Lindsay McKenna

by High Country Rebel

  Talon could feel Cat’s body building toward her release, heard it in her short, sharpened gasps. This time, he thrust powerfully into her, reaching that second knot of nerves deep within the muscled walls. He felt her shudder and whimper with pleasure. Her body was so reactive, so sensitive that Talon could feel her contracting and squeezing around him until he could barely think. He wanted to wait, wanted to please her first. Thrusting hard and quickly, Talon felt her starting to come apart in his arms, heard her keening cry tear out of her.

  The heat, the tightness around him, was too much. Pressing his cheek against her hair, Talon groaned, feeling the explosive, scalding pleasure flowing out of him, filling her. Taking her. His body taut, Talon grabbed the covers on either side of Cat’s head. His hips ground against her, the hot liquid shared between them. He felt his body melting like honey into hers. Felt her hands grip his hips, drawing him hard into her, her legs wrapping around his waist, prolonging the wild sensations unleashing and tunneling out of him. Talon gritted out her name, felt his entire body collapsing upon Cat, his weight against her softer, giving body beneath him. His nostrils flared and he drank in her scent, the fragrance of the sex shared between them.

  Struggling, Talon pushed himself off Cat. He rolled off her, gathering her into his arms, tucking her tightly beside him, her cheek pressed into his shoulder. “Every time is even better,” he rasped, kissing her temple, inhaling her fragrance. Just the way she made a sweet sound in her throat, straining against him, her arm sliding around him, Talon had never felt so fulfilled. So…happy. He could feel the beat of Cat’s heart against his chest, her breathing uneven, nuzzling beneath his jaw. There was such innocence to Cat. Absorbing her on every level, Talon lay with his eyes closed, unable to conceive his life without her in it. So much had changed since he’d come home.

  And as he felt her fingers move up his damp back, Talon tensed inwardly because he knew she could feel the ridges of the many scars across it. His heart contracted. Cat’s fingers lingered lightly, tracing one scar that was nearly the full length of his back.

  “What happened to you?” she whispered against his neck, feeling his pulse beneath her lips.

  Talon held Cat a little tighter, not wanting to go there, but not wanting to lie to her, either. He thought all the grief, the terror, would avalanche him once again if he spoke. The soft movement of her fingers was surprisingly calming, not inciting the usual dark emotions. Talon kissed her temple, his voice rough with feeling, struggling to keep his emotions controlled. “I was tortured. But I’m fine now.”

  Cat suddenly tensed, her fingers going still on his back. He swallowed hard, not wanting to give it any more words. Any more explanations.

  Cat nuzzled his neck, feeling Talon tense in her arms. She sensed his fear, heard it in his gravelly voice, his breathing going uneven. She eased back enough to look into his stormy expression. Tears jammed into hers as she saw the stark terror of that torture deep in the recesses, felt him wrestling to keep it all at bay. Her instincts told her not to push the topic. Her one question had seemed to rip a festering scar off his terrifying trauma. She comprehended on a level few would understand.

  Wordlessly, Cat leaned up, softly pressing her mouth to his. She moved her hand lightly, caressingly, across his deeply scarred back. As she deepened the kiss, she felt overwhelming love for Talon, along with a fierceness to protect him. He responded powerfully, laying her on her back, curving his mouth against hers, almost desperately, and it made tears leak out of her tightly closed eyes.

  Talon could taste the salt in her tears. Why was she crying for him? But she was and it strengthened his need for her. Her caressing fingers slid up his cheeks, into his hair, as if to soothe him, take away the nearly overwhelming pain he felt. Easing away, Talon stared down into her glistening eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  Skimming his jaw, she whispered, “Tears are always good. Healing…”

  Talon felt a fist of grief so huge he thought he might explode. He hadn’t even cried for himself. Hadn’t cried for the loss of Hayden. Yet, Cat could cry for him. It shook Talon to the bottom of his fractured soul. He closed his eyes, like a starving wolf, thirstily absorbing her every caress to his face, his shoulder. Did Cat know how healing her touch was to him? Somehow, it lessened his burden. Whatever they shared, whatever it was, Talon knew it was the only thing that could help him heal. Cat’s touch. Her husky voice trembling with emotion. Blue eyes looking deep into his dark, wounded soul, bringing light, understanding and, most of all, her acceptance of him, no matter how damaged he was.

