by Skylar Hill
She got up, and he followed suit as she smoothed down her skirt. The light caught and glinted on the gold ring on her finger, and he watched as she rubbed her finger over it.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“It’s one of the family rings,” he said. “My grandfather’s sister Ada. She was married to a man who went missing in action during World War II. She said she would take it off when he came home or she died. My Gramps liked to tell this story not because it’s sad, even though it is, but because he said it showed the Oakes way of loving.”
Her eyes rose from the ring on her finger to his gaze. “And what’s the Oakes way of loving?” she asked.
“We fall in love,” Rhett said, holding her gaze. “And we stay in love. Doesn’t matter if that person has to leave this mortal coil too early, like Ada’s husband or my own mom. We’re steadfast. We fall, and we stay fallen, and we never get back up.”
“That can be a hard way to fall,” Nat said softly.
“I don’t know any of us who would say it wasn’t worth it, though,” Rhett said.
She bit her lip, her eyes sweeping back down to the ring. “I should give you this back to you now. It’s a family heirloom and—“
“Keep it,” he rumbled, his hands closing over hers to stop her from pulling it off. “Just… wear it. Until this is all over. Until we’re sure we’re in the clear.”
Her pink tongue—that distract, sharp tongue of hers—darted out, moistening her full lower lip, and God, he wanted to chase that movement with his own. Taste her everywhere. Kiss each of her fingertips to make her giggle, his lips brushing over the ring—his ring—on her finger last.
“I’ll take good care of it,” she promised.
“I know you will.”
“Then this is goodnight,” she said, and there it was again, that light in her eyes that he couldn’t identify. What did it mean?
“Goodnight, Nat,” he said.
She smiled, and was it his imagination or was there a trace of bittersweetness to the curve of her lips?
“Goodnight, Rhett.”
Eighteen
Nat
There was a sense of uneasiness in her stomach as she made her way back to the lodge and her suite of rooms. And it just grew as she took a long, hot bath and ordered room service. In fact, she could barely touch her food once it arrived, the beautifully seared pork chops and roasted potatoes and veggies doing nothing to tempt her.
She got up off her bed, pacing the room, rubbing her hand over her heart, trying to get some sort of reprieve from this feeling.
She hadn’t anticipated how saying those vows would feel, how looking into his eyes as she said them…
And then the ring. God, the ring. Something had clicked into place inside her, like a piece of her heart that had been missing was finally found, when he’d slipped that ring on her finger. And then what he’d said about how the people in his family loved?
Why are you making this so difficult? She fumed at the mental image of Rhett—so handsome and so sweet and so damn earnest and good—in her head. Why can’t this just be easy?
Nothing with him had ever been easy. But she wasn’t a woman who cared much for easy . For another woman, he would be easy to love. He would be the natural choice. He was the whole package. And, she couldn’t help remembering, if that time they went swimming last summer was any indication, he had the whole package, too.
Why do you insist on making terrible jokes like that at times like this? Do we need to hang a giant DANGER neon sign above his head?
She couldn’t help but replay every moment on the deck in her head, at the way he had taken her hands, at the deep rumble of his voice as he said I do, and then that moment, when Judge Peters directed him to kiss her…
She frowned, her stomach giving a little jolt. Why hadn’t he kissed her? It couldn’t be that he thought she’d be offended. Not when they were literally in a marriage of convenience.
She wracked her mind, unable to let it go now that it had occurred to her. Why had he held back like that? They had kissed before. It shouldn’t be a big deal.
Unless…
Nat pulled on her cream wool bouche coat, tying the thick sash around her waist as she headed out of the lodge and into the night, walking the half mile down the road to Rhett’s place. She knocked on the door, and when she heard footsteps, her stomach leapt.
“Nat?” he asked. His hair was rumpled, like he’d been lying in bed, but his eyes weren’t sleepy. She hadn’t woken him.
Had he been staring up at his ceiling too?
She pushed past him into the house, striding into the living room and crossing her arms. He followed her, looking confused.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” she asked.
Instantly, his expression changed, and now that she was looking for it, she wondered how she had missed it. He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck, like he was trying to buy time or gather his thoughts. “It didn’t seem right.”
“After being directed to kiss the bride?” she asked, trying to see his reasoning. Was she reading too much into this? It was like he was resisting. And the only thing she could think of that he’d be resisting was…
Her.
She took a deep breath, hating that Renee had been right. She should’ve listened to her. She had thought that it was just a piece of paper, that if she said it wouldn’t mean anything, it wouldn’t. She had stupidly thought her control freak tendencies would keep her safe.
But she looked at him and all she could think was I said I was yours and you said you were mine and it felt more real than anything else in my life.
“Nat, it’s been a long day,” he said, and she could see the exhaustion in the corners of his eyes, in the little creases on his face, the line of his lips and the shagginess of his normally neatly trimmed beard. “We really shouldn’t get into this now.”
She should’ve backed off. But the daredevil in her, that dogged part that pushed, stirred inside her, way too interested in their conversation.
Because this was the thing: As she stood there, standing across from him, his ring on her finger like a reminder of something she’d never truly have, she realized if they didn’t get into this now, they might never.
