“You will,” he promised.
And then he sped up, moving quickly as he thrust, his cock pulling far out only to slam back inside, her breasts bouncing against the rough curve of the tree, her cries echoing around the clearing and over the city.
“Tell me what she said to you,” he gritted out. “Tell me why you’re hurting.”
And it hurt more than the bark, more than his cock, to answer him. “She said I wasn’t good enough for you. That I was trash. That I would always be trash.”
“Fuck,” he growled, sounding savage. Like he could rip her apart. “That’s not fucking true.”
“I know,” she sobbed, but she didn’t know, not really. And it was hard to talk with him still fucking her, not as fast as before, but still enough that each word rode on a breath, choppy and short. Because as hard as it was to talk like this, it was the only way she could talk. “But I thought… I didn’t know… God, we’re so different, Blake.”
Another growl, this one wordless and animalistic. “That’s where you’re wrong. We’re the same, you and me. I’ll fucking make us the same.”
It seemed impossible that it could work, that he could somehow fuck them into the same person. But that was how it felt, his cock impaling her, the incredible wet friction between their bodies fusing them together.
His other hand slapped her ass, the sound resounding in the stillness. “Moan,” he said, guttural. “I want to hear you.”
So she let herself moan—and also talk and babble and cry against that cry, hugging it and being hugged by Blake, even while he brutally fucked her. There were words and apologies and explanations. There were garbled sounds even she couldn’t make out. And then there was only a steady litany. “I love you I love you I love you.”
His hips jerked roughly as he came, and it was the feel of him coming, his hips gripping her hips, surely leaving bruises, a hot gush of seed deep inside, that made her come too. She rocked her hips, humping the tree, as her orgasm slammed into her.
He rode the last of the pulses with languid patience, letting her pulse and spasm around his cock, feeling his seed slide down on him. When she had finished and slumped against the tree, he gently pulled away. He righted his clothes, and then hers, and then placed a kiss on her nape.
“Thank you for telling me.”
She smiled into the dark, her face half hidden by the tree. “Thank you for fucking me.”
“It’s bullshit, you know. The idea that we’re so different. That you’re not good enough.” He turned her around and leaned her back against the tree, letting her rest against it but looking her right in the eye. “When I look at you, I see everything I want to be.”
She let her eyes fall shut as he kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
“Love you too, baby.” He ran a finger over the curve of her breast. “Are you sore?”
Her breasts would be tender for days. She loved it. “As awful as this day was, it might be worth it for the tree sex.”
He laughed softly. “You know, there are a lot of trees on the property back home.”
“We should probably draw a map. For surveying purposes.”
“Mhmm. We wouldn’t want to miss one.”
Chapter Eight
BLAKE PARKED ON the broken, twisted driveway. As he stepped outside, he took in the smell of gasoline overlaid with something sweet—chocolate. With the peeling paint and broken step, it was grim. Hard to imagine a young Erin bounding home from school with a backpack slung over her shoulder and a cheeky grin on her face. This wasn’t a place that inspired smiles.
But that’s what Sophia was doing when she opened the door—smiling. She had a huge smile on her face as she embraced her daughter.
“Mama, I missed you so much.”
Sophia turned to him, and he was shocked to see tears in her eyes.
Then Sophia collected him in a hug. Somehow it happened exactly like that despite her being shorter and smaller—he found himself embraced and even squished by her. After a beat of surprise, he hugged her back. Erin looked at them with tears in her brown eyes—so like her mother’s—and he knew this was how they both looked when they were happy.
His voice was surprisingly thick when he said, “It’s good to see you, Mrs. Raider.”
In his life he’d been a son and a boyfriend and a fiancé. But he had never been hugged, only hugged, until Erin. And her mother.
“You don’t know how much I worried about Erin,” she said. “She is so strong, too strong. I worried she wouldn’t let anyone in.”
It felt like she was giving him her blessing, and it was a gift. He was grateful when she didn’t make him respond, just nodded as if something had been decided there in that dingy hallway.
He picked up their bags and followed both women inside.