  Talon forced himself to look down into her compassionate gaze. “I can’t talk about it yet,” he rasped.

  “I know,” she whispered, sliding her fingers through his hair. “It’s all right, Talon. I’m here. We can heal one another over time. I know that….”

  Talon buried his head against Cat’s shoulder, holding her so tight he heard the air whoosh out of her. He clung to her as if she were the last anchor in his fragmented world. If he let go of her, he would be lost. Forever. Talon surrendered to Cat as he clung to her like a dying man. Her fingers moved gently across his shoulder, soothingly down his back, grazing his scars, lifting the pain and memory out of them as she did so. Tears leaked out of his eyes, no matter how hard Talon tried to force them back. They fell against her silky hair, the strands soaking them up.

  And then his world turned upside down and all Talon could hear was the sobs tearing out of him, his entire body convulsing against hers. Cat held him with her woman’s strength, with her softly whispered words, her hands moving in healing gestures across his back. Talon had never felt such shame, such helplessness, in his life. And yet, she absorbed everything with a calm sweetness that Talon couldn’t believe.

  Cat had suffered terribly herself. Somewhere in his shattered mind, Talon wondered if it made her stronger and far more capable to deal with him and his horror. Part of him was dying. A part that had already been dead, but now, it dissolved and left beneath her whispered words, her caresses and the warmth of her curved body against his. It was a miracle and Talon had no explanation for what had happened or why. As he lay in her arms in the aftermath of the storm that had rolled through him, that he’d finally given voice to, he felt cleaner. Hopeful.

  Sliding his hand down her arm, Talon eased his grip on Cat. How could someone this soft and giving be so damned strong? Strong enough to hold him? Love him at his worst moment? And as Talon kissed her hair, inhaling Cat’s sweet scent, he knew this was an act of love on her part. All these feelings he’d had within him since he’d met Cat were now brilliantly obvious to him. Talon loved Cat. He loved her just the way she was. She was perfect for him. She made him happier than he could ever recall.

  Cat kissed Talon’s hair, his neck and shoulder. “You’re going to be okay now,” she told him quietly. “We’re all wounded. Every last one of us.” She gave him a wry look and eased away enough to study him. “You and I have the physical scars to prove it.” She caressed his damp cheek, the spent tears beneath her fingertips. “So many others have no physical proof of their wounds, but they’re still there and they know it. They carry them around every day just like we do, Talon. That’s the only difference….” Cat drowned in his raw devastation, in everything he’d endured.

  He caught her hand, kissed her fingers and then wrapped it in his, pressing it against his heart. “How did you get so smart?”

  The corners of her mouth turned faintly upward. “I learned in junior high when I had PE and would shower afterward, every girl in there saw the scars on my back.” Her voice lowed with feeling. “At first, I lied. I told them a horse threw me and I landed in a barbed-wire fence. And then I hated myself for lying. I was ashamed of my scars, Talon. By the time I got to high school, I stopped lying to the girls who saw my back. I told them my father did it to me.” She inhaled and added, “The moment I told the truth, I felt free. By that time, I knew I looked d
ifferent to them. No one else had scars like me. But I found telling the truth made me feel better.”

  He frowned, moving his hand gently across her back, feeling her scars. “Someday, I’ll tell you how I got mine.”

  “You’re not there yet, Talon. I get it. I had my own journey with my scars.” Cat tilted her head, becoming somber, a quaver in her voice. “I’ll be here to listen when you’re ready. Okay?”

  Relief shuddered through Talon. He knew Cat would give him the time and space he needed to deal fully with his trauma. She wouldn’t push. Wouldn’t keep asking questions or stirring it up in him. Cat understood the long process it took to get to that point where he could give it voice. And Talon knew, without a doubt, she’d sit quietly and simply listen. She was strong enough to hold him and be there for him. Talon knew that with every cell of his being.

