January’s full bottom lip went slack. Totally fucking kissable.

Nat shed his jacket to the floor and strode toward her.

Not one to be outdone in the spontaneity department—or in the nudist camp—January matched him one jacket tossed to the floor and raised the stakes two boots, one over shirt, and the fastest shedding of second-skin jeans he had ever witnessed. By the time their lips met and she began to scale him with a well-placed knee around his hip, she wore lace panties and a sheer under shirt that was more a figment of imagination than actual cloth.

His cock jerked in anticipation.

Nat wanted to match her, skin for skin, but the longer he remained in clothes, the longer he held off ten years of pent-up desire. The absolute last thing he wanted was to leave the heat of her mouth, but the insistent, scorching way her tongue jockeyed with his threatened to make him come before he followed through on his promise—to make love to her, all over this cabin. Nat never reneged on a promise.

“We gotta slow this down, J.” He backed out of the kiss until his lips were a whisper against hers. “It took us ten years to get here. It shouldn’t last ten minutes.”

She bit her bottom lip, now swollen and ripe with color, and nodded. Hair swept across her hungry eyes in disheveled waves. Never had she looked more exquisite.

He glanced around for a place—something, any soft spot where he could explore her in the way she deserved, in a way that would cement this memory for them both, but the cabin was stark and empty. A blank page. Creativity beckoned him.

“Put on your boots,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Had competitively retrieving a saddle with a mammoth hard-on been a rodeo event, Nat would have taken the golden buckle, twice over. When he cleared the door again, January Rose stood at cabin’s center dressed in her boots.

Only her boots.

Nat nearly dropped the forty-pound, two-toned custom leather armful at his feet. She was heart-stopping.

“You said to put on my boots.”

The taut muscles of her stomach shook on a chuckle. Breasts he had seen at the water’s surface the other night now hung with more gravity, more symmetry, more perfection. Her feet were planted wide, welcoming, the spread of her legs revealing the lips of her pussy glorious relief to the pink folds between.

A rope of lust thrashed him, gut to groin. He was as hard as a saddle horn.

Fuck him, she was a handful. In more ways than one. If they never left these four walls, he would die the happiest man who ever drew breath.

He retrieved the empty crate he had cast aside the night before, useless no more, and set the saddle atop it at her feet.

“Are you sure you want to use your saddle?” Her smirk was mind-blowingly adorable; her voice held a hint of twang in their newfound intimacy. “You saved up forever for that.”

He closed in on her earlobe, nibbled it once for good measure, then whispered, “I’ve saved up forever for you, too.”

Her lashes floated closed.

“I remember when you wouldn’t even let me touch it.”

“Now?” He clenched his jaw, aching to take advantage of her confident stance. He began a slow crawl south, first with his eyes, then with his lips along her collarbone, as he kissed punctuation through the truest sentence he had ever uttered. “I want you…all…over…it.”

A tiny shudder of arousal slipped past her lips before they stretched into a wicked smile. “Not until we even up the skin, cowboy.”

She tugged up his shirt hem. He helped free himself from the cotton, all while his heart stampeded clear out of his chest.

Her index finger traced the contours of his abdominal muscles then found a much more enticing subject—the head of his engorged cock, straining past the waistband of his boxers, past the lip of his jeans. With her index finger, she meandered a barely-there path along its throbbing, purple head.

Nat sucked in a breath, more determined than ever to keep his jeans on, to prolong every slick, unguarded, adventurous moment with her.

She leaned over and flicked her tongue across his tip’s slit.

A brutal hit of lust careened through his cock. His thighs shook. He nearly ripped his buttons free.

“That’s better.” January wrangled him close then lowered herself, side-saddle. With the rawhide end of a saddle string, she grazed her left nipple until it peaked. The moment her hot, eager gaze met his, she trailed the string past her navel to the light spray of golden brown hair between her legs.

“I’ll never look at that saddle the same way again.” A shuddering gallop of humor slipped past his smile.

