Eight months later…

Rae

If I’d thought Cash was beautiful in the winter, half hidden by thick coats and hats, he was fucking enchanting in the summer, playing football in Hyde Park with Lucky, while me and Dom dozed in the sunshine, ignoring the paparazzo crouched behind a nearby bush. After six months of living with my lover and his two BFFs, I’d grown used to the near constant photographers. Sometimes, I even joined Lucky at the front door, handing out tea and sickly sweet smiles.

It was a fun way to waste an afternoon.

Not that any afternoon I’d spent with these men was ever a waste. I was more in love with Cash than I could ever say, I adored Lucky, and Dom was my fucking hero. The deal for Fletch’s land had gone through a few months back, leaving Fletch and Meg with more choices and opportunity than they’d ever had. Fuckers had booked a round-the-world cruise, and I was so damn happy for them.

A camera flash from the bush caught my eye. I bristled and glanced at Dom.

He shrugged. “I’m learning to let them get on with it. If I hide, it becomes a sport to them.”

There was no trace of irony in his words, and Lucky skidded to a stop beside us before I could respond, long hair flying in the wind. He tumbled into Dom’s lap, and rather than be snapped on the gossip sites as a third wheel, I got up and left them to it.

Cash was facing away from me, the sun on his bare back as he bent to retrieve the football. When he straightened up, his dark blond hair was in his face, obscuring his vision until I was right up on him. I pushed the stray locks behind his ears. “All right?”

His answering grin was everything. “Course I am. I got you.”

His flushed cheeks and bright green gaze hypnotised me. I laughed, still half convinced he was a dream. That the fragile, brooding man he’d left behind would return at any moment. “Can’t argue with that. What do you want to do now? I reckon Dom and Lucky are going to go home and fuck.”

“You’re half right. They’re going to Dom’s place to do it, though.”

“So we have the house to ourselves?”

“Yup. Let’s go.”

I didn’t take much persuading to jump on the tube and head back to Tottenham. Cash’s house had become my home, and I’d never felt as though I belonged somewhere so perfectly before. Sabbing had been my life, but Cash was my world.

We tumbled through the front door, me first, pretty much hauling Cash by his collar. I pushed him against the door and kissed him fiercely, as though I could channel every happy moment he’d given me over the last few months through my lips and say thank you, I love you, and I’m so fucking glad Goon didn’t kill you.

I didn’t have the upper hand for long, though. Cash let me have my way for all of ten seconds, then he shoved my chest, propelling me towards the downstairs bedroom.

“Get in there.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I sauntered to the open door, stripping as I went. Behind me he chuckled, but when we reached the bed, the air between us shifted again. Cash slipped around me and lay back on the bed, T-shirt gone, his strong chest moving fast enough for me to know he was buzzed. He undid his jeans in a silent, open invitation: come and get it.

I ditched my own jeans, socks, and underwear, and then hooked my hands under his shoulders, hauling him further onto the bed. His cock called my name, but first, I kissed him. He tasted of strawberry ice cream and love. I couldn’t get enough. The kiss deepened, and I lost my tenuous control. Tongues and teeth clashed. I grappled wildly with his jeans until they joined mine on the floor.

His underwear followed. I gripped his dick, pumping it, absorbing the energy pulsing beneath the satiny skin. “What do you want?”

He shivered. “You.”

“Uh-huh. Be specific.”

“Why? You know I like surprises.”

I did know it. Our first encounters had always been him on top, but life had moved on since then. Cash was a versatile lover, as easy as his smile, and fucking him was incredible.

So incredible, I couldn’t resist.

I kissed my way down his body, pausing at the sensitive spots I’d committed to memory and scraping them gently with my teeth. Cash liked a bit of pain with his pleasure, and I was learning his limits. Enjoying them. I bit his hipbone and twisted his nipple between my fingers.

He gasped and canted his hips. “God, don’t tease me, Rae. I’ve been craving you all damn day.”

Powerless to resist, I parted his legs and sucked his cock into my mouth, letting saliva coat my fingers. Working him open was, by now, like breathing, and his ragged moans set me on fire. I could’ve sucked his dick all day. Made an evening of curling my fingers inside him just enough to make him cry out and curse my name.

But he needed more. “Rae, fuck me. Please.”

Grinning, I retrieved the proper lube—a slippery vegan concoction Lucky had given us for Christmas—and slathered it on the both of us. My fingers slipped inside him again, and he felt so fucking good. Maybe I would just—

“Rae.”

Or maybe not.

