Page 56 of One Night Rancher

Thirteen

Cara felt so surrounded by love and warmth. Her future sisters-in-law fussed over her, and Jace’s mother seemed to be just so happy.

And she felt partly like a fraud. She didn’t know why. She and Jace were really getting married. They weren’t making that up. It was just that... He hadn’t said anything about being in love with her. And she couldn’t figure out if she was being strange. If she was splitting hairs. Because Jace cared about her. She knew that. She would say it was indisputable even that he loved her. But she just had to wonder if his feelings had actually changed, or if they were just sleeping together.

And then she had to ask herself why it mattered. If it even did.

She had him in her life, the most stable relationship, and they were going to make it legal. So what did it matter what they called it.

Because you love him.

But what did that matter? Why would it be different if he said he loved her, or if he was in love?

She shoved all of her reservations to the side. And when Jace came back from playing darts with his brothers, he took her hand. “Want to drive over to my place?”

And she did. She really did. She wanted to spend the night with him. She wanted to solidify this whole thing. That their relationship had changed. And also that they were still them. Both felt so important right now. Both felt like it might be everything.

“You can follow me over.”

She drove in her car behind him, down the bumpy dirt road that led away from the main house and toward the house he lived in on the property. She pulled up to his place, just behind him.

She got out and walked right to him. “Jace...”

She had been about to ask him where they might live when they were first married. If they would live here, if they would live at her place. But he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. And pressed a kiss to her mouth. Fervent, hard and glorious. And maybe it wasn’t the time to talk. Maybe it was okay for them to just feel for a while. Maybe it was just fine for them to retreat to this, because it felt right. Because it felt real. Because of all the crazy and uncertain things, this felt like a little bit of something. A little bit of certain. His kiss undid her.

And she wanted... She wanted to project everything that she felt right into him. Wished that she could be emitted to his chest. Wished that she could make him understand.

She wanted that more than anything. To show him. He had taken care of her for the first time, and the second time, he had given her confidence. The second time, he let her ride him, and it had been dirty and glorious and they’d been them. Even as they’d given each other pleasure.

But she wanted something else. Something more and deeper.

She wanted him to know. She wanted to show herself. The difference between love and being in love.

She wanted to see. If she could make it all for herself. If what she felt would be enough to sustain them. Would be enough to keep them together. He lifted her up off the ground, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, and she poured everything that she felt, everything that they were, into that kiss. All the relief that she had felt when he’d first been kind to her down by the creek all those years ago. The need she felt to fill that hole left behind by the sister that he loved so much. The years and years of friendship. Of telling each other things in confidence. Of being there for each other.

Her heart, her soul. Her gratitude for how he had been there when her grandfather had died. For the way that he had effortlessly folded her into his family. And just the way she loved him. Her everything. Her heart.

She kissed him like she might die if she didn’t, because she wasn’t entirely certain that she wouldn’t.

He walked them both back up the porch to his house and through the front door. But they didn’t make it down the hall. They just barely made it to the couch. He laid her down on the soft surface, tearing at her clothes. They didn’t talk. Didn’t joke. Didn’t laugh.

It was like a reckoning.

Everything was stripped away but their need. For each other. For this.

And already, she was so aroused by him. And already, she felt like she was lost in him. In this.

She clung to his shoulders and then realized she needed to get those clothes off of him. So she went from clinging to tearing, then her hands went to his belt buckle. Pushing the denim away from his body, as he wrenched her panties down her thighs, her sundress already somewhere on the floor.

His mouth was hungry, his hands demanding, and she loved it.

This man, this man who was desperate for her body—he wasn’t a stranger anymore. This was part of them. Part of who they were now. And it was all the more powerful for it.

He put his hand between her thighs and teased her, tested her readiness.

“Now,” she said, begging.

He settled himself between her legs and thrust home, establishing a wild rhythm that tested and tormented them both.

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