Lightning fast, just like he’d been trained, Aaron extended his arms fully, flattened his palms together, and jerked his right hand free. Tossing the rope aside, he never missed a thrust.

She threw her head back. Her tits bounced with every roll of her body. One thing was for certain, his cowgirl knew how to ride.

Pressing his thumbs to her hip bones and digging his fingertips into her ass, he held her to him pumping hard and fast.

Anticipation thundered in his blood. She milked every twitch of his cock. The fluid flexes of her pussy threatened to destroy his resolve.

She trembled. She was right there. Dragging his right hand to the precise spot where they were joined, he rotated his thumb against her clit.

“Oh…yes…mmm…Aaron…mmm,” she panted. He continued his relentless pounding.

“That’s it isn’t it? You’re right there, baby. Let me have it.”

She collapsed on his chest breaking on a haggard moan of his name. Gripping her ass, he held her to him while he filled the condom in a series of tensed muscles and wild groans.

Drunk on the aftershocks of their climaxes, he moved his hands to her back and cradled her far more gently than he’d held her captive a moment before.

Still quaking, she turned her head and buried her face in his neck.

Smiling at that, he brushed the damp hair out of her face. “You okay?”

That wispy sigh of satisfaction quickly ranked as yet another of his favorite sounds.

Her pussy gave another tender flex against his cock. His breath stalled momentarily as he reveled in the sensation. “Baby, you’re gonna have to ease off of me for me to get out.”

“I don’t want you to get out. I like you there.”

After all he’d done, after all he’d survived when others hadn’t, after all he’d tried so hard to pay back, could he possibly deserve her? It had to be some kind of fevered dream. “Believe me, being deep inside you is pretty much heaven, but let me clean you up.” Cradling her head in one of his hands and wrapping his other around her back, he rolled them to the side and withdrew as tenderly as he was able.

She poked her lip out in an adorable pout. Chuckling, he brushed a kiss on her forehead. “You just keep making me fall more and more in love with you.” He quoted her line back to her.

“Good.” Slowly, she sat up and rubbed her hands over her eyes. “Oh my gosh, you broke my bed!”

A sly grin he made no effort to conceal stretched the width of his face. “Yeah, I did.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t look so smug. I will never live this down. My brothers will talk about this for the next fifty years.”

Rubbing his shoulder more to make her think she’d actually hurt him than anything else, he chuckled. “I wasn’t going to tell them, sweetheart.”

Studying the headboard, he doubted it could be fixed. The three center spindles snapped in jagged lines. Two of them were lying with their splintered remains on the floor below. The other he tore away from the bed to keep either of them from impaling themselves on it. “Now that I look at this I’m thinking particle board might not have been the best thing to tie me to.”

“Now you tell me.”

Brushing a few remnant crumbs of wood in the floor, he winked at her. “If you don’t lay back down on my chest I’m probably going to beat it Tarzan style.”

Laughing hysterically, she settled back on top of him. “I can’t believe you broke my bed.”

“I do what I can, baby.”

“Aaron, do you know what my family is going to say when I have to have a new bed delivered here? Can we fix it?”

“I can put new spindles on it but they’ll never match. What if I bought you a king? That would only make them think I’m going to be staying over often and I would actually be able to stretch out.”

“But my horseshoe sheets won’t fit on a king.” She dissolved in another fit of giggles.

In that moment, something akin to wholeness filled his chest. Her warmth penetrated his skin once again and banished the dark chill from him completely. “I’ll see if I can find you some more horseshoe sheets, baby.”

Beaming at him she eased up on her elbow. “I like the way you look in my bed better anyway.”

“You still have stuffed animals in your closet don’t you?”

“I’m not answering that.” Tucking her head back on his chest she burrowed until her face was no longer visible. He laughed at her outright.

“And are you not answering on the grounds that it might incriminate you?”

“Yes,” sounded from somewhere in the vicinity of his arm pit.

“Hey, Nat…”

“Do not go in my closet.”

“I was gonna say I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She surfaced. Her hair was a halo of dirty-blonde waves. Her cheeks were flushed with her embarrassment. Satisfaction was still etched on her lips and eyes.

“Let’s see here, if I were a betting man I’d say there’s more than one Beanie Baby in there.”

“Only the horses and one cow because he was too cute to give away.”

“And a teddy bear, maybe? No. Not you. That’s too clichéd. I know one of those stuffed animal kitties.”

Her hands flew to her face and another round of hysterical laughter broke over her. Pinning her to the bed, he tickled her sides. “I’m right aren’t I?”

“How do you do that?” She wiggled trying to escape and clamped her arms down to block his fingers from her sides.

