Chapter Seventeen

 

Ash couldn’t have been happier at the change in position. Manly satisfaction the likes he’d never felt washed over him at the passion in her voice when she’d screamed his name. He wanted to cradle her as much as bed her. His heart sang. She truly wants me.

Amber eyes gazed down on him from within the golden spirals of her honey-blonde hair. Tiger eyes, unblinking and predatory, they were hungry—for him. He couldn’t look away from this beautiful creature.

Her lovely chin toss told him she’d do as she pleased, and he’d let her. Yet as easily as she’d come, he wondered at her experience. She seemed to know some of the things that happened between a man and his woman, yet she hadn’t touched him yet. Not where it counted.

His nostrils flared, drawing in the rich, sultry scent of her blooming. They’d ‘discussed’ a woman’s proper place in the world once before, and it hadn’t gone well. She knew how strongly he felt about providing for his woman and being the man of his house, but now was not the time to poke that hornet’s nest. Not when he was so close to paradise. Like it or not, she was on top. His hands settled to the flare of her hips and let her lead.

“You like being on top, do you nah?”

“I think so, yeah.” A genuine smile curved her luscious lips, and gah, his staff throbbed to delve as deep as possible into the tender folds of her exquisite body. Even now, he could feel the heat dripping off of her as she opened wide for him.

“There’s something you need to know,” she murmured as she crushed her breasts to his chest, her hair in his face and her lips in his ear.

He waited, needing her to say the words. There was so much lost little girl in this tough woman, it squeezed the salty tears right out of his heart. “Yes?” he encouraged gruffly. “I’m listening.” And if it’s too hard a thing to speak, I’ll wait ’til it isn’t.

“I…” Her body tensed from her toes to her lovely lips. A breathy murmur eased out of her with, “I’ve... never done this before. Gone this far. Needed anyone so much.”

Male pride boomed through the rafters of his soul. “You’re safe now,” he felt the need to tell her. “And it’s me you’re talking to, love. I’ll never hurt you.” Yet he ached so bad from the years of abstinence waiting for her, he could blow his chance before he got properly seated. Just her breath on his ear stretched his endurance, but when she slipped one hand between them and shifted her body over him…

He gritted his teeth, determined to hold his needs back and to go slow if it was the last thing he did. This moment was for her, not him. He wouldn’t out maneuver her with his knowledge or skill of the subject at hand. His knees quaked with restraint. “Is there something you need or want me to—?”

Bloody hell! She dropped herself onto him in one slick rush. She took him quick and fast and—good. But what was she thinking? He cupped her jaws, still fighting for composure and needing to read the message in her eyes. Tears? No! “Did I hurt you?”

A nod. Colby bit her bottom lip. “Did I hurt you?” she had the nerve to ask him in a tight breathy voice, her lashes lowered as her hips froze in place.

Ah, no, no, no! This was not how her first time should’ve been. “You can’t hurt me, love, but look at me. Come on, please, don’t hide those pretty eyes. Not anymore. Not about this.”

Swallowing hard, she lifted her lashes, now bedecked with crystal tears before she dashed them away.

“You should nah have done that so fast,” he whispered tenderly. “Set for a minute. Get used to it. To me.” He smoothed her shoulder blades with his palms, holding her in place lest she think she was up for a rowdy first ride. Not in a million years would he have guessed her extreme need to dominate the field, even now.

She nodded, her palms on his chest, a sheen of sweat on her brow. “Sorry ‘bout that. I wanted to do it right. Guess I didn’t think it would h-h-hurt… there.”

Ah, she was killing him. “You’ve nothing to be sorry about. Just breathe. In and out. Relax, love.” If there were anyway to do it without stealing her power, he’d carry her to his tub right this very minute. A nice hot bath would soothe her poor self and—

With another thrust, she impaled herself, spearing him to the hilt, so tight and deep his eyes rolled back in his head. The fit. The friction. But still…

“Bloody hell,” he hissed. What was going on in that head of hers? It had to have hurt, but a primal caveman feeling rolled over him, and he was caught in a sizzling baptism of virginal fire. Hers. A delectable heatwave tightened his balls and lit his fuse. Fastening her hips to him with his fingertips, he meant to never let her go. She must’ve gotten the signal as slowly she rolled her hips, stirring him deep inside. Finding her way from his groin to his heart and…

“I’m afraid this is going to be fast,” he bit out, his toes curling like a woman’s for the gods’ sake! How odd? How weird? How feckin’—fffffffine.

He thrust upward, filling her, unable to stifle a roar as she rocked. “Colby! Ah, Colby!” He came so fast that he saw stars; red, white and blue instead of the green, white, and orange, not what he’d expected, but so be it. He was tucked good and proper inside his All American girl. Colby’d brought him—finally, blessedly—all the way home.

Her being on top definitely had its merits.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he was flying so high, he didn’t want to come down. This intimate moment together was worth the pain of the wasted years spent waiting for her. And hoping. He held Colby to him in a crushing circle of the purest adoration, from his hands to her hips, his lips to her lips. Did she know how much he loved her? He meant to be sure she did, if only he could speak the words of his heart as easily as she’d just made him—come.

He opened his eyes to her knowing smile, but it was bloody hard to see through the misty blur. When he blinked enough to clear the haze, she gave him that chin nod again, her tough girl persona in full force. “Want more, big boy?”

“Did they teach you that in Ranger school?” he teased, his hands on her shoulders.

