Page 54 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
"Yes." I turn to look at her. Her profile against the dark sky, the stars reflected in her eyes. "I wasted them. And I will spend however long you give me making sure you never come second to anything."
She holds my gaze.
"That's a big promise," she says.
"Yes."
"You sure you can keep it."
I look at the burned barn frame. At the stone foundation holding in the dark. At the ridge above us where the wind moves through the pines. I think about mornings in this kitchen. About winter. About firewood stacked for two.
"Yes," I say.
She watches me for a moment longer. Then she sets the jar on the step, turns toward me, and slides her hand into my hair.
The kiss starts slow.
This is nothing like the shed. That was eight years of pressure finding the nearest exit. Raw and desperate and shaking. This is something else entirely. This is choosing. Slow and deliberate.
Her fingers in my hair instead of tearing at my belt. My mouth learning the places I rushed past last time.
She shifts onto my lap. Her knees on either side of my thighs. Her hands framing my face.
I take her in. Her hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes dark, the burned frame behind her and the stars above her and every version of this woman I have ever known alive in the one looking down at me right now.
"Still trying to behave," she murmurs.
"Failing completely."
She smiles against my mouth.
The kiss deepens. My hands slide under the hem of her flannel. Warm skin, the curve of her waist, the soft intake of her breath when I pull her closer. She presses into me and the contact sends heat through every reasonable thought I own.
"Rowan."
"Yes."
"The porch step is uncomfortable."
I laugh. Low, rough. The sound surprises both of us.
"Then we go inside," I say.
She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her eyes are dark and she asks a question she already knows the answer to.
"The spare room rule," she says.
"Yes."
"Is officially suspended."
"You sure?"
"I have been sure," she says quietly, "since you walked back into my barn."
I stand, bringing her with me. Her legs wrapping around my waist, her laugh quiet against my neck.
I carry her through the dark house and up the stairs and into the bedroom where the moonlight comes through the curtains and lays a pale strip across the bed.
