So I turned away and went back to my room to finish packing.
Tears pressed at the corners of my eyes as I gathered a handful of clothes from the closet and brought them back to the bed. One by one, I pulled the items off their hangers and tossed them in my suitcase. I didn’t really want to leave. But I couldn’t stay. Not like this. Leaving was better, anyway. I’d set out in the beginning to save Amber, and having failed that, at least I could save myself.
But then, in between my sniffles, I heard him. Heard him behind me. He was so quiet in his approach, so stealthy, that my pulse shot up, my heart thundering in my chest.
He came closer. Came right behind me and I wondered, is it the tie? Or the belt? I was paralyzed, waiting for it. I wouldn’t fight it, I decided. It wouldn’t matter. He’d win anyway, and so I’d let him. After, he’d toss my body in a landfill. No one would come looking for me. I would be forgotten.
His body was hot at my back. I could hear him exhale. Then he said quietly, “I wasn’t there.”
I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
“I had nothing to do with it. There was a party. I was fucking some other woman on the beach. Some other women. We recorded it on my phone, for kicks. I didn’t know Missy was looking for me. I didn’t know she had gone out to the cliffs. I’d texted the recording to one of the girls. It was time stamped. I was completely cleared. I can show you if you want to see it.”
I shook my head, barely perceptibly. If I needed a time stamp to come to a conclusion about his innocence, then we were already over. I hadn’t asked for proof. I’d asked for his story and he’d given it. Either I believed him now or I didn’t.
And I did believe him. For no other reason than that he wanted me to. He didn’t need to tell me anything – he hadn’t told anything to anyone before. But he’d told me this story now. Whether it was true or not, it meant he wanted me to stay. So I believed it.
I also believed it could actually be true.
I didn’t face him yet, though, because there was more I had demanded from him in exchange for staying. “Is she the woman you didn’t let leave?”
“No, that was someone else. Missy wasn’t even anything to me. I fucked her. She was around for that.”
Swiveling my head, I met his eyes. “Like me?”
He scoffed. “No. Not like you.”
I turned my entire body toward him, opening myself up to him. “How are we different?”
“For one, she was a tweaked-out cokehead. For another, I would care if you were gone.” He regarded me with anticipation, seeming to want me to acknowledge that, though he hadn’t given me what I demanded, hadn’t given me his decision about what I meant to him, he’d still given me something.
And the something he’d given me did have meaning. It burrowed quickly into my chest, a new hope for me to hold on to.
But I refused to let that show. Because, while it was something, it wasn’t enough.
I hugged my arms around myself. “What do you want me to be, Reeve?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Emily. I didn’t want to want anything from you. It was you who pursued me.”
I reacted quickly. “Have to make sure I remember that, don’t you?”
He cocked his head and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you going to let me talk?”
“Are you actually going to say something useful?”
That glint flashed in his eyes – the one that said he’d like to take a paddle to my ass. I ignored the tingle that sent to my lower regions and held my stance.
His eyes fell to my mouth, to the frown pulling at the corners. He reached his hand out and brushed his thumb across the downturned point. “I do want a deeper relationship with you.”
My lips parted in surprise.
Then his hand dropped. “But I fucked up my last relationship so much that it was barely recognizable in the end. And I’m not sure any future relationship would be any different.”
“Tell me what happened then.” I dropped my arms, desperate to touch him but afraid of losing ground. “Tell me and I can help make sure it doesn’t happen again.” My motive, for once, wasn’t Amber. It was genuinely a plea for us.
He lowered his eyes. “No. It’s the worst of me.”
Here, I did think of Amber. Because it was impossible to hear that he’d done the worst things with her and not think they were actually the worst things a person could do. Not when I knew what had happened to her in the end.
But even though I’d thought about her, I wasn’t sure she mattered anymore.
He glanced up at me again. “I don’t want you to know that.”
“Ever?” When he didn’t respond, I coaxed him. “You can tell me. It’s not going to change anything.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if you know or not.”
We were going in circles. One step forward then one step back. I closed my eyes for a beat and gripped the bedspread behind my back so that I wouldn’t be tempted to touch him.
Then I opened my eyes and asked with finality, “What do you want this to be with me, Reeve? Decide.”
His gaze lingered. He let the flame between us flicker and flare before his attention skidded down, down past my throat, down to where my chest rose and fell with each anxious breath. Again, he reached his hand out to touch me, this time cupping my breast.
Reflexively, I leaned into his palm.
His thumb circled my nipple until it stood erect. Then he trailed his hand down my ribcage. He stepped closer, raising his face toward mine as his hand grazed over my hip. “What do you want?”
There was no need to think before I answered. “Whatever you let me have of you.”
“What if it’s everything?”
“Then I’ll take everything.” Our voices were whispers, as if these kinds of words were easier to say quietly, in hushed tones so that we had to really listen to hear them. And I had heard him. Had heard him and was clinging to his implication. Clinging to the almost promise of everything.
He continued his hand down my satin slip, down to the hem and underneath where he lazily traced up my thigh toward my cunt. In a moment he’d reach my core and then all talking would be over.