“I’m just getting started. ‘All over it’ is quite a task.”

Instead of swinging her leg to the other side of the saddle, she slid her ass down slow, slow, slow enough that he forgot to breathe, down toward the seat jockey. She arched her spine along the seat, the length of her in a full-on back bend. Her breasts flowed liquid, stretched wide, their dusky centers pebbled at the tips. She spread her boots in a delicious bite of exhibitionist freedom, so January, so very ball-wrenching in every way, he didn’t know what to devour first.

“This is amazing,” she said, her voice thick with satisfaction.

Had he a functioning brain cell left, that would have been his exact thought. One of her postcards had been of a silhouetted woman practicing yoga on a cliff in India. On the back, she had written one word: Namaste. January had left an awkward teenager and returned a poised woman in total command of her body.

He circled to where her upper body draped from the seat and began a trail ride of kisses from her lips, up her sleek neckline to the peaked offerings riding high in the saddle. The scent of her desire filled his nostrils, told him she was more than ready. Her downy nipples made him instantly mindful of his callouses. He swapped his fingers for his mouth and sucked the tight nubs, mounting pressure against the roof of his mouth until her peach-like backside bucked against the leather and her hands groped for a hold.

She found one at the top button of his fly.

First button, gone.

Second button, ripped.

Somewhere, metal plinked against the hard floor.

Had it not been for the thin cotton of his underwear, his shaft would have toppled free. Which was, apparently, what she hoped would happen, because she wrestled his briefs down to his thighs until she had positioned him in perfect alignment with her mouth. She licked his length, balls to spade.

Fresh needles of arousal blazed through his groin like a wildfire. A groan emerged from deep in his throat.

She tugged his belt loops and accepted him fully into the silky warmth of her mouth. His ridge met resistance at the back of her throat, his knees buckled, and his sack clenched a warning jolt.

To ice himself, he slid free of her expert mouth, removed the remainder of his clothes, tugged her to a sitting position, and circled the saddle to kneel between her legs as if she were a guru.

And he was her most devout disciple.

Rigid-ass boot soles pressed against both his shoulders, crimping her legs and spreading her folds wide, so fucking wide his mouth watered. She propped up on her elbows, eying him from a front-row seat at the show. He kissed a leisurely, alternating crawl from the delicate, inner creases of each knee to her core, stopping to savor the moment he tasted her dampness. Mixed with the aged-leather scent from her boots, her sweet, musky wetness caused a detonation between past and present, memory and a complete sensory overdrive of epic proportion. He nearly wept from the nostalgia of it all. She was honey and cream and rivaled every decadent confection he had ever eaten. But as with all things January, once wasn’t enough. His appetite for her companionship, her spirit, her body, was insatiable.

“You taste like heaven, J,” he whispered against her sublime, syrupy flesh then flicked his tongue across her clit.

She jolted like a wild bronc. Her fingertips drove through his hair. With a soft tug of his strands, she repositioned him for a repeat performance. Her knees spread wide like a butterfly’s wings.

He smiled and accommodated her request with an exploration, mouth and fingers plundering and tender by turns, of her terrain. With every ravenous taste of her velvety flesh, every nuanced sampling of her sensitive folds, her pleasured moans pitched higher, louder, more breathless. She repeated his name more times than he could count, and he felt grateful for the one-syllable moniker. Riding high on her lusty exhales, she branded him hers. His name had never sounded so good.

She sat up, kissed her juices from his lips, and panted, “Wait for me on the saddle.”

Immediately, he felt the loss of her heat. He rose to his feet and braced himself against the cantle, thoroughly enjoying the sight of her spent body lose its grace while walking. She gave up, crawled the remaining distance to her pack, and pulled out an accordion strip of condoms. Her tiny birthmark, roughly the shape of Ohio, riding high on her left cheek, revealed her secret identity as his fantasy heroine. When she saw him watching, she spread her sex to his hungry gaze and wiggled her ass playfully.