  “Okay,” he rasped, trying to smile but failing. Grazing her flushed cheek, her skin velvet and firm beneath his thumb, Talon felt a new kind of peace entering him. He eased away from her. He sat up and placed several pillows behind his back, leaning against the headboard. He gathered Cat into his arms, nestling her against him and holding her for a long, long time.

  At some point, he realized the sun was no longer shining. Looking out the opened curtains, Talon could see dusk coming, the sky darkening. He pressed a kiss to her hair. “How did you get to be who you are?” he demanded huskily, smiling down into her eyes.

  Cat shrugged, wrapped in his arms, content as never before. “I think our first eighteen years define us, don’t you?”

  Talon moved his thumb lightly across her eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s part of it for sure.”

  “Why are you giving me that bug-under-a-microscope look?” Cat teased, giving him a playful smile.

  “Because you’re strong. Stronger than any man I know.”

  “And what? Men are always stronger than women in your world?”

  Talon saw the feistiness in her eyes. “I’m rethinking it,” he admitted.

  “I like a man who is humble. That’s a good sign.”

  He frowned. “Of late, I have been. Not before…” Not before being tortured. It had taken chunks out of his soul that were missing to this day. But, somehow, Cat was bringing those stolen pieces back to him. She accepted him for who he was right now, no questions asked.

  “I’ve seen men cry before, Talon,” she told him, sliding her fingers across the hard line of his jaw. “Trauma makes all of us cry sooner or later. There’s no shame in it. Not ever.” Cat narrowed her eyes on Talon. “Do you believe that?”

  “I do now,” he told her.

  “And don’t you feel better because you did cry?”

  Nodding, he grimaced and muttered, “Yeah, oddly, I do.”

  Cat grinned. “You men are all alike. You think crying makes you look weak or something. When in reality, it shows you’re strong. I don’t get it. A man has a heart that feels just like a woman’s heart does. God created tear ducts in both genders.” She gave him an amused look.

  Talon grazed her soft lower lip. “I did trust you, babe. I knew you’d hold me. My gut told me you had whatever it took to let me get it out of my system.” He searched her eyes, saw tears come to them. Tipping her chin up, Talon kissed away the tears. He felt humbled as never before because Cat was entrusting her being with him. Utterly. Totally. Without any demands or borders. As she opened her eyes and smiled up at him, Talon took her mouth gently, breathing his life, his breath, into her. Claiming her forever.

  *

  CAT SAT AT the table much later as they ate a late evening meal. It was almost eight o’clock. She finished every bit of food on her plate. The quiet shared between them wasn’t stilted or forced. So much had happened earlier in her bedroom with Talon that the aftereffect was a peace she’d never thought existed. But it did. With Talon.

  She got up and brought over the coffee, filling their mugs after the meal. Talon looked thoughtful as he thanked her. The beard darkened his face and Cat smiled to herself as she sat down at his elbow. He no longer looked threatening. When she’d first discovered him on that icy, snow-covered road, he’d appeared more animal than human. This afternoon she’d discovered the human within him. And she loved him even more for being courageous enough to be vulnerable with her.

  “What are you going to do if Gus is able to buy the Triple H?” Cat asked. She saw his eyebrows fall, and Talon stared down at the cup in his hands for a moment.

  “Be happy. At least our home will be with someone who will care for it.”

  “Gus is doing it to help your mom. That’s pretty humbling to me.”

  Talon nodded. “I’ve been thinking my way through it all. Gus is an astute businesswoman, but she’s also fiercely loyal to the people around her. And I know my mother has been a friend to her ever since Gus came back to the Bar H when Val was sixteen. A lot of years of friendship shared between them.”

  “It’s love,” Cat said quietly, avoiding his eyes. She opened her hands around the cup. “I was always trying to figure out what love was, Talon. I finally got that my father did not love me. And I don’t honestly remember my mother. I was so young when she died. I watched kids at school. I watched the wranglers at the ranch where my father was employed. I tried to piece together what love was.”