And never was too long.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” she asked again, stepping forward. If she took two more steps, they’d be brushing up against each other. “You’ve kissed me before.”
His gaze flickered, and her stomach dropped. They had never talked about the kiss that closed their night in New York. There had been no point when she was still living there and then there was their handy little line to keep them apart when she’d moved back to Oregon.
But now she’d just thrown it out there, and it was a dare and it was a challenge that she was scared he would meet and scared he wouldn’t.
“Why?” she repeated, and she took a final step toward him.
For some reason, that little movement was what made him break. His hands closed around her upper arms and she found herself pressed against the wall of his living room, his entire body a hard line of heat against hers.
She gasped into the feeling, into the strength of his body—God, those muscles—molded against the softness of hers. She half expected to find his lips against hers between one breath and the next, but instead, she felt his hand cupping the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her curls, bringing her gaze to meet his.
The look in his golden eyes made her feel liquid, like she was about to melt at his feet or melt into him… or maybe both. She could feel her panties getting damp just from the expression on his face, the promise—the dark, sultry, oh-so-delicious promise—in his eyes.
“I didn’t kiss you in front of the judge,” he said. “Because if I kiss you, Nat, if I let myself…” He dragged his fingers over her lips, and she shuddered at the intense rush of emotion and desire that twisted through her. She wanted to bite at the pads of his fingers to punish him for putting
her through this, for making her want him this much, for making her chase him… she was always chasing him.
“If I kiss you, it’s not just going to be just one kiss,” he said, his voice almost a growl.
No. It wouldn’t be, would it? They’d both been resisting for so long.
She was so tired of resisting her feelings for him… resisting her desire. She’d spent years what-ifing and telling herself No and Don’t touch and Don’t think that way, and she was so, so tired of it.
He had said I do, and it had felt realer than any I love you any other man had given her.
His fingers twisted more into her curls, and a pleasant little tingle that made her thighs clench together went through her. “Tell me not to kiss you, Nat,” he rasped the words against her skin, his beard—silky soft and prickly at the same time—an erotic scrape against her softness. “Tell me you don’t want this.” She shivered as the heat of his breath brushed against her ear and his fingers stroked down her neck. “Tell me to go upstairs and ignore the fact that this is our wedding night and you’re my wife and I want to fuck you until you’re screaming my name.”
His cock was pressed against her hip, a thick, hard line that confirmed all her musings about lumberjack types and their axes. She wanted his cock inside her, wanted the hot length of him pushing her softness open, the thick drag of him against her, his hands cupping her face as he said her name…
“Please, Nat,” he breathed against her skin, and she didn’t know if he was asking for her to push forward or to push away. Which would be a reprieve? Which would be a punishment?
Could it be that it was both no matter what she chose?
She speared her hands through his hair, drawing their foreheads together, and for the first time in long, long moments, their eyes met.
And for the first time in forever, she hid nothing she was feeling from him.
“Nat.”
The kiss that followed jolted through her, the slant of his mouth against hers, the tangle of their tongues, the rapid beat of his heart as his chest pressed against hers, her nipples aching at the contact. It was nothing like their first kiss… it was exactly like their first kiss. She wasn’t sure they knew how to kiss any other way but this, with intense/consuming/almost terrifying-in-its-need passion.
It was them. It was how it should’ve been all along, she thought with a touch of hysterical retroactive prophecy. It was the kind of kiss that started out hot and wet and messy and everything that a first kiss since forever shouldn’t be, but it felt so good and right as his hands moved to cup her ass, squeezing like he’d just found the Holy Grail. A rumble reverberated through his chest like a wolf’s growl, sending shocks of heat that made her panties so damn damp she was wriggling in his arms, desperate for more, for anything he gave her, which she knew, deep down in a satisfied feminine place, was anything she wanted.
And what she wanted was everything.
Nineteen
Rhett
Touching her was everything and nothing like he’d thought.
He had imagined this countless times. Imagined the silk of her skin, the timbre of her moans, the tilt of her head, and the arch of her back. He’d fantasized about how she’d clench around him as she came and what her husky laugh would feel like pressed against his thigh for just the barest moment before her sweet mouth enveloped him. He’d wondered if she was as bold in bed as she was in life, or if that was the place she felt free enough to show her sweeter side.
Now that he was here and she was with him, his ring gleaming on her finger in the dim light of his bedroom, he was swept up in the intense tide that fell over them. For long moments, it was just silence and his hands unknotting the belt on her coat, pushing it off her shoulders. His shirt joined her coat on the ground, then his jeans. Then the rasp of the zipper on her dress, his hand resting on the small of her back for a moment, the slight shiver she gave as he peeled the fabric off her body.
He drew his fingers down her body, teasing between her breasts, flirting over her stomach, stopping to rest against the waistband of the lavender satin panties hugging her truly squeezable ass. She arched into the touch, and when his hand dipped into her panties and he realized how wet the satin already was, how wet she was, his cock throbbed painfully against his boxer briefs. His fingers parted the slick folds of her pussy, and the sound she made… he had to press his forehead against her neck and pant, trying to gain some kind of control. But the heat of his breath against her neck seemed to turn her on, because he could feel her get even wetter.