But playful was not how it hit him. How could he have done this, started this, without thinking through protection? He hadn’t carried condoms in his wallet for years. His jaunt into spontaneity made him feel like he’d charged straight into a barbed wire fence without a stitch of clothing.

He stood. “I’m so sorry, J. I wasn’t thinking—”

January rushed back to him and silenced him with a kiss. “That’s part of what makes this so special. For once, I get to see you impulsive. And you wear impulsive so well.”

She reached between them and took him in hand until he forgot all about being the responsible one of the two. Together, they rolled the condom into place.

Twisting in his arms, she raised up on tiptoes so that his cock nestled along the ridge in her ass. She splayed her hands, rather dramatically, at the saddle’s horn and cantle and flexed her back greedily, nearly knocking him backward for all the burrowing and begging her soaked crux demanded of him.

He was a branding iron, as straight a column as had ever existed. His sheathed tip found her opening without guidance. With languid penetration, aiming to bring her to climax if it was the last deed he accomplished on earth, he teased an inch, then two, then backed out until she practically belly-crawled onto the saddle, tipping herself nearly vertical, begging, pleading for him to enter her at length.

“Now, Nat!” Her demand came hot and hard. “Please…”

Nat smiled. Gladly, he complied, first, in infinitely painstaking strokes that lasted a blissful eternity and threatened to unravel command over his release, then increasingly demanding the more she arched, the more she cursed for him to stay the course, the more his forceful thrusts rippled the creamy expanse of her parted cheeks, the more her internal muscles rippled against his dick. He reached between them and alternated tugs and pinches of her clit with his searing, parting, all-in feel, until her languid body stiffened against the leather and she clamped down, unmercifully, 360 degrees of searing climax.

Her gasps tore through the room, unbridled.

As her lungs gasped for replenishment, her shapely, hourglass back rose and fell against the seat. He gave her the moment, stalled within her. His only regret was that he had not seen her expression that his love of her elicited.

And there could be no regrets.

He slid free and lifted her in his arms. They climbed atop the saddle, Nat riding where he always had, January riding Nat.

Their gazes connected. Her irises were as green as the pastures after a month of April rains; her pupils swelled. They searched each other for signs of reluctance but found only acceptance in a shared smile. Gently, he aligned her to him and slid inside her. She was still as tight as new calfskin gloves. His body trembled. She wrapped her arms around him in an embrace. At his ear, she whispered, “I love you, Nathaniel James Meier.”

He closed his eyes to the hot tears that came and buried his face in the vanilla scent of her hair. God, he needed her in his life. She was light and joy and everything he had ever needed for as far back as he could remember. He couldn’t think about the loss—he wouldn’t—but he was no longer ravenous for her body alone. Nat wanted to possess her heart. On a hill halfway around the world. Inside an ocean current in the Far East. On the land that was now his beneath them. Now and forever.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back, his voice husky and gone.

Their final union was a rhythmic savoring, like a slow walk to the end of a pier, destined to part them again. He reached his peak, not with guns blazing, not in a hailstorm of passionate words, not even in a blinding flash where the world dimmed. His world was right here, right now, a climax that came on a tender, soul-snatching kiss, wrapped in the arms of the very last woman on earth he would ever love.

* * *

January awoke in two contradictory states of mind.

One was a slow climb from a fog not unlike the kind she witnessed in Newfoundland between the polar current and the Gulf Stream: tremendous, hypnotic, a tidal wave in magnitude. She was naked, toasty, wrapped in the quilt beside Nat, and she lacked the desire to resume anything about her existence past snuggling closer to him and allowing sleep to resume its hold.

Another disquieting thought tugged at her: she had to go. Not from Close Call, not yet. She had to finish packing, and she wanted to tackle a special project before she left. A gift for Nat that required her to call in a few of Mona’s favors. First, though, she had promised her mother she would meet her at the bank in town to take care of her inheritance transaction. With no cell reception, January had no choice but to give in to this much more pressing state of mind.

