Page 17 of Four Calling Birds

He thrust his hip forward, his hard cock against my ass. That familiar, thick, hard cock that would hit all the right places inside me.

“Does this seem like I’m not interested?”

“What about…”

“Don’t you dare say someone else’s name.” He bit down on the lobe of my ear. He bit so hard that it hurt, and I whimpered, pulling away, but he held me close. He held me to him, not letting me go. “I’m turning the automatic shut off on this stove. I’m putting the duck massacre into the fridge. And we’re going back to the bedroom.”

“I… I… It’s Thanksgiving and you’ll be hungry.”

“I’m fucking starving.” His teeth bit down on my shoulder, and his tongue ran up the curve of my neck, up to my ear. “But not for turkey.”

“It's a duck.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter.”

10. The Bend in the River

Mack

Shelookedgoodonmy bed.

She’d look better once I got her naked, and put her clothes on the floor. I remembered being away for exercises, or working late in the field, and coming home to the lights off, Bo sleeping at the foot of the bed. I hated not having dinner with her, but I absolutely adored watching her sleep as I took off my uniform and slipped into the covers.

It spoke to my masculine heart. The one that took being a husband as seriously as a job. My salary was paid by the peaks and valleys of her body, and the throaty sounds that came when she moaned against my hands.

“Did you know you were getting dropped into my care?” I asked, my fingers caressing the hem of the oversized sweater that had been in the box of things she had left behind.

“No, Bre–”

“You don’t have to say his name. Ever.” I growled. I didn’t want my lust to turn murderous.

She swallowed. Her eyes shut for a moment as she groaned, her thighs trying to press together, but I pushed them apart. I needed to see her pussy. Her clothes were an abomination.

“No, I did not know that I was getting dropped off here.” Her voice was so beautifully breathy.

I nodded, dipping a kiss to her lower belly. There was another jagged scar there. It clustered into a star. A bullet wound? I wanted to ask, but I also didn’t… I didn’t want to know the thousands of ways she could have been hurt in the time we were separated. All the ways that I wasn’t there to protect her

“If you did, would you have made them turn around?” I wanted to know if she wanted to be in my care or not. It was a stupid thing to want to know, but I did. And I refused to be ashamed of it. Not right now, when the beauty was laid before me.

Her brows creased together, then that blush on her skin faded. She became pale - something that only happened when she was unhappy about something.

“Would you have wanted me to…” her voice faded. She turned her head to the side, her eyes watery. “To not come here. To… turn around?”

“If I had a choice, you would never have left my bed,” I bit down on the delicate skin at the top of her hip bone. “We never would have been apart at all.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, and that blush returned in earnest. “Oh, Mack…”

Her sigh made me dizzy with desire. It wasn’t fair that she could do this to me. It wasn’t fair that her bastard of a boss had brought her back into my life, to dangle the thing I desired most, if things hadn’t completely gone to shit. When things hadn’t fallen apart. If we hadn’t been dealt the cards that we had been.

“Maybe I should have turned around,” she whispered, her voice heavy with a sob that she kept from boiling over. “Then we wouldn’t have to go through this pain all over again.”

I crawled up her body, unbuttoning her shirt as I went.

There, to the divot between her breast bone. I kissed the little space, lightly nipping on the skin. Just enough to elicit that gasp I loved so much.

“You could spare us both the pain, if you’d just stay.” Maybe those words made me sound weak. A stronger man would shrug off the loss. I could be like my teammates, Greg Veder and Kai Griffith, who dealt with loss by banging the closest available hot hole. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t.

I came up to her mouth and placed a kiss on her lower lip. I wanted to be sweet to her. I really did. But as soon as her pink lip entered my mouth, I had to taste it with my tongue. Then I need more. So, I grabbed it with my teeth, sucking on the flesh. I bit down on her lip, and she whimpered, as the coppery taste of her blood touched the tip of my tongue.

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