Mary and Joseph, just look at him…
So unapologetically male. So big and…and angry looking, all red, violently veined skin and shiny, plump head. Saliva pooled on her tongue. She leaned forward to kiss the tip of him, to clasp his shaft in a hard fist just as he’d showed her, to cup his tight, warm balls in her free hand.
“Delilah!” Her name was barely discernible his voice was so guttural. And when she opened her mouth and swallowed the head of him, drank in the salty essence of him, he was reduced to nonsensical syllables.
Both his hands were fisted in her hair. His hips moving slightly, the muscles in his thighs twitching as if he were struggling to keep himself from thrusting forward violently. The feel of him against her tongue was amazing. Such soft skin covering such unyielding hardness. His veins were bumpy. They pulsed rhythmically when she pressed her lips against them.
In and out.
In and out.
He tasted good. Like male. Like sex. Like Mac…
“God, Delilah,” he gasped, pulling from her mouth, from her hands. “You’ve gotta stop, darlin’, or you’re gonna make me lose it.”
“So lose it.” She smiled up at him, past the impressive jut of his shiny erection, past the corrugated muscles of his flat belly, past his big chest and shoulders to his beautiful, sparkling eyes.
She could see him hesitate, could see that he was tempted. But he shook his head, the muscles in his five-o’clock-shadowed jaw clenching. “No. I want to come inside you,” he growled, grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her to her feet. His callused hands spanned her waist, and the next thing she knew, she was airborne…
Delilah landed on the mattress with her silky thighs spread wide, and Mac couldn’t strip out of his boots, socks, and pants fast enough. Launching himself atop her…ah, God…she instantly wrapped her legs around him, her slick channel welcoming the length of his aching erection as he pressed it against her.
He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. Knew it flew in the face of the vow he’d made himself. Knew that it was incredibly dangerous. Was this how it’d been between his parents in the beginning? Would it end for him the same way it’d ended for his father? Would—
Delilah fisted her hands in his hair, hungrily claiming his mouth, and every single thought in his head slid out through his ringing ears.
“Mac,” she gasped against his lips, her breath hot. “Make love to me.”
And it would be love. Because he did love her, and by God, he believed her when she said she loved him, too. Reaching down between them, he tested her readiness with two fingers. When he found her hot and wet and pulsing, he grabbed his shaft and teased his head against her opening.
“Yes.” Her thighs rode high against his sides. “Yes. I want you inside me.”
Her hands skimmed down his back. Her fingers digging into the muscles of his ass as she pulled him close.
“Delilah…” he breathed, slowly sinking into her tight, sultry body, ducking his chin to suck the peak of one rosy, hard nipple into his mouth.
“Unnnhhh.” She arched into him, trying to seat him to the hilt. He had to pull out slightly and press in again before he could accommodate her, before her body finally yielded to his, before his heated balls slammed against the warm curve of her ass.
Right…
That’s how it felt. Right in a way that it’d never been before with any other woman. It thrilled him almost as much as it scared the living shit out of him.
“Please,” she begged, squirming beneath him, hips bucking, urging him to move. And move he did, pulling out only to plunge home. He set a rhythm that drove them both to the edge within minutes, a slow, pumping, in-and-out slide that had her writhing and mewling and begging, and him gritting his teeth against coming too soon. Then, suddenly, she detonated. Just like he knew she would. Taking him with her in the process. Her body milking his orgasm from him in pulsing, greedy tugs.
Long seconds later, after they’d both managed to catch their breath, after he rolled onto his back, she threw a leg over his, twirling her fingers in his chest hair. Then, she said the words that simultaneously thrilled him and chilled him. “I love you, Mac. And I know you love me, too, even if you haven’t said it.”
He wanted to say it. Knew he probably should say it. That’s what normal folks did when they loved each other. They said it, right? But the words stuck in his throat like a damned cocklebur.
“And I’m never going to leave you like your mother left your father,” she continued, kissing his shoulder. “I’m never going to break your heart like your mother broke your father’s. I’m in this thing until the end,” she said, her voice husky as one more poignant, promising kiss landed near his Texas tattoo. “And when you’re lying on your deathbed at the ripe old age of one-hundred-and-ten, and you’re calling my name in the darkness,” damn Zoelner and his big fucking mouth, “I’m going to be right there holding your hand. We’re Notebook-ing it, you and I. A real-life Allie and Noah. Staying together until we go together.”
Sweet God, he couldn’t stand it. He wanted that to be true so badly…
Crying like a fucking baby, that’s what he was doing. Unwelcome tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, wetting his hair and the pillow beneath his head. His chest shook. His stomach trembled. He hadn’t cried like this since the night his father died. Since the night he sat vigil by the man’s bed, holding his hand, trying to lend comfort but knowing he wasn’t enough as his father yelled for Jolene. Jolene, where are you? Jolene, come back!
“I’m s-scared to death,” he admitted on a hiccupping sob, embarrassed to let her see him like this but unable to stop the strangled tears catching at the back of his throat.
She lifted her head from his shoulder, placing the gentlest of kisses on his lips, her breath the sweetest he’d ever tasted. “Shhh. It’s okay,” she told him, smiling softly, her eyes bright. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too.” She pressed soft kisses to the corners of his lips, his cheeks, his eyes. “Love is a risk for everybody.” And that was the understatement of all time. “But, like I said, we’re going to take this slow. One day at a time. But we are going to take this, we are going to give this a chance.”
That wall he’d built up around his heart began to crumple beneath her words, beneath her delicate caresses. Could he do it? Was he brave enough to take the chance on her? To take the chance on them?
“Because I’ve lost a few people I’ve loved during my life,” she continued, “and this is what I know. In the end, the love we withhold, not the love we give, is what we wind up regretting. I don’t want to die with regrets, Mac. Do you?”
“No,” he told her, pulling her close, kissing the top of her head when she laid it on his shoulder. “No, I don’t want to die with regrets. And I do love you, Delilah.” Another sob shook him, cracking his voice. “I swear to God I do!”
“Shh.” She hugged him close. “I know you do, Mac. I know you do.”
He nodded, his heart full to bursting. The wall he’d built around the organ decimated by the love of one flame-haired temptress. Then a thought occurred to him and everything inside him stilled. “Zoelner told you I’m buyin’ back the ranch, right?”
“Yes.” He felt her nod.
“It’s my legacy,” he stressed. “Even if I didn’t love it, which I do, I’d still have to go back there. I’d have to take back what’s been in my family for—”