We’d been together for most of the year, we’d been through a lot, especially her, and neither of us had said those words.
She sat up, like a prairie mermaid, dressed in an old flannel of mine that Dawson had saved for when I visited. Her jeans had once been pristine, but now they had rips that showed tantalizing, creamy bits of skin.
“Xander . . .” She crept closer until she was kneeling in front of me. Cupping my face, she looked deep into my eyes. “I love you too, and I’m really excited about this life we get to live together.”
Our life together. I hadn’t thought much beyond what we were doing in King’s Creek. Had she?
I gripped her hands in mine. So many questions. So many plans we could talk about, but that would wait. We were alone and while we might be exposed to the big wide world, we had more privacy than we’d had in weeks—months.
Pulling her onto my lap, I claimed her mouth and took my time kissing her, tasting the sweet remnants of the grapes we’d had with lunch.
I rolled her onto her back and stretched over her. She arched into me as I kissed my way down her neck. “Can anyone see us?”
“No.” The Cartwrights were more militant about trespassers on their property than we were. Dawson’s two hired guys were off after a long day yesterday and my family was lounging around the cabin or in town running errands. “No one will see what’s mine.”
“You get home and turn possessive?”
“When it comes to you? Yes.” I tugged up her shirt and she twined her hands through my hair. I’d never given my hair much thought. It wasn’t as close cut as most of my family’s. Dawson might not be as strict with his trimmed sides, but it wasn’t nearly as messy as mine.
The way Savvy liked to feel it up, I was never going to cut it shorter than it was now.
I unbuttoned her pants and worked my way down. I’d love to strip her down, but we were out in the middle of nowhere. The temperature was fine—with clothing on. So I’d keep her warm instead.
Tugging her pants down her legs, I was reminded of our time behind the camper’s cabin in Kosovo. We’d had less privacy and I’d managed to take her without removing a stitch of fabric from either of us. While I didn’t want to bare her to the wild, I needed more than a quick fuck in the woods.
I tossed the pants aside and looked my fill of my gorgeous wife. It was a futile attempt. I’d never have enough of this woman. She’d followed me across the world, circumnavigating the globe to land at the base of this butte with me. She’d led strangers through the mountains and kept them safe, she’d worked cattle, and she’d even survived a run-in with our cranky neighbor.
How had I found this treasure?
I hadn’t. She’d found me. All of my travels, and my sapphire gem had found me in a random city with a camera in my hand.
It was fate.
I ran my fingers up her calves. She turned her head and her hair shifted, a shining halo spread around her. Splaying my hands over her knees, I pushed her legs wide.
The image before me was searing. A goddess under the sun. I’d never violate her privacy and take a picture of her like this, in all her glory, whether she wanted me to or not. This was between us. This was mine and only mine. I didn’t need a picture to remember it forever.
I dipped my head down and raised my hips to keep from strangling the blood supply to my throbbing erection. My zipper pinched in, but I ignored it. My discomfort was nothing when I could finally give Savvy the pleasure I’d been wanting to give her for days—weeks. Months.
I took my time tasting her. She writhed under me, her hips rolling up. With a growl, I gripped her ass and pulled her closer to my face.
Her breath hitched. “Xander.”
Since we’d gotten married, we’d never had time like this. I’d had to wait too fucking long to make slow, hard love to my wife.
Her knees hitched up as I adjusted the speed, bringing her close and backing off. I hadn’t used more than my tongue, but she vibrated with tension.
“You’re such a tease,” she gasped.
The strain of coming so close to climax, only to be repeatedly denied, was in her voice. I inserted a finger into her tight, wet heat. Any chill to the day had long since vanished.
She bucked against me and I sped up the pace of my tongue. I didn’t need to move my hand. She rode it and she rode me, taking everything I’d been holding back.
“Oh my God!” Her voice echoed over the land as she came hard against my mouth. My head yanked as she twisted her fists in my hair.
Worth every second. And I drew it out for several seconds. She didn’t bother being quiet. For once, our only neighbors were cattle and the horses, who couldn’t care less about humans fornicating.
Her feet landed on the blanket on each side of my head. She tugged me up her body and I barely had a chance to wipe her release off my face before she smashed my lips down onto hers.
Being cradled between her legs lent its own sense of urgency to the situation. I reached down to undo my buckle, fumbling way more than I cared to during my rush. Each time I’d delayed her gratification was coming back on me tenfold.
I finally freed my demanding erection but she batted my hand away and placed me at her sweltering entrance. I didn’t hesitate. As I thrust inside, a groan ripped from my chest.
She broke the kiss to moan and work herself against me. I tipped my forehead to hers and forced us to slow down.
“I’m taking my time with you, sweetheart.” I pulled out and inched back in, my body shaking from the strain of holding myself in check.
“We can do slow next time.”
“The problem is that I don’t know when our next time will be. We’re hardly ever alone.”
She bit her lower lip, looking deceptively innocent while grinding against my cock. “It can be in a few minutes. Unless . . . we’re needed back there.”