“I’m just that good, sweetness.”

“You just leave Mr. Sniffles out of this. He’s missing an eye.”

“I knew it.”

“Seriously, how do you do that? Did you go through my closet?”

“I would never go through your closet. I just happen to be an expert on your kitty.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Well, my broken bed and Mr. Sniffles better never come up at your monthly sessions with the Sevens, you got that.”

“Nat, come on, you know I’d never tell anyone about anything that goes on between us. I don’t share. Did Mr. Sniffles lose his eye in a tragic accident? Cat fight maybe?”

Her attempt at annoyance lost all of its believability when she continued laughing. “I may or may not have smacked Luke in the face with her when I was six. He and Brock said they’d play hide-and-seek with me. I went to hide and they just never came to find me. I was out in the hayloft for an hour. They were just mad because I dared them to a horse race and I kicked their butts.”

“That’s my girl.”

A frustrated whine accompanied a set of paws scratching at her bedroom door. “Oh, I almost forgot them.” Standing, Natalie attempted to walk to the door. Her legs wobbled and she gripped the footboard to steady herself.

“Seriously, I’m not going to be able to get my ego out of your house in the morning.” He laughed again.

Rolling her eyes at him, she let the dogs in the room. They promptly leapt up on her bed. “I don’t think so,” Aaron started to scold.

But Natalie crawled in between them, giggling. “They get to sleep here too because they did not break my bed.” Lulu licked her face and then settled protectively beside her. Buster took post at the end.

“And where exactly do I sleep?”

“Here.” Natalie scooted to the side moving Lulu behind her. Aaron curled himself up tighter so he could put her on his chest. “I’ve never felt so safe.”

“Good.” Contorting himself so he could turn out the light he brushed a kiss on her head and settled in.

Surrounded by people and animals who really did seem to love her, Natalie knew she had to tell him. There was so much that needed to be said. She wasn’t certain how to verbalize most of it but he deserved to know.

“Hey Aaron?” she whispered in the darkness, thankful for its cover.

“Yeah, baby? You okay?”

“I’m perfect.”

He shifted to his side and stared down at her. A sliver of moonlight betrayed the darkness she clung to. His hand caressed her cheek. “What’s wrong, Nat?”

“Nothing’s wrong, honest. I uh… I wanted to say… thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything we did tonight. You have no idea how much that meant to me, what that did for me.”

“Will you tell me?”

“I’ll try.”

The tender touch of his lips to her forehead bolstered her courage. “Take your time, sweetheart. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I know you don’t really believe this, but nothing you say is going to shock me.”

“You can’t possibly know if that’s true so just let me say this.”

A single nod was his only response.

“It was like everything was my choice. And it was incredible. It’s always incredible to be with you but this time I didn’t feel…”

“You didn’t feel what, Nat?”

“Guilty.”

“Baby.” His arms wrapped around her. He shielded her completely with his body. “I know. Okay, I know.”

“You do not. You can’t possibly. It was all so confusing.”

The hint of light in her bedroom displayed the raw pain in his eyes. “Of course it was.”

“And I didn’t understand any of it. I wasn’t even completely sure…”

“I know, baby.”

“But tonight… tonight everything was my choice. It was all up to me and that means I’m…” She sank her teeth into her bottom lip to trap the confession.

He tightened his hold on her. Lulu edged closer and nuzzled her nose against Natalie’s back. Buster stood at the end of the bed. His hunter green eyes alight in the darkness keeping constant watch.

“That means you’re allowed to enjoy it.” He gave voice to the words she couldn’t speak. “That means there is no shame in it feeling good. You knew it was wrong when it happened but you had no idea why something wrong still felt good. You did nothing wrong. Nothing about being confused was wrong. You hear me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing about any of the emotions you went through or are still going through is wrong. What he did was wrong. All him. Not you. And absolutely nothing you want to experience with me is wrong. And if we do something you want to do and then you feel guilty about it let’s talk about that because that’s a very real thing. Okay? I never want you to feel anything but how much I love you, but I know it’s not quite that easy. I swear to you I will be right here to deal with anything either of our pasts might throw in our path. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of all of the shit that happened before right this moment fucking everything up. Somehow we’re going to heal together. I won’t allow there to be any other options.”

“Thank you.” She managed to push the two words past the boulder in her throat. He really did understand. For a girl who’d convinced herself that no one would ever understand it was unfathomable. Blinking rapidly, she focused on the navy blue, star-strewn sky outside her bedroom windows. Maybe all of those shooting star wishes she’d never made had culminated into the man laying in bed beside her. Maybe all of the hell they’d been through had a finish line. And maybe they were closing in on it.