Her words wound their way into the parts of my heart that were held together by frayed strings and pulled the mangled thing back into some semblance of order. She made it beat the way it was supposed to. She made it hum with life and anticipation. She shaped it into something that was far stronger than it had ever been before her gentle touch.
“I know you love me, Dixie.” I took her precious and adorable face between my hands and kissed her until neither of us could breathe. I tasted every misstep and every triumph on the tip of her tongue as it flicked against my own.
“You wouldn’t have gotten on the back of my bike even though it made you nervous enough to shake if you didn’t love me.” I slipped a finger under the tie at her shoulder and lightly traced her collarbone. She sighed and lowered her hand so that it was resting on my heart and tapping along to the rhythm that was beating a love song she orchestrated.
“You wouldn’t have left your family, your friends, your dog and come on this crazy trip with me if you didn’t love me.” I pulled the dainty little bow loose at her shoulder and watched as the thin fabric uncoiled and released. She didn’t have a bra on and the rosy tip of her breast was immediately bared to my hungry gaze. The little peak pulled into a tight little pebble and goosebumps dotted the soft, pale globe as I visually traced a pattern across her freckles with my eyes.
“You wouldn’t have put my dick in your mouth without caring where we were or who might come across us if you didn’t love me.” I used a knuckle to brush that pink tip and bent so I could kiss her again.
“You wouldn’t have put up with Elma’s initiation and the hostility between me and Dalen while we figured out how to be brothers again if you didn’t love me.” I lowered my head so I could flick my tongue over the sensitive flesh I uncovered and feathered soft kisses all across her chest. I loved on each bruise, each mark that marred her perfect skin, as she tossed her head back and looked up at the trees that shrouded us.
“You wouldn’t have risked your life to save the people you know matter most to me if you didn’t love me. Everything you’ve done, every move you make tells me how much you love me, Dixie. I never doubted it, I just didn’t want to see it because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to not love you back. I loved you long before I almost lost you, pretty girl.”
I slipped a hand under the hem of her dress and slid it up the silky skin of her thigh. She shivered into my touch and her eyes encouraged me to keep on going with my words and with the deliberate caress. I couldn’t manhandle her in her current condition, couldn’t be rough and forceful. She needed a tender touch. She needed soft hands and an open heart. She needed to be loved, not fucked.
My lips quirked up into a grin that made her smile back at me as she tugged on the material of my T-shirt. I leaned back so I could pull the thing off over my head and bunched it up and put it behind her in order to keep the metal of the truck from rubbing against her bare ass as I hooked a finger in the side of her panties and started to work them carefully down her legs.
“I didn’t do it right because I was out of practice and it scared the ever-living shit out of me, but I loved you from the get-go.” Once I had the nothing scrap of fabric free of her feet I tucked it into my back pocket and put both my hands on her hips as I shifted my cock so that it pressed insistently against her center. Her good leg wound its way around my hip as she leaned back in my hold so that her good hand was free to trace over the muscles on my chest. She used the tip of a fingernail and roughly ran it over my nipple. The motion made me suck in a breath and had desire unspooling throughout my limbs. “And now I’m going to love on you because we are both here, together, and that’s something I won’t ever take for granted.” That was the main lesson I learned in all my mistakes and fuckups. Make the most of the time you had with the people that mattered because tomorrow wasn’t a guarantee and the memories you made with them could keep you warm or leave you out in the cold.
Everything with Dixie was warm. Her smile. The expression in her eyes. The skin on her hip and belly as it quivered under my hands and the touch of my tongue. The brush of her fingers as they wrapped around my dick when she finally wrestled my jeans out of the way. Her lips were hot as they landed on the side of my neck and she practically burned between her legs as my thumb slipped along the bend of her thigh and arrowed in on her damp opening. Her muscles clenched, her pussy fluttered, and pleasure soaked my fingers. I used my thumb to slip through silky folds and found her distended clit. I brushed the little nub lightly as she continued to nibble her way along my neck. I didn’t want to jostle her or move her any more than necessary. I was careful of her bad shoulder as I brushed the tip of my nose along the ridge of her good one. I whispered promises I was going to keep into her sweet skin. I growled all the dirty things I was going to do to her once she was better into her ear. I planned a future out between kisses as she panted in time to my stroking fingers and worked her hips slowly and carefully against my hand.
I touched her with every ounce of care I could muster. I fondled her with every bit of reserve and restraint I possessed. I played with her like she was something rare and treasured, because she was. I watched her desire build, slowly and steadily. I watched as pleasure started to work its way across her pale skin and found its way into her dark eyes. Her chest rose and fell with quick breaths and the light hold she had on my dick tightened as her body shifted and turned more towards mine. A grimace of discomfort crossed her features and some of that pleasure turned to pain. I kissed the furrow that found its way to her brow and trapped her slippery little clit between two fingers and gave it a little tug. “Easy, pretty girl. This is supposed to help, not hurt.”
She grinned up at me and used the heel she had resting against my backside to pull me closer. Her wetness coated the head of my cock and the sensation made me groan. “It is helping. It feels so good it made my toes curl and right now that hurts. You’re too good at what you do, soldier.”