She allowed herself a minute longer to study Nat’s face. Skin at his lower lids was grayed with fatigue, from long hours getting the herd ready for auction, from carrying the family legacy alone. A mental map formed of the parts of her body still raw from the stubble that crowded his generous lips, slackened in sleep. Her mouth stretched to a smile that quickly faded. Time was sure to blur his features, as it had once before. Would she remember the precise shade of his sun-bronzed skin, no longer fleshy and boyish but stretched taut against his cheekbones? The cleft of his latent dimple where his long, symmetrical face transitioned into a strong, square chin? The more recent development of tiny lines at the creases of his eyes? Would she remember this series of breaths with absolute certainty?

That answer alone—no—nearly had her rethinking her life.

January dressed without rousing him. The plan was to leave him a note torn from her journal and take Brontë back. If the crew hadn’t yet sent a trailer for the animals, she could alert them. She scratched off one sentence—See you soon. Sending reinforcements. She had just gotten to the Love, J part when she was startled by his voice: strong, not at all sluggish, as if he hadn’t really been asleep.

“What are you doing?”

“I didn’t want to wake you. I have to go.”

He scrubbed a palm down his face and sat up. The quilt fell to his waist but left a tempting expanse of nude hip exposed.

“So you were going to leave. Just like that?”

“I wrote you a note.”

“That’s about right.”

His tone was low-grit sandpaper and sharp edges that rubbed her the wrong way.

“I don’t think you heard me, Nat. I said I had to go, not that I was leaving.”

“Are we really going to debate synonyms, J? You get up and you leave. That’s what you do.”

His voice resonated in her chest. He was too goddamned close to be stumbling into anger. She swallowed the dryness in her mouth, to give her time to summon words when none would do. “Wha—?”

“I thought that after what we shared—after all this…” He motioned toward the saddle corralled in the center of the room. “You might at least have the courtesy to be real with me this time.”

She watched him drop the quilt. Nat was erect and flawless in all his grand, first-wake manhood, but she was numb to the sight. He stabbed his legs into his jeans, not bothering to button them—couldn’t even if he tried because of her desperation to strip him—a desperation she could barely remember now, much less summon again.

“This is as real as I get, Nat. I’ve never shared myself with anyone the way I do with you.” Her words ripped uneven and raw from her parched throat. “This was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, knowing I had the power to hurt you again. The fact that you can’t recognize that as real puts us right back where we’ve always been.”

“Exactly.” He punched fists through the arm holes of his t-shirt and cinched it over his head. He was a bull set loose in a hallowed space. “Where us revolves around you.”

She swung her pack onto her shoulder and opened the cabin door. “I’m taking Brontë.”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to realize you’re not enough to make someone want to stay? Not even after sex?”

“That’s not fair, Nat.”

“No, what isn’t fair is that I would leave this place in a heartbeat to be with you, but you would never leave all the other places to be with me.”

She shifted her weight from boot to boot while his words trampled through her ears and plummeted to her chest like a herd driven off a precipice. Their currency had always been honesty, but the truth made her feel cold, lifeless.

Nat reached for his hat on the stove but didn’t put it on. He kneaded the bill until his knuckles paled. His voice wavered, quieter now, behind the static rush of blood to her ears. “That peace you’ve been looking for? That place you think will magically make you feel whole? It ain’t on a map, J.”

His brows gathered above wounded eyes.

A sting filled her sinuses, yet even now, she thought only of saddling up Brontë and putting distance between her and this—this absolute unraveling of her good intentions. Why was she this way? How had something so special turned so wrong?

Revolutions of a diesel engine crowded the silence. Truck doors slammed. Men chattered.

Nat did nothing but hold her in his stare.

Mack filled the doorway. “Figured y’all might need a ride back.”

No one spoke.

“Air in here get any thicker, I could spoon it on a biscuit,” Mack mumbled, mostly to himself.

January pulled her gaze from Nat. She gave Mack a shoulder pat on her way out of the cabin.

“Thanks, Mack. The sooner the better.”