Page 53 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

His wife who looked at him with challenge and longing, hope and love, making the blue of her eyes all the brighter.

His wife.

And that was the final straw.

Wilder stood, the cards forgotten, and he moved around the coffee table to put his hands on her at last.

Maybe he vaulted it.

Because there was no way that any force on earth or in heaven could have compelled him to marry this woman if he didn’t want to.

If it hadn’t been his goddamn idea from the start.

“Look at that,” she said, tilting her head back as he moved closer and put his hands on the sides of her face, then up into her hair. “History is repeating itself. You know this means you lose, Wilder. Are you going to pretend that I cheated?”

“Of course you cheated,” he said, bending down to put his mouth close to hers. “You knew exactly how I would lose this.”

“I hoped,” she corrected him, solemnly.

“I accepted your terms,” he told her, in the same tone. “And I’ll meet them.”

And then he kissed her. Over and over again, he kissed her and he kissed her, and there was nothing lazy about it. There was nothing held back.

It was raw and wild and he thought that if it wasn’t them—if it wasn’tthis—they might have burned down the cabin all around them.

As it was, they ended up on the deep rug that stretched across the hardwood floor. He took off those white panties once again. Then Cat crawled all over him, using the tricks he’d taught her to bring him so close to the edge that he nearly lost it.

But not quite.

Wilder pulled her astride him and gripped her hips, then watched her ride him. Her head thrown back, her arms wide.

Until they both got lost somewhere in the stars.

And when she collapsed into his arms, he wrapped her up tight and pressed kisses all over her face.

“I love you,” he told her, though the words seemed rusty in his mouth and he wasn’t quite certain if he could get them out right. She smiled, her eyes still closed, so he tried them again. “I love you, Cat.”

And he kept saying it, again and again. Through that night and all the days that followed.

Because she was the one who put the wild in his name now, and he aimed to keep it that way.

And since he’d only ever told one woman that he loved her in his entire adult life, it was clear to him he had no option but to dedicate the rest of his life to proving it.

Epilogue

Zeke Carey wasfeeling remarkably pleased with himself.

It was a fine autumn morning, crisp and cold, the aspens a bright splash of gold wherever he looked. He kissed his wife soundly until she laughed and then he left her in their bed, where they’d returned after breakfast, because sometimes that was how it went.

They were a storm that never blew itself out.

He hoped it never would.

“I wouldn’t say no to one of those coffee cakes from the cart beside the General Store,” Belinda called after him. He didn’t tell her that he’d already called ahead to make sure a coffee cake was set aside, because he knew that she liked something sweet after a deliciously energetic morning.

Once outside, he stopped and took a deep breath of that pure mountain air, marveling the way he always did that he was lucky enough to get to live here. To have grown up here and raised his family here, and if all went the way he wanted to, to one day die here, too.

There was a grave on the hill, looking out at the mountains, where his sweet Alice lay. Someday, he would go and lie beside her. And sometime after that, because she was the second great love of his life, Belinda would come and lay on the other side.

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