“You will always get my best.” I pressed into her and we both groaned as flesh parted and heat speared through both of us. “But now I plan on giving it to you in all ways, not just when we fuck.”
She rolled her eyes at me as I started to move in and out of her gripping channel. Her body pulled at mine, squeezed it and flexed around it. My cock jumped at the attention and thumped with the need to let loose. My balls ached. Pleasure pulsed hard in my blood. A tingle started at the base of my spine and spread upwards along my back, making my shoulders bunch and bulge with the effort to stay slow and careful.
“You’re loving on me, not fucking me, remember?” The words were broken and breathy. She was moving against me as much as her injuries allowed. Our pelvises bumped into one another and it made her moan. I kept one hand open wide on the center of her back to keep her upright and braced, and moved the other back between her legs so I could give her the friction and pressure she was wildly searching for.
“Gonna give you my best when I love you and when I fuck you, Dixie. Don’t ever doubt it.” Her mouth dropped open a little at the declaration and I took advantage of that to kiss her wetly and messily. Our bodies were hardly moving, grinding against each other seductively and sensually, but I took her mouth with the way my body was screaming at me to have her. I bit at her, I licked her, and I probably bruised her in my voracity. I made love to her body but our mouths fucked furiously and frantically.
I felt her inner walls start to flutter. I felt her get wetter and wetter. I felt her hand clutch at the rigid arm that held her and I felt her thighs tense and lock stiffly around my gliding hips. She muttered my name against my lips and I swallowed her strangled scream as she burst all around me.
I was riveted by her beauty.
I was stunned that I could make her feel that way.
I was honored that she wanted me and planned to keep me.
I was captivated by the life and love that shined out of her.
She told me she loved me and I lost it. Raw and unrestrained I let
loose inside of her, flooded her with every ounce of desire and passion she inspired in me. I held her close as my heart raced and rested my cheek on the top of her head as reality started to swirl and settle around us.
Her hand was on my ribs and she was tracing one of my many scars. “We might be walking across one of those bridges sooner than you planned, Church.”
We hadn’t used protection and when I finally stepped back and separated myself from her the evidence of the fact was there, glossy and slick on her skin. I rubbed a thumb across her cheek and smiled. “We’ll make our way across it. Don’t worry.”
She nodded but she didn’t look convinced, so I decided it was well past time I give her something she always gave to everyone else . . . I needed to give her happy.
“Hey, Dixie.” I helped tie her dress back up around her shoulder and sacrificed my shirt so she could clean herself up.
She looked up at me, her strawberry brows arched. “What?”
“You good?”
Her lips twitched and she leaned forward so her cheek was resting against the part of my chest where my heart beat with a renewed rhythm. “Yeah, Church, I’m good.”
She was better than good. She was the best, and nothing bad that could or would happen was ever going to change the truth of that.
Epilogue
I knew two things for sure as I listened to Church talk dirty to me through the phone that was pressed tightly against my ear.
One was that his voice in all its raspy southern sexiness was enough to get me off. I barely felt the low hum and vibration coming from the battery-operated device that was a sad substitution for the real thing and was currently circling my clit and driving me crazy.
The second thing I knew without a doubt was that long-distance relationships sucked and I wasn’t cut out for distance making my heart grow fonder. The space between us was making me cranky and had my typically sunny disposition all kinds of gloomy and gray. I missed him and as close to the edge of orgasm as I was barely a couple of minutes into his filthy words and husky encouragement, it was obvious my body missed him just as much as my heart did.
“Be sure you pack your little friend when you start throwing things in boxes.” He chuckled as I gasped my way through a full-body shudder. The vibrator was good, but he was better and I was starting to resent that every quiver of pleasure, every quake of desire hinged on his words and the brush of his rough words against my ear. “Next time we’re together I’ll put it to good use. I’ve been thinking up lots of new ways to get you off. Think you can handle real me and plastic me at the same time? I bet you can. I bet you’re drenched with the thought of giving me that cute, freckled ass while that toy fills you up and buzzes against your clit.” His voice dropped and it was obvious the words meant to entice me had a pretty powerful effect on him as well.
I choked on a laugh and tossed my head back on the pillows as my toes curled and my legs tensed as pleasure unfurled slow and steady throughout my blood. It wasn’t the same kind of mind-melting, body-bending orgasm I had with him buried deep inside of me, but it would hold me over until I got the real thing.
“Promises, promises. You have a lot of them stored up to make good on the next time I see you, soldier.” It had been two months and we had one more to go before I was throwing everything I owned into a U-Haul and heading back to Lowry. I flew in to see him one weekend each month, but that hadn’t been enough. One thing the distance had shown us was that we were far happier when we were together than we were when we were apart no matter where we decided to call home.
“I should have made you FaceTime me.” There was a grunt on the other end of the phone and my breath quickened as I imagined the look on his face as his fist pumped up and down the strong, thick column of his cock. I could see the heavy muscles of his chest rising and falling. I could see his massive thighs tensing, one leg bent so that I would have the perfect view of all his impressive masculinity. I could almost feel the delineation between each carved ab muscle and the flex in the defined V that arrowed down on either of his sides.
