Page 106 of The One With the Mountain Man

"This isn't a trade," he whispered as he slowly ramped up the speed and depth of his thrusts. "I just had a really good day and I wanted you to know how much I love you and love having you in my life and especially this bed and that's why Ineedto hear you say my name that way you only do when I'm making you come."

He grabbed a pillow and stuffed it underneath me, then took my hands and laced his fingers with mine, stretching them over my head.

It pushed my breasts into the air and Jackson took full advantage to lick and suck and swirl until, "Jackson!" was the only thing I could say.

Thirty-Three

Jackson

I might be a little bit triggered

I spentthe next afternoon helping Travis and Colin clear a fallen tree at the ODX retreat. Damn thing fell way too close to the lodge and Red wanted the fucker gone, along with two others that had the ability to do the same thing in the next storm.

Plus it was just damn good to spend the day sweating with my brother and best friend. Travis was still twisted up over Joanne and Noah and spent a good hour with an ax and a chainsaw while he rambled about taking one or both to the bastard if he broke her heart a second time.

"Is he gonna be all right?" Colin asked.

I clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You ever been in love?"

"No. Not yet anyway."

"Well, it makes you a little crazy sometimes."

He frowned. "Then why bother?"

Travis let out a noise that might have inspired Tarzan and chucked a branch into the trees.

"Because it's also the best thing in the world."

Colin looked at me like I had two heads. "Eve said we have to be on our best behavior at lunch and that if we scare Marley off she'll jettison us into the sun. She thinks you're in love with her already."

"Oh I definitely am." I pulled him back as a stray chunk of wood whizzed past us. "Madly, wildly in love with Marley."

"Even if it makes you like that?" He pointed at the man currently screaming while pushing a chainsaw through the trunk of the tree.

"Travis is losing his shit over his sister possibly being in love. Which might be making her decision making iffy."

"But... it's not his problem."

"Oh, so if something happens to you, I should look the other way and let you deal with it alone?"

"I guess not. But this is... extreme, isn't it?"

It absolutely was. Travis's protective streak was a mile wide. I'd seen the extremity of it when we drove Noah out of town. The mere idea of them being together had triggered him all over again. "He's more sensitive than you'd imagine. When Joanne was hurting, he hurt too. The only way he knew how to manage it was to focus all that intensity on the kid who caused the pain."

"Yeah, Noah's mom hates Travis for that."

"And I don't blame her."

"But if love hurts so much, why not avoid it all together? Save all this insanity." He waved at Travis again and shook his head.

"Because when you get it right it's the best thing in the world."

He shot me a very skeptical eyebrow arch. "Even if you end up like Mom and Dad?"

My blood turned to ice in my veins. "What they have isn't love. It's nothing close to the real deal." The deeper I fell with Marley the more certain I was that my parents had no idea what actual love felt like. Maybe if they had, they wouldn't be such miserable people.

"Then what do they have?"

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