Hesitation. Then finally, “No.”
“I feel a ‘but’ coming.”
“This is wrong. You know it. I know it.”
Well, shitfire.
“I assure you, darlin’, there’s nothing wrong about this, about you and me, about feelin’ good.”
“It’s not about feeling good and you know it!” Oh, God, was she going to cry?
He wanted to argue with her, needed to argue with her, though he knew exactly what she meant. He just wasn’t going to think about the ramifications of what they were doing. Hell, tomorrow was another day. But tonight, she was here. Ready and warm and willing . . . well, almost willing.
“I could stop,” he admitted and twisted the end of her nipple just a bit, eliciting pleasure with just a hint of pain.
Her back arched and she was his again, he knew it, felt her resistance ebb.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he said.
In response, she moaned softly and her buttocks rose a little higher, inviting him to the dance.
He slid closer. Pressed his weight into her. Reached around with his other arm so that he now had both her breasts in his palms, her nipples hard as he rubbed.
“Oooh,” she whispered as he touched her. “Cade . . .”
“What?” he asked into the shell of her ear.
She shuddered.
“What is it you want?”
“Everything.” It came out in a rush as she began to move. “I . . . want . . . everything.”
And he did too. Closing his eyes, he crossed the frail barrier that was loyalty, thrust himself inside her, and changed the course of his damned life forever.
Now, years later, standing in the cold hay mow, looking through a window covered in ice, he felt as empty as he had the next day when he’d left her.
Even so, his cock twitched at the memory, and he knew in a heartbeat that if he were given the chance to replay his life, he’d do it all again.
Shitfire, he was a bastard. Raking stiff, frustrated fingers through his hair, he tried to dispel the vibrant memory. It was over. Done. Lives changed. Lives lost. “Sweet Christ,” he muttered almost inaudibly.
“Hey, you leavin’ or what?” Zed called from below.
How long had he been up here, caught in the web of memories that always left him a little breathless and a lot mad at the world?
“On my way!” He jumped onto the ladder and holding on to the metal rails on either side of the steps, let his hands glide down the metal handles like he’d done as a kid and slid to the floor without touching the rungs. As his boots landed on the floor below, he saw that Zed was just finishing strewing the hay in the mangers.
“What the hell were you doin’ up there?” Zed demanded.
“Nothin’.”
“Sure, jack-off.”
Cade felt a corner of his mouth lift. Close enough, brother. Close enough.
“You got this handled?” Cade asked, motioning to the mangers where all the horses had plunged their noses.
“What do you think?” Zed snorted a laugh and the roan gelding, His Majesty, lifted his head to stare at Cade. God, he loved that gelding. At twenty, a lot of His Majesty’s good years were behind him, but the quarter horse still had a spark in his eye and was ready, when asked, to gallop wildly across the open fields with Cade riding bareback.