“Your voice works wonders. It gives good sex,” I purred into the phone and heard him pant as he got closer to his own completion.
“Yeah, but I like your face. I like to see that soft smile you get when you come. I like the way your eyes go out of focus and the way your cheeks get pink. It makes your freckles stand out and that gets me off, every, single, time.”
I sighed and reached up to twist a sweaty curl around my finger. “You know what else gets you off?” He grunted and I could hear the sound of flesh against flesh. It had my already sensitized sex doing a lazy little clench and release of appreciation. “When the tip of your cock hits the back of my throat. When I suck you back as far as you can go and look up at you in awe because there is still so much of you that doesn’t fit. When I trace the tip with my tongue and hold your balls in my hand. When I hum because I like the way you taste and feel in my mouth. That always gets you off.”
“Fuck me.” I was more than ready to. Stupid miles and miles between us.
He panted his way through his own orgasm, threw in some dirty words for good measure, and once he caught his breath he grumbled, “I would give up my bike right now to finish inside you, hell, I’d even take coming on you at this point. I’ve been wanting my cock between those pretty tits for a long time. Anything would be better than my hand and making a mess on my stomach.” I heard sheets rustling as he moved around to clean up. I didn’t tell him that I had no problem watching him finish all over himself, it was hot. But I had to agree finishing together was a thousand times more satisfying.
“It won’t be much longer. Speaking of which, how is the training going?” He’d decided to take Jules’s suggestion and go through Mississippi State testing so that he could join the sheriff’s office and work with his dad. The three months we were spending apart was not only so I could get things settled and squared away in Denver but so he could focus on the training and his future in law enforcement with the minimum of distractions. The job opportunity was only one of the reasons that I ultimately decided it made more sense for us to look at building a life in Lowry instead of Denver. As feisty and fierce as she was, Elma Mae wasn’t getting any younger and I didn’t want to take Church away from whatever time he had left with her considering the years he had squandered. He might be willing to drop everything and be where I wanted to be, but what I really wanted was to be there for him as he made things right with the people that he loved.
Plus I liked Lowry. I liked the slower pace of things and the laid-back vibe, especially since Kallie had finally come clean and told my parents the wedding was off. She refused to tell them why and as a result Wheeler was persona non grata in the Carmichael home due to my parents’ belief that it had been something he’d done, that he was the one at fault for everything falling apart. I begged Kallie to come clean, to tell my parents and Wheeler the truth about why she was willing to lose everything but she refused. So everything was a mess that I felt caught in the middle of and I’d made the decision that Church was right, none of it was mine to worry about, not my circus and not my clowns. What was mine needed to be back home making amends.
Frankly I couldn’t wait to watch Dalen play football and to help Elma make cookies. Church had already found an adorable home similar to Jules’s in a neighborhood close by to rent. He told me I was in charge of making it a home because he didn’t have a clue what that meant. His only requirements were a garage for the Harley, a big TV and a comfortable couch in front of it, and of course a big-ass bed with me in it. I could give him all those things and I was dying to do so.
“Training is fine. I guess it’s like riding a bike, you never forget the basics no matter what they apply to.”
“I think it’s more likely that some men were born to protect and serve others and you happen to be one of them. It doesn’t seem hard because it was what you were meant to do.”
He snorted. “You always think the best of everyone
, me included.” There was a long pause and then he sighed. “Don’t ever stop doing that. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
I laughed a little and got up when I heard Dolly making noise in the living room. She had no use for me when I was a puddle of goo after Church talked me into a bone-melting climax.
“I’ve always seen your best and now everyone else can, too. You aren’t trying so hard to hide it anymore.” Dolly started barking and prancing around the door as someone used a heavy hand to pound on the wooden surface. “Hey, I have to go, someone is at the door.” I pulled on a long T-shirt that had a fox on it and the words “No Fox Given” scrawled around it and a pair of yoga shorts and willed my still-rubbery legs to find some strength.
“What? It’s after midnight there, why is someone at your door this late?” I smiled as all his alpha protective instincts fired up. He wasn’t around to keep an eye on me and he hated it. Something I knew for a fact since Rome had been hovering like a mother hen. I finally asked him to back off and he sheepishly shrugged and told me when a brother in arms asked you to keep an eye on his girl when he couldn’t that’s what you did. Then he hugged me until I thought my ribs were going to crack and told me that there was no one that was ever going to be able to replace me. I knew he meant I would leave a void in more than just the bar and it made me want to cry.
“I don’t know, but if you quit barking at me I’ll go find out.” I had a pretty good idea who it was as lately both my sister and Wheeler had the annoying habit of popping by when they weren’t expected, each to bitch about the other and the tension their split had caused in the family and between their friends. Canceling the wedding should have been the end of it but it turned out when you broke up with someone you had been with for so long untangling the ties that bound your lives together was quite a tricky feat.