I grinned, hooking her leg under my arm and increasing the thrust of my hips. “Oh, honey. I’ll make sure we have all damn day.”
Chapter 19
Savvy
I stroked my hand up and down Xander’s chest. His flannel was unbuttoned and the T-shirt he’d had on underneath it was lying next to us. Eventually, we’d stripped down to full nudity and continued having sex for another couple of hours.
The sun’s rays weren’t strong this time of year, but I wasn’t going to have a single tan line from today. I grinned.
He pushed my hair away from my face. “Whatcha thinking about?”
“Tan lines.”
His deep chuckle reverberated through my cheek. “Tan lines. We won’t have any from today.”
I sat up and leaned over him. “Exactly what I was thinking.” I let my gaze wander over his strong face. We hadn’t had much time to lie around since we’d met. “I’d like more of this.”
“Wilderness sex? I’m on board.”
I pushed his chest. It was unyielding. “No. Well, yes, but not like that. I want time for us.” I let my thoughts wander down a more serious path. “We’ve worked cattle. What are we doing next?”
“What do you want to do?” His we have no money yet was implied.
“I want . . .” I glanced around. My life the last year had been unrecognizable from every year before it. I’d been into environmentalism. I’d recycled. I’d shopped discriminately, my intentions to decrease the waste of the action as much as possible. But this Savvy was so much more experienced in the world.
On the hikes, I’d talked with the guests about what they did for a living and what had brought them to Kosovo. I’d met IT people, stock market experts, furniture builders, and social media influencers. But one thing linked us all together: a love for nature and the yearning to preserve what we could, to keep it a place where we could find ourselves living in an untouched environment.
How the hell that translated to a career, I didn’t know. Yet. But the seed of an idea was germinating deep in my mind. “I wouldn’t mind seeing my family.”
“Stay with
them until we’re flush?” He didn’t sound the happiest about the idea, but I was pleased that he’d do it for me.
“No, actually . . . Eva talked to me about what she and Beckett are doing with his trust.” Scholarships, donations, program launches. Xander knew all of that, but I doubted he’d ever discussed the nitty-gritty details with Beckett. “How it’s a shitload of money, but once you start doing stuff with it, it’s like a tub drain is pulled out.”
“It goes fast?”
I nodded. “She told me how they’re investing it and how they’ve divvied it up to try and get the most use out of it, but the biggest takeaway was—it goes fast. Even that many millions.”
“What do you think we should do?”
I reclined against his shoulder and stared at the sky. The sun was sinking in the west and it wasn’t even dinnertime. “I’d like to pay it forward. I’d like to work from the ground up, literally when it comes to the environment. I want to create places where people come to visit and learn and experience and go back home and try to do better. Even if they’re avid recyclers, they maybe also try to . . . I dunno, make their own taco seasoning?”
“Taco seasoning?” He laughed and the sound wasn’t as pleasant as before.
My face burned and I turned more on my back and fiddled with the ends of my hair. My mother’s voice drifted through my mind. Frizz and split ends never solved a problem, Sapphire. Perhaps you should try talking it out or writing.
“You know what I mean,” I mumbled.
He rolled to his side and propped his head up. His fingertips touched my cheek and he added enough pressure to get me to look at him. “It’s not silly. I get what you mean. I know what it’s like to know what you want to do, but have no clue how to carry it out.”
“But you can do so much more with pictures and words. I just want to grow a few more lavender plants and send guests home with natural sachets.”
His lips quirked. “They’d actually get use out of the sachets. My written words suck.” He dropped his gaze and let out a long breath. “It’s why I haven’t finished that article.”
“But Xander, your pictures are gorgeous.” I wished he took more. I wished he used that camera and captured the beauty around us and shoved it in people’s faces.
“They’re all right. But by themselves, and by myself they won’t sell a lot.”
Admittedly, that sounded boring. The thought of writing long articles and doing all that research propelled me back to college. If I had to do it for a living, it needed to be fun. “Maybe don’t sell them at first. Just put them up somewhere with some interesting facts. Gather a following.”
He sat up next to me and propped his arms over his raised knees. “A website?”
“You could blog.” Ideas that I’d been wanting to ask him about piled into my brain so quickly, I could recite them. “Vlogs, podcasts, YouTube, social media—you could do anything.” I twisted onto my knees to face him. “Everything’s so visual nowadays. Look at what your photos did for Hector’s business. You could pick and choose topics to educate viewers—subscribers—patrons?—whatever. I could help come up with the topics and do the posts and you could take the pictures.”
I’d loved working for Saving Sunsets right out of college, but their reach had been limited. Doing this, Xander could reach all corners of the world. Well, those that had Wi-Fi, but it was a start and appealed to a bigger audience than Saving Sunsets had.
Xander’s enthusiasm wasn’t growing with mine. His brows were drawn, but at least he was thinking. “The pictures would be used for social media?”
He was so attached to doing something “momentous” with his work that he’d closed himself off from the possibilities.
“You wouldn’t have to work to be published. You’d make our own damn publication.” A gasp escaped. Excitement piled on top of endless possibilities. “With the money coming, you could reach far and wide. You could lift the voices of others trying to communicate similar topics.”