I crawled over Cash, aligning our bodies, and pushed inside him. He tensed, and clutched me tight against him, but discomfort didn’t mar his face for long. We were good at this, and I knew exactly how long to wait before I set a slow, grinding rhythm that made my arms shake and my toes curl.

Beneath me, Cash arched his back. “Fuck, Rae. So good, so good.”

I loved it when he got incoherent. I fucked him a tiny bit harder and buried my face in his neck as bolts of pleasure sizzled through me. Banging Cash was insane, and sometimes I couldn’t look at him for fear it would be over in ten seconds flat.

He gasped out a laugh and thrust his hips to meet me a few times. The answering rush of heat was out of this world, and it was all I could do not to shoot inside him right now.

Attuned to me as always, and perhaps not ready for this to end so fast, Cash stilled me, then rolled us over in a smooth motion that somehow kept me inside him. He placed a hand in the centre of my chest, pressing down hard, as though he could slow my stampeding heart enough to contain the explosion building in my veins.

But…

No chance. We’d fucked every which way possible on every surface of this house, but somehow he’d never screwed me like this. Never pushed me back on the bed and taken what he wanted from me.

He ground down, his thighs a vice around my waist, and it was my turn to jerk from the bed like I’d been poked with a damn electrode. “Fuck!”

“Yeah.” Cash tilted his head back and repeated the motion over and over. “I’ve always wanted to ride you like this.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why he’d waited so long to do it, but speech was beyond me. I let Cash have his way, and lost myself to the sensation of him clamped so tight around me. My body was alive in ways I’d never dreamed—my pulse jumped, my skin tingled, and sweat sheened my chest. Sounds tore from me that I didn’t recognise, and the desperate need to come rushed up on me again.

Cash faltered and fell forwards. I took my chance and bent my legs, digging my heels into the mattress. With one hand on his hip, the other gripping his shoulder, I drove into him, fucking him as hard as I dared until the bed jumped and the room began to spin.

“Rae—”

I know, baby, I know. The coil in my gut snapped, and I came so hard my vision whited over.

Above me, Cash convulsed. Wet warmth spurted over my abdomen and he cried out, driving his fist into my chest. He was wrecked, but it took me a moment to recover myself enough to hold him.

He trembled in my arms, fighting for breath. Eight months ago, when he’d been recovering from hypothermia, seeing him like this had terrified me, but I was used to it now. Cash fucked like he did everything else, with his whole self, and I loved him for it.

We lay together for a long time. My dick softened and slipped out of Cash, but he didn’t move. For a while, I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, then he raised his head his eyes hazy and content. “I love you.”

“Right back atcha.”

“I know.”

He smiled, then slid off the bed, and padded naked out of the room. I thought about following him, but the bed was too comfortable. I gave myself a cursory wipe down, then slid between the sheets to wait for him. Fortuitously, my laptop was on the bedside table. I opened it up and scanned my open documents. I was frowning over an article I planned to plant in a Countryside Alliance publication when Cash came back with coffee.

“Virtual sabbing suits you, eh?”

I claimed the mug he was offering and shrugged. “I reckon so. It’s far easier to fuck shit up now I’m off the radar.”

“You don’t miss it?”

I sipped scalding coffee and burnt my tongue. “Is that a loaded question?”

Cash didn’t talk about sabbing much. After assisting the police as much as he could, he’d effectively removed himself from anything that had happened after—the investigations, the trials, the mess in the media. And I’d let him. He didn’t care how far Goon’s web of violence had spread, or that his ex had been so implicated in corruption that he’d almost signed Cash’s death warrant. He didn’t care who was punished and who walked. His only concern was the animals, and for now, they were safe—the horses, the hounds, and the foxes who’d once run in fear over Goon’s land.

I fiddled with a sentence, then set the laptop aside. “I miss living outside sometimes, but I don’t miss actively sabbing every weekend. Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m not out there with Sprig and Drey, but then I remember that I can help them from here, and it goes away for a while.”

Cash nodded and stretched out beside me, his head pillowed on his arms. “I used to worry that I wouldn’t be enough for you.”

“Why?”

“Because sabbing is who we are, even when we’re not doing it.”

It was a theory I’d heard before, from myself as much as him, but I shook my head. “It’s not all we are. We can believe in something with everything we have without sacrificing our whole selves to it.”

“You’re so wise.”

“No, I’m just too in love with you to give up my life. Cash, I love you, and I know you love me. Whatever else happens, that will always be enough.”

He smiled then, and I knew everything would be okay. We’d taken on the world, and so very nearly lost, but love had won out, and as long as we were together, it always would.