His finger under my chin, Cade tilted my head up toward his. He looked down at me, his expression clouded with lust. I melted into him, my lithe body, taut from running track and swimming, pressed up against his. I could feel his chest, hard under my fingertips, muscled from wrestling and working on his dad’s ranch. My heart beat fast, so fast I thought I might have a heart attack. I was eager and completely terrified. Cade and I had gotten as far as second base before, but never this far. I’d never gotten this far with anyone before, and I knew tonight was the night. I wanted to go all the way, and I wanted to go all the way with Cade. He was the one.
Cade whispered in my ear. “I love you, Junebug.”
“I love you, Cade.” I felt his hand slid down my waist, to the hem of my tee-shirt, and he pulled it up over my head.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. His lips pressed against mine, and he kissed me, tentatively, his lips matching the hesitant movements of his hands over my shoulders, down my arms, then to the tops of my breasts. I felt goose bumps dot the length of my arms and my skin tingled in response to his touch, as if a current of electricity were flowing through the length of my body. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” I replied, breathless. Was I sure I wanted to do this?
I had never been more sure of anything in my life.
When he made love to me underneath the aspen trees, the summer air sticky warm on my skin, I thought, I thought, I want to stay here like this forever. It was the happiest I’d ever felt in my life. If I’d have known then how fleeting it was, how ephemeral that feeling would be, I would have tried harder to hang on to it then.
~
"June!" I was so lost in the memory, that when I heard Cade's voice, calling me from a distance, it was a minute before I realized it was him. But there he was, riding from the ridge toward me on his horse. The sky behind him was greyer now, signaling the weather changing, a storm threatening to roll in. The air had that distinct smell, the one that said that the sky was going to open up any minute now.
As he rode toward me, for a moment I saw him as the adolescent boy I'd just been thinking about, the Cade I remembered from high school. I felt the same nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach that I used to feel when I saw him, that mix of anticipation and surge of hormones, lust and love all jumbled up together.
Cade rode up on the horse, pulling up on the reins as he got closer to me. His horse neighed, sidling up beside Missy, and I felt her relax under me, shifting her weight to accommodate for mine.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
And just like that, old Cade was gone, replaced by new Cade.
"Riding. What are you doing out here?" I asked. "Are you following me again?"
"I was riding. I had no idea you were up here," Cade said, his brow wrinkled. "Don't worry, I'm not interested in following you. You can get your little cop friend to protect you, if you're that worried, little girl."
"Little girl? That's what you're calling me now? I'm a fucking physician. The patronizing attitude is getting old."
"A doctor and a cop," he said. "It's perfect. I'm sure you'll look great together in your house with the white picket fence and two kids."
"Go to hell, Cade," I said. The sky was ominously dark, and I saw a flash of heat lightning on the horizon. It was about to storm, and the mare was skittish underneath me, shimmying around.
Screw him, and his stupid I'm-so-much-more-badass-than-you biker attitude.
Screw him and his comments about Jed.
I pulled at the reins, nudging the mare's flank with my foot, and she took off at a trot. There was a storm rolling in, and Cade could do whatever the hell he wanted to do. I remembered an overhang near here where we used to go as kids, and I was taking cover before it spooked the hell out of the horses.
Thunder cracked loudly, and I remembered those days when I was a kid and a storm would roll in, the air charged with static electricity and smelling of rain even before it actually began to downpour. I would sit outside on the front porch, watching as the rain poured down heavy around me, and when the thunder crashed, I'd climb up into my mother's lap while she sung to me, assuring me everything would be okay. It was one of the things I still did when I was upset, hummed the songs she used to sing, her voice so soft I could barely hear her around the constant white noise of the rain coming down around us. Sometimes, late at night before I fell asleep, I still pictured her, sitting at the foot of my bed reading to me at the same way she would when I was a kid.
Behind me, I heard Cade.
"Whoa," he said, and his horse slowed to a stop beside me.
The rain was already beginning to pelt my skin, cool against my arms. I dismounted, shaking off Cade's outstretched hand when he offered it.