Fuck, she was close, he realized. Ready to come just from their tangled, intense kisses in the hall and the drag of his hand along her body. That was the hottest thing he’d ever…
He sucked a kiss onto her neck while rocking the heel of his palm against her clit, and it made her nails dig into his shoulders and her ass tense under his palm.
So perfect. And so all his.
The muscles of her inner thighs tensed and her eyes fluttered as he rolled his palm against her clit in slow, grinding little circles, each one bringing her higher and higher until…
“Rhett!”
She was so fucking hot, her entire face lighting up with a kind of incandescent joy as the orgasm swept over her, her body tensing with the waves of pleasure, and then slowly relaxing as the aftershocks set in. His hand was drenched with her sweetness, and he met her eyes as he drew out his hand and licked his fingers.
She let out a little gasp and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward her, kissing him hard and he tasted her on his tongue and then hers, and it made him moan and grind his cock into her hip, wanting to be inside her so fucking bad.
Her hand, those wonderful, clever, perfectly manicured hands, slipped into the slit in his boxer briefs and curled around his cock. He thrust into her grip, bringing her forward for another wet, messy kiss as she explored the thick length of him, her fingers circling around the sensitive, flared head, pressing on that little spot that made him swear and her laugh, husky and knowing.
She was so beautiful, flushed and sparkling after her orgasm. She knelt on his bed, bringing her arms behind her and unhooking her bra, tossing it to the side. Her breasts were beautiful and tan, with dusky nipples that were begging for his mouth. She hooked her thumbs in her panties, tugging them down just a bit, a teasing glimpse of skin that drove him fucking wild and made him want to just rip them off her. But she didn’t take them off, instead, she lay back on his bed, her curls—those curls that were mussed because of him, he thought with a primal kind of satisfaction—fanning out on the pillow. She beckoned to him with the crook of her finger, a smile on her face.
Her invitation was clear, and he pulled off his boxer briefs and crawled up the length of the bed, coming to rest in the sweet V of her thighs. He pushed a frizzed curl off her pinkened cheek, his fingers lingering. She turned her head, pressing a kiss into the hollow of his palm, and his breath hitched, his heart thumping fast.
There were no words as he dealt with the condom and thrust into her. There were no words for how it felt, to finally be inside her, to be joined with her, the tight grip of her thighs on his hips, the gasp she made at the sudden stretch, even with how wet she was. He could feel her tightening up around him every time he worked the head of his cock against her G-spot, pulling out almost all the way before thrusting back into her, slow and deep and so, so good. A long, slow slide into a pleasure that he had never been able to imagine until now.
This… this was not sex. Not just sex.
As her fingers wound with his, their palms pressing together, their panting mouths pressed together, unable to contain the feeling, the overwhelming emotion, he finally understood.
The realization hit him at once, and it was so intense, combined with the slick heat of her, the way she was twisting and moaning in his arms, that he spilled over the edge right there, the orgasm almost torn out of him. He groaned, working his cock into her once, twice, three times more before shuddering, his fingers still tightly en
twined with his.
This was making love.
Twenty
Rhett
Rhett woke up to a cloud of curls in his face and a pounding on his door. Groaning, he buried his face into the soft skin at the back of Nat’s neck, pressing a sleepy kiss there as she began to stir.
“Who is that?” she murmured.
Rhett sat up, staring at the clock on his bedside table. It was nearly eight o’clock. What? Shit. He jerked out of bed, spinning around, looking for his clothes.
“What time is it?” Nat asked, rubbing her eyes as she struggled out of the veritable cave of blankets she had somehow formed in the night.
The knocking on his door was getting increasingly frantic. Who was that? He grabbed his phone and realized it was dead. He hadn’t plugged it in. He’d been… distracted.
It hit him all over again, then and there, as he stood there, stark naked in his bedroom, a pair of jeans in one hand and his phone in the other as he looked over her in his bed. The pleasure the sight gave him was immeasurable. It felt undeniably right, waking up next to her. Even if he had been jerked out of his sleep by whoever was at his door.
Who was at the door? The knocking hadn’t ceased, and he pulled on his jeans, giving up looking for a shirt for a second. “Stay there,” he said.
“I really should get up,” Nat said, flipping a dark wave of curls off her face, yawning. “Work, you know.”
“Nat, I want to make you breakfast. And we need to…” he was about to say they needed to talk, but someone started shouting his name outside.
“I gotta…” he jerked his thumb at the door and she nodded.
He hurried down the stairs and across the living door to the hall, opening the front door. Jess, his manager was standing there, two men behind her.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Jess said, her blue eyes round with anxiety. “But these gentleman showed up and have been insisting I shut off the water lines that feed into the bathhouse and the sanctuary. I told them that of course I couldn’t do that, but they have been very insistent they talk to you.” The look on her face told him she was pissed, but she was a hospitality professional and wasn’t going to let it show in her voice. “They grew so insistent that I thought it best that I bring them over here, since I couldn’t get you on your phone.”