Sage filled her mug with fresh coffee and yawned. She really needed to get more sleep and have less sex. Yeah, right. Who the hell in their right mind would give up sex for sleep? She might be shy, but she wasn’t stupid. In the past few days, her days and nights had been filled with only Feral.

And his amazing tongue. He’d even had one of his friends, Gunner, bring him clothes so he could spend time at Full Moon Bay with Sage.

“Hey,” Feral said, curling his arms around her waist and kissing the back of her neck. “You know we weren’t finished.”

She turned around and sipped her coffee. Her body warmed to life at the press of hardness into her belly. “I think I’m going to need some caffeine before you kill me. And I have to set up the theater for tonight’s show.”

He pushed curls behind her ear and kissed her forehead. “Do you have to go already? Gunner and I were hoping you could show us where the river widens. You mentioned the forest gets thicker there. We wanted to let our tigers roam for a while.”

Curling her arms around his neck, she gripped the back of his long hair and nodded. “I may be persuaded to do that before I leave.”

He rocked his erection into her belly. “You feel like playing games?”

She grinned but shook her head. “No. I’m kind of tired right now. I’ll show you guys where it’s at.” She sipped her coffee again and leaned her head forward into his chest. “Later. Later we can definitely play more.”

He kissed the top of her head and pulled away just as Gunner came into the kitchen. After everyone had coffee, and she had a jacket on, she walked with them down the path she remembered taking when she’d been a kid.

“I used to come here with my family when my dad was alive,” she sighed, holding Feral’s hand. “We used to come down here and practice shooting, and the rest of the time, he’d teach us about fishing. He loved fishing. He probably loved fishing more than hunting and target shooting.”

“What happened to your father?” Gunner asked, walking behind them.

“Cancer,” she said softly. “It was so rough. He went from being this really strong man that lived to make sure his wife and his daughters were all happy to this weak being that needed us to help him with everything.”

“I’m sorry, Sage,” Gunner told her.

Feral squeezed her hand, telling her silently he was with her.

“I sometimes feel like I could have done more for him.”

“In what sense?” Feral asked, their steps crunching through leaves and twigs, the only noise around them.

“My mom, sisters, and I used to go see him every day when he was in hospice. Mom and the others used to talk to him, even when he wasn’t very responsive.” She glanced out at the widening river. Her dad had loved being there so much. He’d loved sharing it with his family. “I had a hard time speaking to him when he was unresponsive. My mom and sisters used to tell him that he’d done so well, that they loved him, and I couldn’t tell him I loved him out loud.”

They stopped walking and Feral turned to face her, his gaze filled with worry. “Why not?”

She gulped at the knot in her throat. “Because I had a feeling. I thought if I told him I loved him, that it would make it okay for him to leave and I didn’t want him to go.”

Feral pulled her into his arm when her first sob broke. She hadn’t been this far in so long. She’d tried not to think about her father’s last moments. She’d held on to the image and memories of a healthy man, not the man who had withered away.

“I’m sorry, love.”

She shook her head into his shirt, her tears soaking the material. “I was right. The day we all told him we loved him, he passed away,” she sobbed. “And the guilt of knowing that I could have let him go sooner and not have been in pain for those days had I been less selfish and told him it was okay to go has been killing me ever since.”

He hugged her tightly and allowed her to cry into his chest. She had ignored those emotions for so long. When her father passed, people said she needed to let it out, but at the time, her mind had closed. But now, being in one of the areas her dad had loved most and had visited so often, the flood of memories had weakened her.

He held her for long moments until she had no more tears. Until all she had was pain. The pain of loss and the never-ending guilt she’d learned to live with. Afterward, he met her gaze. “Don’t do that to yourself, Sage. You weren’t keeping him in pain. When it was his time, he left. Maybe he just wanted a few more days with the females that owned his heart.”

She sniffled and wiped at her cheeks. “Maybe. I’ll never know.”

“You can’t live with that guilt anymore, love.”

“He’s right,” Gunner said. She’d almost forgotten he was there. “When my grandmother passed, I felt tremendous guilt because I hadn’t made the time to see her in weeks,” he told her. “But my mother reminded me that my MeeMaw was more focused on loving when I did visit rather than being upset about how long it took for me to visit. It’s all a matter of perspective.”

Feral cupped her jaw. “Your father probably loved every last second with your family. Don’t let your fears taint knowing you got a chance to tell him you loved him before it was too late. That’s what matters.”