cath,” I grunted as my control began to slip. “You gonna come for me?” I needed it harder. Faster. I needed more of her, more than I should ever ask for. I wasn’t haunted by her. I was possessed.
“Make me,” she sassed, opening her eyes for a fleeting second before they rolled back in her head on a thrust. She groaned. “Please.”
I chuckled. “Attagirl.”
Her smile was lazy, but her brows told a different story. They rose and drew in as her body coiled tight like a spring.
“There you go,” I soothed as I felt my body begin to do the same. I massaged her clit. “Just like that. Come for me.”
Her fingers curled around my bicep, holding on as she arched, then fractured. Catherine’s resounding cry echoed through the valley as she held fast, clinging to me through each pulsing wave.
I lost it. My orgasm crashed into me without warning. We lay fused, chest to chest as I poured inside her.
“Cath,” I said the moment I could breathe again. But she shut me up with a kiss.
Our lips parted and those forget-me-not eyes met mine. “If I’m your valley, your flowers, and your sky, then you’re my cowboy.”
I chuckled as I eased out of her and rummaged around the picnic basket for some napkins to clean up with. “I’m no cowboy.”
Catherine caught my left hand with hers, our wedding bands clicking against each other.
“Yeah, you are. Cowboys aren’t all boots and buckles.
They’re the final bastion of tranquility in a world where it’s fleeting.
Cowboys find peace in the wild.” Her lips curved in a smile. “And what could be wilder than this?”