Page 17 of Tension with the Mountain Man
"I spent a week thinking I'd lost you. A week wondering if you'd ever want me again." Her hands are already working on my shirt, desperate and impatient. "I need to feel how much you want me. I need it to be real, overwhelming, impossible to doubt."
I understand. The past week has been hell for both of us, and gentle won't erase that pain. Only passion will, only the kind of claiming that leaves marks and steals breath and makes it impossible to think about anything except each other.
I strip her efficiently, my mouth following the path of my hands, nipping and sucking hard enough to leave marks. She gasps and arches against me, her nails digging into my shoulders.
"Mine," I growl against her throat, the word torn from someplace primal and possessive. "You're mine, Sally. Completely, absolutely mine."
"Yours," she agrees breathlessly, helping me out of my own clothes with shaking hands. "Only yours. Forever yours."
When we're both naked, I take a moment to just look at her—flushed and beautiful and so obviously mine that it makes my chest tight with emotion.
"I love you," I tell her, framing her face with my hands. "More than I thought possible. More than I knew I was capable of."
"Show me," she whispers. "Make me feel it."
I worship her with my hands and mouth, working her with my fingers and tongue until she's writhing on the bed, fisting the sheets.
"Tucker, please," she gasps. "I need you inside me."
When I push into her, we both groan. She's so wet, so hot, so tight around me that I have to pause to keep from losing it immediately.
"Move," she demands, digging her heels into my back. "God, please move."
I pull almost all the way out, then thrust back in hard. She cries out, her nails scoring my shoulders.
"Yes, like that," she pants. "Don't hold back."
I don't. I fuck her hard and deep, the bed creaking with every thrust. She meets me stroke for stroke, lifting her hips to take me deeper.
"Never pushing you away again," I tell her between thrusts. "You're staying right here."
"Promise me," she gasps when I reach between us to rub her clit. "Promise you won't run."
"I promise," I growl, feeling her start to tighten around me. "I'm not going anywhere."
She comes with a sharp cry, clenching around me so hard I can barely move. I follow immediately, groaning as I empty myself inside her.
We collapse together, both of us sweaty and breathless. I roll us so she's on top, still inside her, not ready to separate yet. Her hair falls around us like a curtain as she looks down at me.
"I meant it," I tell her. "I'm sorry. And I’m never letting you go again."
She's quiet for a long moment, tracing patterns on my chest with her fingertip. "Tucker?"
"Mmm?"
She leans down to kiss me, soft and sweet and full of promise. "I love you, Tucker Reeves. I love your dedication, your protective instincts, your quiet strength. I love the way you see solutions instead of just problems."
"I love you too, Sally Jacobson. Your brilliance, your compassion, your stubborn refusal to give up on people." I pull her down for another kiss. "Even when they don't deserve it."
"You deserve it," she says firmly. "You deserve love, happiness, a future that isn't defined by the past."
"I'm starting to believe that," I admit. "Thanks to you."
I hold her close, marveling at how completely my life has changed. A week ago, I was a lonely man defined by loss and guilt. Now I'm a man in love, planning a future with the most incredible woman I've ever met.
"John would have liked you," I say quietly.
"You think so?"