“Make my own publication?” His brows drew further together, but his brown gaze swirled now too.
I waited, squeezing the breath in my lungs, to hear his opinion. We were a couple, but something like this had to be his decision, not just mine. Photography was his passion, one that he wanted to make more than a hobby.
A slow smile spread across his face. “Make my own damn publication.”
“Hell, yes. You don’t need anyone’s approval.”
His grin dimmed. “I’m not an old man, but I am turning thirty soon. They didn’t really teach us about this in college, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d stayed.”
“I used to listen to some podcasts on the commute to Saving Sunsets’ office.” Which had been with Davis, our driver. I regretted that time that could have been spent learning my way around the city, being among the hub of people going about their day, and learning what was important to them for survival.
I’d had a fun experience learning public transit with Xander, but no one was dictating my life ever again.
“Brady was into it more. He has friends from school that have YouTube channels, and of course there’ll always be a new social media outlet to master. We can call him and brainstorm.” I peered into his eyes, the fading sun reflected back at me from the amber depths. “You think it’s something you can get into?”
“I think so.” He reached over and dug out his camera. “I feel like taking pictures again, so that’s a good start.”
I eased out of his way, though he would’ve taken a shot with me in it, and he focused on the sinking sun. Clouds were scattered across it, but the brilliant yellow-orange glow was a stark contrast to the land with its browns and greens.
The evening was silent besides the clicks of his camera. Then he focused on the horses. Their tails swished and swayed as they grazed in the new location Xander had moved them to after we’d finished fooling around.
Xander got lost in taking pictures and I got lost in watching him do it. We’d been married for months, but it felt like our life together was finally beginning.
Xander
I was alone in the house, flipping through the pictures I’d taken the day before. I kept going back to one shot of Savvy with her fingers in the shape of a square frame. Her smile was highlighted, like the sun had peeked out of the clouds at just that moment.
All the other pictures paled in comparison to the ones of her, but this one was downright stunning.
I had my computer set up in Mama’s office. Eva and Beckett had flown back to Denver last night. Aiden and Kate had left this morning. And Savvy was out with Dad, Kendall, and Dawson, learning about cattle and ranching. I’d like to be with her, and I wasn’t purposely avoiding Dad, but my talk with Savvy after our picnic had kindled a slow burn that was growing.
My fingers itched to comb through my pictures and figure out how to use them. Make my own damn publication. I needed to create a portfolio, an initial one to share with the world—or a few people at a time as I grew a following and figured out how to monetize it.
I glanced up from the screen. Dawson hadn’t changed much in the office. He’d moved Mama’s things out but left her art on the walls. Her art remained all over the house and in King Oil headquarters. Kate had showcased several of Mama’s photos in Billings’s library.
We worked hard to remember Mama. But my brothers and I had a harder time remembering this office as any place other than where we’d found her the night of the attack.
I swallowed hard and went back to my work. That was why I’d chosen to work in here. Other than the normal mother-son relationship, Mama and I had bonded over photography. I’d make new memories in this office in the place the person who’d believed in me had spent so much time in.
I pulled up the pictures I’d taken of Hector and Eris’s property. They were good. Damn good. But I could do better. Later next year, I’d have enough money to buy a new camera. I could take better action shots, even video.
The door creaked further
open. I expected Savvy, but Dad came in, shutting the door behind him.
I sighed and sat back, closing my laptop. I’d gotten the feeling Dad wanted to talk to me—alone—since we’d arrived. Shame boiled out of the carefully walled-off reservoir I usually kept it in. I should’ve talked to him before. I should’ve done what Savvy had been asking me to, and I should’ve done it without her having to ask.
“Dad.”
“Xander.”
Dad sat, looking like the man I’d grown up with. His jeans were an older pair he’d worn for years, his boots were scuffed, and his hair was flattened around his head from his cowboy hat. He would go into the office wearing suits when the office used to be in King’s Creek, but when he’d come home, he’d change clothes and ranch. My brothers and I had grown up doing chores and living a mostly normal life.
Dad crossed an ankle over his knee, a position I doubted he ever took while in a board room. “How’s life been treating you?”
“Good.”
“You and Savvy are doing well?”
I kept my mind off our sex fest today. “Yes.”
“She’s a wonderful girl.”
“Yes.”
Disappointment flickered in his eyes. I couldn’t help it. I’d rather not talk to him at all than lie to him, and since my life revolved around a whopper of a lie, it left little for me to say.
A long exhale left him. “I had an in-person meeting with Walter Abbot a couple of months ago.”
I refrained from closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose. More failure welled inside. He knew. He knew and it wasn’t because I’d told him.
“And you talked to Lex?” I asked.
“Lexington? Yes. He had a lot to say about you.” Dad slapped his knee, his jaw clenching for a moment. “I have to say it was hard to sit and pretend to know what the hell he was talking about.” Dad lifted his solemn gaze to mine. “It was also hard to come to the realization that what he said made a lot of sense when I looked back on the years.”
My head bobbed. “I dropped out of college.”
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