But in this moment, I was still thinking of everything. “Is that what you want to offer?”
His focus was already gone. “Right now I want to make you come.”
He fell to his knees and wrapped his hands around my panties. “I came back early because of you.” He pulled the lacy material down my limbs. “I needed to be inside you. I wanted you beneath me and next to me and with me.” He lifted one foot out of a leg hole, then the other. He pushed my nightie up to my waist and leered appreciatively at me exposed.
“And now I need to make you come.” Placing a hand on my belly, he nudged me back against the bed where there was just enough space between the edge of the mattress and the suitcase for me to perch. He lifted one of my legs over his shoulder.
Then he lowered to my pussy, sucking my clit into his mouth.
I gasped, my hands flinging out to hold on to the bedframe with one and the mattress with the other. In all the weeks we’d been together, in all the ways he’d given me pleasure, he’d never put his head between my legs. Because he was selfish, maybe. Because it wasn’t his thing. Because it had never been a priority. I’d never known the reason, and it hadn’t been a big deal.
But as he licked along my seam, as he dipped his tongue into my entrance, as he went lower and circled the rim of my asshole, I understood why he hadn’t done it until now. Because before, he hadn’t meant it. The way he washed me with his mouth, lavishing me, adoring me, taking his time, this kind of attention sent a message. You’re important to me, it said. I want to give you what I can, starting with this.
I knew it was also a stall tactic. I knew that giving in would mean I accepted his lack of answer. I knew that Mike or Donny was watching this private, intimate act in the surveillance room.
And I didn’t care. This moment was o
rganic and needed and beautiful because of what it was, despite what it lacked.
I knew that I could still let this be our goodbye.
His tongue swept over me and inside me, his fingers stroked all my most sensitive spots, his lips sucked and nibbled. He was dominating me but in the subtlest way he ever had. There was nothing demeaning about what he was doing. Nothing to be embarrassed about submitting to. It was selfish because it was for him but it was selfless as well. It was sincere and affectionate and progress and I thought, vanilla is good, too.
He brought me to climax three times, each one taking me higher than the one before. And each time, he stole my breath and my balance and I’d think, I can’t anymore, but he’d show me I was wrong and send me there again.
After the last, when I was torn apart and boneless, too spent to fight anymore for what I needed from him, he lowered my leg off his shoulder and reached up to brush the hair out of my face and said, “Stay, Emily.”
A tear leaked down my cheek that might have been left over from the final time he’d made me come. He wiped it away. “I want you to stay,” he said again. “We can figure out what this is together. Say yes.”
The place those words sent me was more gratifying, more pleasurable than any of the orgasms he’d given me. “Yes,” I said, with as much emotion as if I were accepting a proposal. “Yes.”
He pulled me down to my knees in front of him and he kissed me. His tongue was gentle against mine. His lips were firm but yielding. He tasted like me, like my desire and my submission. Tasted the way that pleading must taste, soft and imploring, vulnerable and exposed. It wasn’t a kiss that took; it was a kiss that asked. For the first time, he didn’t demand from me.
So what I gave back was honest and unforced and open. When before he’d been a blustering wind that I’d chased and sometimes was lucky enough to catch – or be caught up in – now we were both still, coming together on our own accord. We originated in this. Everything now was new. A start. A beginning. The brush of his hand across my cheek, though he’d done it many times before, it was as if this time was the first. His whispers were unheard whispers. The gasps at the back of my throat were sounds I’d never made. The way my knees buckled, how he pulled me tighter against him, the sighs between us – all new.
This was our first surrender.
First embrace.
First kiss.
First touch.
CHAPTER 25
A sudden change in room temperature woke me the next morning. I came to enough to realize I was missing my covers, and, with my eyes still shut, I searched blindly for the blankets.
“I pulled them off of you,” Reeve said.
I squinted up toward his voice and found him standing above me. “Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s time to get up.”
This wasn’t the wakeup from Reeve I was used to. Usually he used his cock to rouse me. This time he was fully dressed, wearing what I called the ranch uniform – jeans and a long-sleeve flannel button-down shirt.
I hoped his attire meant he wasn’t leaving again already. It had already been late when he’d come home the night before and we’d stayed up much later, moving from my room to his where we’d moved together under the sheets for long hours.
It had been wonderful and magical and all the adjectives that people use to describe “making love.” We hadn’t done any talking after he’d knelt before me, however, and there was still so much to be said. Hopefully today we’d have time to remedy that – if his business didn’t pull him away.
Even if it did, I had his attention now.
I rubbed at my eyes with my fist. “I prefer your usual wakeup method.”
He laughed. “I do too, Blue Eyes. But we don’t have time for that. We have plans.”
I stifled a yawn as I sat up against the headboard. “What are we doing?” Swear to God, if he’d forced me up just so I could make the six a.m. breakfast, I was going to be very unhappy about it.
“We’re spending time together in a location that isn’t a bed.” He sat on the bench against the wall and pulled on a boot.
