Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

I groan loudly, unable to keep quiet. Out here, we can scream all we want. The need in me to come is too sharp, too hard, too much. I slide out slowly and watch my thick shaft, shiny with everything she has, then I plunge back in. My whole body shudders.

“Come for me,” I murmur roughly. “Come with me.”

Her eyes meet mine and I’m in love, I’m so in love with her, still in love with her.

Oh fuck me.

I work my fingers into a frenzy, her face contorting, her mouth opening like a flower while I slam into her harder and harder.

“Oh my god!” she cries out. “Oh god, Shane!”

She’s shaking.

I’m shaking.

I swear the ground is shaking too.

Then I’m coming.

Hard.

I take in a deep breath and let out a low, guttural cry as my strained muscles let loose and the orgasm rips down my spine, shooting out through every vein. I see the fucking stars. The moon. The sun. The world.

Then there’s nothing of me left.

I’m empty. Sated.

Spent.

I lean against her, trying to feel my limbs, my grip on her hips slick with sweat. I brush the damp hair off her forehead, grinning at her beautiful face and kiss the small beauty mark on her jaw. She used to hate that mark and Maverick, such a dick, would tease her for it when we were younger. She’d try and cover it with makeup but I always wanted her just like this, clean-faced, flushed and letting me see the real, beautiful Rachel.

“Good morning,” I whisper to her.

She grins at me lazily. “You already said that.”

“But now it’s a real good morning.”

“You can say that again.” She reaches up, running her fingers down my face. “I never thought this would happen.”

I close my eyes at her touch. “What do you mean?”

“I mean when I decided to come back here. You, me…it was never a possibility. I planned on hating you until the day I died.”

I swallow hard. That’s not the best thing to hear after sex, or anytime, really.

She exhales sharply, looks away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.”

“I get it,” I tell her. “I really do.”

“Just because I didn’t think it was a possibility, doesn’t mean I didn’t want it to happen.” I frown. She looks at me with big eyes, glacier blue, and I see her truth in them. “I used to wonder about all the what ifs. What if you hadn’t broken up with me, what if I stayed in North Ridge, what if you had run away with me. I would wonder if I’d ever truly love someone the way that I loved you. And I tried. I tried to love. Turns out the hardest person to love was myself.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I say under my breath, knowing that struggle all too well.

“And I thought, what if I came here and the past was erased and I could just use my heart again to its full extent. But I pushed it away because it wasn’t real. It wasn’t possible. The best I could hope for was closure.”

“And did you get it? Closure, I mean?”

“I thought I did. But then, Shane…what are we doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“This,” she says, pressing her hand against my chest. “Us. This isn’t closure Shane. Is it for you? Is this putting something to rest so we can both walk away, unchained? Or is this slipping the chains back on? This is just opening another door, maybe one that should stay closed.”

I shake my head, not liking this fear in her voice, how she doesn’t see what’s really burning between us. “Love isn’t a chain, Rachel. It’s not a shackle. Love is what sets you free, love doesn’t confine. What I feel for you…it’s wild and it’s raw and it’s as fucking real as that sun above us.”

“And what do you feel for me?” she asks so quietly I lean in to hear her better.

Her question stuns me.

“It’s not obvious?” I ask, running my thumb over her lips before placing my hand at her heart, her soft bare skin warming my palm. “Rachel, I love you. I loved you then, I love you now, and I loved you in all the light and darkness in-between. I love you with a wildness I can’t tame.” I pause, my chest tightening as I feel everything hang in the balance, resting on my words. “Please tell me you feel that from me, that you feel it too. Tell me you’ll at least run with it for a while.”

She stares up at me, her eyes searching mine, looking for all the answers I’ve already given her. “Shane…” she says softly. “This isn’t my home anymore.”

“Yes it is. I’m your home. I’ve always been your home even when you’ve been somewhere else, even when you were hating me, trying to forget me, my heart has been your home.”

God, can’t she see that? See that she always has and always will belong with me?

She closes her eyes and gives a quick shake of her head. “I have to go home soon. I have to.”

“You don’t.”

“Shane, please,” she says, staring at me, pleading with her eyes. “Put yourself in my shoes. I have a life over there. I have a condo, a job, a –”

“Yes, I’ve heard it all before,” I snap at her. I inhale deep and sharp, trying to keep my cool. “Look, I know that this isn’t easy and that you’ve worked really hard to build that life there. All I’m asking is that you try and build that life here.”

Her brows knit together delicately. “You say that like you have an idea what it’s like to start over. And how could you? You never left this damn place.”

“Rachel…”

“It’s true.”

“You’d have me every step of the way. You’d have your mother. You’d have Mav and Fox and my dad and grandpa and Del, even Jeanine.”

“But it doesn’t fix everything.”

I stare at her. “What do you need to fix?”

“You think that by coming back here my life will get back on track? Let’s say I find a job here that I do like. Let’s say a bunch of wonderful things align. Do you think that’s going to fix what’s wrong with me, fix this hole inside, fix all the damage that’s been done? Your love is a start Shane, but it’s not enough.”

Whoa.

I jerk my head back, shaking inside.

My love is not enough.

Not enough.

I’m not enough.

“Okay,” I tell her, pushing off of her and getting to my feet. I quickly slip on my briefs and start getting ready. No sense in just lying on a sleeping bag all morning and throwing barbs at each other when there’s important shit to be done.

“Shane,” she says, getting dressed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did,” I tell her, glancing at her as I pull on my jeans. “You have a sharp fucking tongue sometimes, you know that?”

“I know. I’m sorry. Look, I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her quickly, practically ripping the sleeping bag away from under her feet. “We need to get moving. Take Fletcher to the vet, deal with the damn cows some other time.” I glance over at Fletcher who has been snoozing in the grass by Polly all morning. He actually seems a lot better but he’s going to the vet anyway just to make sure. “Fuck, I wouldn’t mind finding that bear right now and giving him a real piece of my mind.”

“Shane. Please. I hate it when you’re mad at me.”

I give her a look. “Then quit saying shit you know I’ll get mad at.”