Her index finger trailed up to his navel where she bent to place a kiss before she whispered, “I’m an all or nothing kind of girl, Ash. Once I make a decision, I don’t hold back. I give my all and I’m in all the way.” Her muscles clenched around him, making him gasp as she made her point. “Besides, this was my gift to give. It wasn’t yours to take. And I wanted—no, I waited to give it to you. I’m happy with my decision. Aren’t you?”

He swallowed hard. Happy? Nah. This tenderness between them went far beyond such a temporary, mortal word. Eternal was a better definition for what they now shared. “To hell and back,” he said sincerely, suddenly as emotional as he’d ever been as he combed his rough, callused fingers through her lovely tangles. “I’d go to hell and back for you, Lass. You know that, don’t you?”

Straightening, she canted her head to the side as if studying him. Long golden hair dipped to his belly. “This has been a long time coming, Ash.”

“Aye,” he nodded, his question still unanswered. “But a better home-coming I can nah imagine.” Did he dare push the limit? His tongue scraped at the back of his teeth, eager to tell her, to say the words. To be honest.

But a pensive light glowed in her eyes, turning them to pools of warm maple syrup and cautioning him to hold back. “I thought of you every day while I was gone, you know, trying to figure what to do with you. With us.”

His heart melted. One glance over his belly to where she still sat with her legs spread and their bodies joined, and he teased, his voice as rough as fifty grit sandpaper. “I’d say you’ve come to the right conclusion.”

Ah, there was that magic word again. Come. It invited. It teased, and it warmed him down to his toes.

“Have I though? Is there any hope of this thing between us working, Ash, or are we kidding ourselves?” Colby flounced her shimmering locks to the side as she laid her head to his chest in a lovely womanly gesture, one he dared not take for submission. Not with her.

He fisted his hand in that blonde silk, addicted to the luxury of her body. With her breasts mashed to his belly, the nipples still pebbled and tempting, he could barely breathe. He’d expected her skin tone to be pale, more cream than mocha. But she was the lightest shade of brown sugar, as if she’d lost the pink pigmentation in her body while baking in the harsh sun of the Middle East.

His nostrils flared, pulling in the warm rush of roses and gunpowder. Where she came up with a fragrance like that, he didn’t know, but it fit his blonde-haired queen.

He swallowed hard, knowing full well their way forward would be rocky only because it always had been in the past. He tended to boss her around; she tended to fight him when he did. Push and shove. They bickered, lost in an endless power struggle, her with her hell bent need for independence, to be treated as an equal; him with his old-fashioned need to protect her from herself. To provide for her though he knew she was a capable, intelligent woman. And bloody strong.

Aye, he knew he was to blame. He had to let her go now just as when he’d prayed for her safe return home. She needed to live her life. He could nah do it for her, nor force her to live like his mum. It wasn’t in Colby to be less than who she was. Nah. ‘Twas Ash Callahan who had to change. Swallowing hard, he vowed to be man enough to let her go—if that was what she wanted.

The dirt-poor son of an Irish sheep farmer didn’t stand a chance of winning one of Boston’s finest ladies anyway. Yet here he was, so hard in love with Colby that she made the pain in his soul seem a lighter burden to bear. He could do it—for her. He could let her fly—or fight—or whatever she thought she needed to do.

“I have nothing to give you,” he bit out, smoothing his rough, callused hands over her shoulders, mapping her neck and spine. She might as well know that from the get go. Poor or not, he meant to claim her, then begin anew at rebuilding if she’d have him. Wasn’t that what made America great, the stuff of poor men’s dreams? Wasn’t that what they were doing, even now? Starting over?

Her dainty fingers fluttered over his bicep, and damn. The male in him flexed those muscles at her light-as-a-butterfly touch like a randy schoolboy out to impress his girl.

“We live such different lives,” she whispered to his chest.

Ash shook his head, not believing for a second their differences would be their undoing. “Not if you’re still the girl I fell in love with. You believe in yourself, do you nah?”

“Of course, but you’re an artist while I’m the practical one. You dreamed impossible dreams while I went off to war and—”

That got his dander up. “Is that what this is about then, that you were man enough to fight for our country while I was—?”

She blew out a sigh. “Always so defensive. You know that was not what I meant. I do love you, Ash. You might as well know I do, but is love enough?”

You love me? Didn’t that one blessed word knock the wind out of his pretentious sails? By all the saints in heaven, he’d never thought he’d hear it from her mouth. It soothed like a balm from heaven, confirming the tender gift she’d just given him.

He cupped her hard head to his heart, so thankful. But she’d said it so casually, as if love were common knowledge between them, when it wasn’t. As if he’d already known, when he truly hadn’t dared believe it could be so. “Look at me. I need to see your pretty golden eyes.”

Lifting her head, his heart skipped a thundering beat. There she lay in all her glory, her bare breasts blushed and plump on his chest, her nipples peaked and pointed at him, and the plump cheeks of her ass like two tawny mountains behind her. Amber sparkles glittered from beneath hooded eyelids. Her tongue slid over lush and swollen reddened lips. She had that rumpled look of a woman in love that sent an instant message to his cock for…

More.

Unbidden, the randy thing hardened, eliciting another smile from the tigress in his arms. Ash threaded his fingers through her hair, tugging her forward until they were nose-to-nose and heart-to-heart. “I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you running through Faneuil Market, Lass. I love all you stand for and all you fight for. But know this—I’ll love you until the world burns to—”

“Ash?” she whispered, blinking like the tempting seductress she was.

“Aye,” he breathed, his soul finally at rest and his dearest dream come true. “Love is enough. Trust me. ‘Tis enough.”

And so are you.