Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

“Just come for a walk with me.”

I take her hand and lead her downstairs, throwing on boots and jackets and scarves. Maverick has disappeared somewhere and Grandpa isn’t even paying us much attention. Matlock must be on TV.

We step outside into the crisp air. Her present is burning a hole in my pocket. It’s not an engagement ring, I know we’re too young for that, but it’s something along those lines, and once I saw it I knew I had to have it.

The sky is clear, a dark velvet universe that stretches above our heads from snowy peak to snowy peak. Everything glows under the light of the near full moon; we don’t even need flashlights.

“It’s magical,” Rachel says, her breath freezing in the air, becoming a cloud.

We trudge along through the snow, the path to the barn deep with flakes from earlier, hand in hand, breathing in the night that seems like it might stretch on forever. The town across the river twinkles in blurred lights of red, white, gold, and green.

The stable is full of horses right now and as I switch on the lights at the base of the hayloft, a few familiar faces stick their heads out of their stalls, nickering softly at our intrusion.

“Where are we going?” she asks me, and I nod at the ladder.

“Up.”

She glances up into the hayloft. “Really?” Rachel isn’t a fan of creepy crawlies.

“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I was up there earlier. It’s fine. No rats, no bugs, just hay.”

And also some blankets, which she discovers as soon as she’s up there.

“There’s a lantern, but I don’t know if you can see it,” I say as I climb up after her.

She turns the knob and the loft is filled with a warm glow.

That same glow fills my heart.

There’s Rachel, settling amidst flannel blankets atop dry, clean hay, her nose red from the cold. She smiles at me, quick and nervous at first as I stand there, my feet on the last rung of the ladder, and then something passes over her eyes. They become serious, grave, not in sadness or something heavy, but there’s a depth to them that wasn’t there before. A knowing. A wanting.

A yearning.

She starts to remove her parka, then her sweater, her eyes never leaving mine. She’s looking so deep into my soul that I feel something inside me stir. It’s not just lust. It’s not my dick straining against my jeans. It’s something much more.

It’s a shift.

It’s a bookmark sliding in the middle of a novel where the hero’s world is blown apart.

Everything that happens before that page is the before.

Everything that happens after is the rest of the hero’s life.

This moment is the dividing moment, where a world is halved in two and there’s no turning the pages back.

She continues to undress, and our eyes never break apart, not until she’s completely naked and lit by the glow of the lantern, her clothes discarded around her like petals.

In my sixteen years, I’ve seen the most breathtaking sunsets out here on the ranch, the way the sun melts behind the glaciers, casting everything in gold. I’ve seen sunrises that make you believe in God, all the colors in the world. I’ve seen the fields come alive again in the spring, so bright and lush you can’t believe they’d ever died. I’ve seen calves being born, eagles that soar higher than the sun, I’ve seen horses galloping across the plains with sheets of rain chasing their tails.

But I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous as this.

Rachel is in front of me, naked and bare, all sleek lines and soft skin and pale places, hidden places, places that only exist for me.

“I’m sorry I’ve made you wait so long,” she says to me, her voice so low it’s barely audible above the stir of horses below. “I wasn’t ready.”

I’m already climbing over her, pressing my finger to her lips. “Please don’t apologize. I would have waited forever.”

She looks away, breaking our gaze. A flash of shame comes over her eyes.

I kiss her forehead and murmur against it, “We don’t have to do this, Raven. There’s no rush.”

“I know,” she whispers, shifting her head back so she’s looking at me. Her eyes are brimming with tears. It strikes me so hard, so deep, that I swear it goes right through me like a bullet. “But I want to. I need to. I need to feel your love, Shane. Please. I need to feel how you love me.”

I can’t argue with that. I get undressed quickly until I’m totally naked, my skin both hot and cold. I take the condom out of my discarded jeans, leaving the gift still inside my pocket.

This is a different gift entirely. Her soul to mine. Mine to hers.

I slip the condom on with shaky hands, hoping I got it right.

I move between her legs as they open for me.

She reaches up, grabbing the back of my neck, my shoulders.

“Tell me if anything is too much,” I tell her, my voice already shaking in anticipation. I don’t want to hurt her, but I know I just might. “Tell me if you want me to stop and I’ll stop.”

“I love you,” she says as an answer.

Everything inside me blooms and breaks and blooms and breaks. “I love you, too.”

I take my time turning her on, making her wet, making her ready. In this hayloft, we have all the time in the world. In this place, this moment, we are the world.

When she’s close, her breath short, her thighs tense, I push inside her.

She grips me hard, her nails digging in. There’s strain on her brow.

And all I feel is hard tension swirling into bliss.

There’s nothing like this.

There never will be.

It’s just a spiral of her and me, wrapping around each other, going down, tumbling, turning.

Fucking hell.

I don’t even think I can last as long as I need to.

My pace quickens, my hips slamming into hers, and finally her face relaxes, her legs wrap around my waist, her mouth at mine, and I’m fucking gone.

I pump once, twice, hoping, wishing on some wild star that this feels as good for her as it does for me.

And then it’s over. My mind has melted. My heart is a jackhammer in my chest. My muscles won’t stop shaking.

I brush the hair off her forehead, damp with sweat, and gaze into her eyes, searching for a sign that she’s okay.

“Are you okay?”

She nods, licks her lips. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry that was so…”

“It was enough,” she says. She smiles. “Believe me, it was enough.”

I grin back at her, kiss her forehead, her nose, her lips, her chin.

“But you didn’t come.”

She gives me a wry smile. “I know. But there’s no rush. You’ve made me come a million times before, and I’m sure you’ll do it a million times more. That’s not why I did this. It’s not why I wanted to lose my virginity with you. I just wanted to be a part of you forever. I just wanted to feel you inside me. And I did. And I still can. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling you now.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

I kiss her again. Again and again.