Page 63 of If You Loved Me

Her fingers pulled at my hair and I fucking loved it, watching her head lean back, her eyes close. I kept my gaze fixed on her beautiful face amongst the starry night sky as I sucked on her clit, letting her breathy moans drive me near the edge of insanity.

My length hardened so much it fucking hurt, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to watch Sarah come undone before me, with my mouth drawing moans from her pink lips.

“Please.” Her legs quivered against my shoulders. “Please, don’t stop.”

I hummed in pure male satisfaction at her words, thevibration of my throat hitting her center. She shivered, fingers pulling tighter on my hair. She tasted so damn good I knew I could die a happy man with my face between her legs.

“Oh fuck,” she breathed into the night air, her breath gathering in front of her serene face.

I knew she was close, I could feel her thighs clamping down against the sides of my face. She started rolling her hips against my lips and I grasped her ass to make sure she wouldn’t fall. Running my tongue along the entire length of her sent her reeling off the edge. She pulsed beneath my tongue and I loved every fucking second of her undoing. With a final gentle suck over her slit, she nearly collapsed forward from her climax.

Lifting my arms to her ribcage, I pulled her down from my shoulders and cradled her in my arms. Eyes heavy with lust, she slowly blinked up at me. “That was amazing,” she whispered, voice hoarse from the pleasure I wrung from her.

“Next time, I’ll take my time with you, sugar. That wasn’t even a fraction of the pleasure I can make you feel.” And it was true. The next time I tasted her, I was going to spend all fucking night making her body writh in bliss. But the temperature was dropping and the last thing I wanted was for our first intimate moment to be tarnished with her catching pneumonia.

I waded us out of the river and up to Hank where I had stowed away two blankets behind the saddle for when I thought we might sit in the field for a while. Setting Sarah on her feet, I wrapped one of the blankets around her shoulders.

“I think next time we should go skinny dipping in the summer.” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. I cursed, rubbing my hands up and down her arms over the blanket. “You need a blanket too,” she said between quivering lips.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve been in worse places than a cold fall night with a beautiful woman.”

My words must have hit home because something like regret flashed in her eyes. I didn’t comment on it though. I wasn’t going to let my time in prison ruin this moment between us.

When her shivering slowed, I grabbed the other blanket and dried myself off with one side before flipping it over and covering my body.

Sarah stepped toward me, opening her blanket a little as she let her hands settle on my hips. “I didn’t know it could feel like that.” Her voice was soft.

Bursting into my awareness, I read between the lines of what she wasn’t saying out loud. “You’ve never had a man pleasure you before? In any way?”

She bit her bottom lip again and I moved to hide my growing erection. I wanted to bite that lip while I slid into her, so fucking slow and deep.

“My mother…she always told me that my future husband would want me to be pure—untarnished—so I never let any of my school crushes go further than a peck on the lips. And when I moved out to pursue my own business…I don’t know. I think I was so consumed by making it work that I didn’t allow myself time for other things. I was so scared of my business failing and having to crawl back to myparents to beg for their help that I stopped living my life.”

Anger burned in my chest for her. For how her parents made her feel ashamed of the life she wanted for herself. That she felt so damn terrified of not making it on her own that she spent the last decade doing nothing but work.

“I think that was the other reason why I took the deal my mother made me about Jones. I’d never had her approval before.” Her nervous laugh struck me hard in the chest. “I honestly didn’t realize how badly I still wanted it until she was standing in my work kitchen and she looked at me like I wasn’t a complete failure when I agreed to date him. I guess some part of me will always want her approval.”

I tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting people to change, Sarah. I know what it feels like. I wanted my mom to come back to us after my dad died. To see her smile again. But looking back now, I think it was a good thing she left. If she hadn’t, Callie Rose and I would probably still be locked in that moment of losing our father forever.”

Sarah’s eyes shone. “How do I let go, Ranger?”

I sighed. She looked so fragile and small that it nearly crushed me. I wanted to take away all her pain, but I knew—better than most—that no one else could do it for her.

“I think the best thing you can do for yourself is find something worth changing for. Anything that will take the ease of losing your parents’ favor away. For me, it was taking care of Callie Rose. She was so young when our father died and our mother became depressed. I didn’t want her to live alife of sadness. I loved my sister so much I decided I couldn’t let the fear of being without our parents win.”

Her eyes slid down to my chest like she was mulling over what I’d said. “I haven’t been living at all,” she whispered. More to herself than me, I thought.

Seconds ticked by until she looked up at me, the high moon reflecting in her irises. “I want to live, Ranger.”

I smiled. “Then let me give you the world.”

Chapter 27

Sarah

Then let me give you the world.

It was all I could think about the entire ride back to his house. There was no doubt about my feelings anymore. Not after what we’d shared tonight. My sex was still throbbing with each gentle bounce I took in the saddle.

---