Page 64 of Love Me Again

“I dream about you all the time.” He slid his hands down the soft, lithe lines of her body as she moved on top of him.

Her fingers trailed lightly over the scars on his hip, her eyebrows drawn together in concern as she straddled him. No doubt she was thinking of that night at the rodeo, but he didn’t want to think of that.

Not with her naked and on top of him. So he splayed his fingers against her inner thigh, let his calluses rasp against the smooth, delicate skin of her legs. She let out a shaky sigh, but wasn’t content to let him touch, explore.

She reached between them, closed her hand around the hard length of him, and poised him at her own entrance. They joined on a groan of mutual pleasure, a kind of finally of two bodies that had missed each other for far too long. For a moment, they both were perfectly still, breathing through the shock of it. The dissolving pleasure of finally being back where they belonged.

“I thought I didn’t deserve to come back,” he said a little desperately, trying to get her to look at him instead of the scar on his shoulder. “And I don’t deserve it, but I want it. You. Us.”

For a very real moment, he thought she’d peel herself away from him. Stop this. Instead, she leaned close, put her mouth a breath away from his.

“Stop talking. Or this is over.” Then she took him deeper, and while a tiny part of him thought he should have some kind of argument, he was only human as she moved against him. The slow, perfect slide of the only woman he’d ever loved. Ever would.

Words were too hard to find, so he just let their bodies do the talking. He knew how to touch her, how to move, how to tease all the places that made her sigh, moan, move faster.

She sobbed out his name, just like she used to, but he wasn’t content with that. He drew her up again, crashed her over that cliff over and over again, desperately staving off his own. Delaying the inevitable.

Except her goodbye wasn’t inevitable. She thought it was. She was wrong.

They were made for each other.

CHAPTER 19

When Josie had started this, the plan had been to sneak out in the middle of the night. Kind of like he’d done to her back then. Fair was fair.

She hadn’t anticipated…that. She’d known the sex would be good. She wasn’t in denial about the physical reaction she still had to him. Maybe part of her had hoped it might feel different, but it didn’t at its heart.

The things that felt different didn’t make sense. The way he’d said earnest, sweet things. The scars on his body that caused her a deep, physical pain of longing. That she could go back and change it all.

It was something about his scars that snagged in her chest, like something had hooked there and was pulling apart all the ways she’d put herself back together in the past nearly two years.

It was a physical manifestation that they were different people, and yet somehow… Those different people were still right here. Wrapped up in each other. Because she let him do that, pull her into him as they recovered.

She wasn’t running away, but that was okay. Because she was leaving. There was a difference.

She wanted him to know it.

So after a while, she let herself doze off in his arms. But when she slept, she dreamed. Not fictional dreams, but little snatches of their old life.

The way he’d pulled her into a little slow dance in the rain, under a double rainbow the night they’d gotten married. She’d never been so happy in her entire life.

The one time they’d gotten into a fight over something so stupid she didn’t even remember anymore, but he’d stayed out late and she’d been so worried she’d ruined everything.

He’d shown up with wilted flowers and a flat tire and apologies. Promises.

So many promises. So much hope.

She woke up with an ache in her heart that wanted to go back to being the woman who could believe in those things. The Josie who’d woken up in her husband’s arms and known she was loved, if nothing else.

He’d walked away from all of that. And it wasn’t like he’d come looking for her, like he had after that one fight. She’d found him. She’d marched her way back into his life—sure, to ask for a divorce, but look at what had happened.

He’d smiled and cajoled and used his family—who he’d never introduced her to before, never even admitted to them she existed—to stall her.

And who was going to wind up hurt again? Her. Because he got to keep the family. This ranch was his, these people were his.

She was losing all over again.

You don’t have to lose.