  “You never got a chance to experience it,” Talon said gently, looking at the puzzlement in her expression.

  Cat nodded, sadness moving through her. “When I met Sandy, after moving here seven years ago, I remember we had a long discussion about love one day. She’d just gone through a round of chemo and I’d driven her home afterward. She was feeling so miserable, but she wanted to talk about love with me. She told me about her first husband, Gardner, how he loved her so much that she couldn’t give it words. And then Sandy birthed you. She told me about the special, maternal love she felt for you. And when Gardner died of a heart attack and she met Brad, how it was another kind of love.” Cat hitched her shoulder. “I think love is a pretty rubber-band kind of experience. It’s different for different people. Gus loves Sandy. Sometimes, I think she sees your mother as one of her grown children.” Cat smiled softly. “Gus has a lot of children who aren’t her blood kin, but she considers them her extended family. That’s another kind of love, I suppose….”

  Talon reached over and captured her hand. “It’s something I wrestle with, too, Cat. When I joined the Navy and got into the SEALs, I was surrounded by women when we had downtime at Coronado. These women threw the word love around all the time. But when they used it, I didn’t feel it. I didn’t sense it.”

  Her fingers curved into his. “Well, in defense of those women, I can remember telling the first guy that showed any interest in me that I loved him.” She snorted. “I didn’t have a clue of what I was saying. I wasn’t lying to him, I just didn’t know the difference between my feelings.” Until now. Cat knew what real love was, finally. And she loved Talon but wasn’t going to admit it. They needed time together first. And it was way too soon to say anything.

  “That’s different,” Talon said. “These women kept score on how many SEALs they took to bed. That was a lot different than your experience.”

  Cat’s brows rose. “Are you serious? Women kept count?”

  He saw her blush. Cat’s innocence was showing again, but he didn’t laugh. “It’s a culture,” he said. “SEALs are seen as the ultimate male to bed. It’s a bragging right between them, I guess.”

  “Wow,” she murmured, thinking about it. “Is that where you found out it wasn’t love? It was…well…I guess, counting coup?”

  He grinned a little. “Counting coup? That’s one way of seeing it. But yeah, these women liked hanging out around SEALs and felt good if they could bed one or two of them.”

  “Sort of a game?” she wondered, frowning. She’d just gone to bed with Talon, and it was serious business. It wasn’t about bragging she’d bedded an ex-SEAL. The thought rather horrified Cat.

  “To be fair, it was a game b
oth sides played,” Talon admitted.

  “But,” she said, trying to grasp the whole idea, “if…if you go to bed with someone, shouldn’t it be serious? I mean, something special between you and the other person?” And then she grimaced. “Not that I’m throwing stones. I thought the men in my life liked me…maybe loved me, but I was wrong.”

  “I think a lot of women confuse sex with love,” Talon said. “Men see it differently. Sex is sex. The act doesn’t need to have any emotional tie to it.” And then he gave her a tender look. “With you, when I love you, my feelings are involved, Cat. It’s me wanting to please you, make you happy. I like to see your smile afterward.”

  Nodding, she absorbed his husky words. “Thanks, I needed to hear that. Because I feel the same toward you, Talon. Just being with you lifts me. Makes me hopeful. Happy.”

  “It’s the same for me, babe.” He squeezed her fingers. “You make me happy.”

  Her throat tightened with emotions as she drowned in his warm gray eyes. She heard the feelings behind Talon’s words. He meant them. And her heart did a little dance inside her chest. How badly she wanted to say she loved Talon, but she couldn’t yet. But, until that time came, she could touch him, kiss him and love him when it felt right.

  Cat reached for his hand, enclosing it between hers. “Gus loves your mom. I know that. And I think Gus wants to give Sandy her home back so she’ll fight to stay alive. For you. For herself.”

  “Love is a strange thing, isn’t it?”

  She met his sober look. “Complex. Many layers. Like a torte cake.”

  Talon studied her in the low light, seeing the happiness banked in her eyes for him alone. “Whatever we have, I like it. And it suits us, Cat. That’s all that matters.”