I curled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them for warmth. “A bed has never been required for your dick to find its way inside me.”
“No, it hasn’t,” he said, grinning and pulling on his other boot. “But today I’m putting something else between your legs. Get up.”
“Fine, fine.” More than fine, actually. He was spending the day with me. Or, at least part of it. Like I’d said the night before, I’d take whatever he gave.
I pushed myself out of the bed and padded into his bathroom for a much needed shower.
After, I dried off and put on my robe, planning to head to my bedroom to get dressed. But when I opened the door, Reeve was waiting with a tray of eggs, toast, and fruit.
“You know breakfast in bed works best when I’m still in bed,” I teased.
He swatted my ass hard enough to make me yelp. “I let you sleep in. I didn’t have to make you anything.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I bowed my head in dramatic fashion. “It was very kind of you, Mr. Sallis. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Keep it up, Blue Eyes.” His tone suggested he’d very much like for me to keep it up. But he switched gears quickly. “I had riding clothes and boots sent up from the general store.” He nodded to a shopping bag on the bed.
“Ah, that’s what we’re doing.” I’d been horseback riding before but it had only been a few times and many years ago now. It had been something I’d always wanted to try again. The ranch was the perfect place.
“Yes. And I took the liberty of picking out some underwear from your room.”
I peeked inside and found a pair of white lace panties and a matching bra lying on top of tissue-wrapped bundles, which I assumed were the riding clothes. “The virginal look. How very naughty of you.”
He smirked. “You mean, how very naughty of you. I’m not the one who will be wearing them.”
He crossed to me and kissed my forehead. Which was different and made my stomach swim with a rush of excitement.
“If I stay here with you,” he said, reluctantly, “you’ll never get dressed. And I have a few things I need to do anyway. Meet me downstairs when you’re ready?”
“Okay,” I said around a mouthful of toast.
“You know where my office is?”
I nodded, my gut tightening at the mention of the locked room.
“Don’t take all day.” He eyed me a moment, as if enjoying the sight of me, then he left.
The minute the door shut, I let out a heavy sigh. The morning so far had been perfect. Beyond perfect. The day ahead seemed to be promising more of the same. Reeve was going beyond my expectations to prove his commitment to the change in our relationship. It was a relief, for one, as I knew how easily promises made in the dark disintegrated in the daylight. It also produced a whole host of emotions I couldn’t even identify, most of them pleasant. I was thrilled. I was excited. I was flustered. I was flattered.
But I was also overwhelmed.
Things were happening suddenly, and I still had baggage that I hadn’t had time to figure out what to do with. Amber-shaped baggage. While part of me wanted to let it all go and follow this new path with Reeve, I couldn’t give up on the promises I’d made to her in the dark. Whether that meant I still wanted to swipe his office keys to check out the recordings, I hadn’t decided.
And it didn’t have to be decided now. Today would be for Reeve, to find out what we could be to each other. I’d given enough days to Amber to let at least one be my own.
Two hours later, I was sitting on the back of a chestnut quarter horse named Milo winding through the most beautiful mountain countryside I’d ever seen. Reeve rode beside me on a black stallion named Playboy, which I’d remarked was fitting. My boyfriend – I’d started calling him that more in my mind, testing it out, getting used to it – was a skilled rider. Though he’d stayed with me for the mo
st part, he’d also made sure that I saw him show off his form, galloping ahead at times then circling back to me a few minutes later.
We’d chatted for some of the ride, about nothing important, the scenery mainly. But we’d also been silent, letting the landscape speak for itself. Letting the things between us stretch and yawn without manipulation or force. We’d been out for an hour now, and, while we weren’t technically anywhere closer to figuring us out, it felt like we’d settled a great deal. It was well worth the ache to my tailbone, though I was about ready for a break.
As if he could read my mind, Reeve said, “We’re almost to the river. We’ll stop there and let the horses drink before heading back. I brought some sandwiches we can snack on there.”
“You packed us a picnic? Whoa there, cowboy. You’d better be careful or someone’s going to call you romantic.”
He laughed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s not substantial enough to be called a picnic. But I am glad that my attempts to impress you haven’t gone unnoticed.”
As if he had to impress me. Yet, it was impressive all the same. And strange, since I’d never really been wooed before. It gave me a feeling of unbalance that had nothing to do with how high I was up from the ground. Sweet and sappy wasn’t exactly in my realm of understanding, nor was it what I truly wanted. It was good in small doses – necessary, even, to repair the parts of me that ached and mourned. But I hoped it wasn’t a replacement for the elements of our earlier relationship.
“Thank you for the clothes, by the way.” The outfit he’d bought me had included stretchy form-fitting breeches, a white button-down, and a riding jacket. Along with the boots, I looked like a western wet dream, which was why I added, “I think they may be as much of a gift for you as they are for me.”
His eyes seared over me. “You do look pretty fucking hot; I’m not going to lie.”
That’s all he had to say and I was fantasizing about him pulling me off my horse to ravage me amongst the scores of yellow wildflowers.
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