“Me either.” Granted, I was talking about her and she knew it, because she laughed and it made her soft hair brush against my chin.
“Rowdy . . .”
“Salem . . .”
It was such a nice moment, one that had taken us so long to get to. I couldn’t think of any place on earth that was better than this. And I knew for a fact that there wasn’t any better girl.
“You make me very happy, you always did.” It was all there in her voice. The way that the past and the future were all tangled around each other but still had us standing strong and together right in the middle of it.
I blew out a deep breath and took the can of beer from her and set it down so I could turn her around in my arms so that we were facing each other. She wrapped her legs around my waist and curled her arms around my neck as we stared at each other. The blanket fell away and she shivered as the cool morning air brushed across her shoulders. I collected her ebony hair in one hand and used it to tug her head back so that she was looking up at me with sleepy and sexy eyes.
“I always thought it was the firsts that matter, but now I know that it’s the lasts that stay with you.”
Her mouth puckered into a little frown of confusion and I bent down to kiss that ruby above her lip. She shivered again and this time I knew it didn’t have anything to do with the chill in the air.
“I believed for a long time that I was never going to get past the first girl that made me feel like I was in love. I used it as an excuse to keep other women at an arm’s length because I was terrified of being hurt again. I was afraid, I still am, but I realize that the fact I want to be with you, that I care so much about you, means so much more than the fear.”
She sighed and moved one of her hands to rest in on my cheek. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Rowdy.”
“You were and have been the source of a lot of firsts for me, Salem. The first girl I kissed. The first girl I ever cried in front of. The first girl I ever gave a present to. The first I never forgot. You’re the first girl that has ever kept me up at night and the first girl that makes me hurt badly with the way I want you. Looking back, I think when you drove away that day you took a piece of me with you that I didn’t get back until I saw you at the shop. All of those firsts are important and made me see things more clearly without the filter of time and resentment in the way, but what really matters is the lasts.”
I bent down so I could kiss her. I just pressed my lips lightly against her parted mouth and whispered to her, “You are the last person I want to kiss. The last woman I want in my bed. I want you to be the last girl that touches any and all parts of me, Salem, and that means so much more than a first. Who cares if Poppy was there first or if there were nameless people in between? All that matters is that at the end of it all there is just you, only you, and no one else.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. Her dark eyes were so deep and fathomless it made it hard to read what was going on inside her head. She rubbed her thumb up and down along one of my sideburns and then leaned forward to return the same kind of soft and sweet kiss I had just given her.
“It took me a long time to get here, Rowdy. It’s where I was always supposed to be. This is my final destination, so at the end there is just you and only you as well. The journey in the middle shaped both of us, there is no denying it, but I like being your last . . . just as long as I can keep surprising you with some firsts along the way.”
I laughed because that was typical Salem. Nothing could ever be just good enough. We could be together, would love each other, end up together, but she was always going to want it to be new, challenging, and surprising. That was one of the main reasons I had never been able to get past her and never would.
“I’ve been around the block. Not too many firsts left.” It was the truth but she had managed to pull one or two out in the months we had been together.
One of her jet-black eyebrows shot up and she smiled impishly at me. “Is that a challenge?”
I laughed again because I was happy. Really, truly happy for the first time since she left when I was fifteen. “It can be.”
I almost melted when her dark gaze switched to something sizzling and hot. The arm she had wrapped around my neck tightened, pulling me closer to her, and she traced her fingertip across the outside edge of my mouth.
“Have you ever had sex outside by a lake while the sun is coming up after drinking Coors Light for breakfast?”
I nudged my hands under the edge of her tank top so I could hold on to her waist as I leaned over and flattened her beneath me on the discarded blanket she had brought outside with her. She parted her legs for me and I trapped her face between my palms so I could kiss her with everything that had been missing from my life for the week we had been apart. I wasn’t ever doing that again, being apart, and she needed to be able to feel that.
“Nope. The only one of those things I have ever done before is have Coors Light for breakfast.”
She laughed and it pushed her chest into mine. I felt her ni**les bead up against the thin fabric of her top. I wanted it out of my way.
“I’ve seen your fridge, so that doesn’t surprise me. Let me be your first and last, Rowdy . . . and you can be mine.”
I let her kiss me again and helped her yank my shirt off over my head. Goose bumps raced across my skin as the mountain air hit na**d flesh.
“First and last, Salem.” I practically groaned the words at her because she was wiggling out of her tank top without separating where we were pressed together, so each little strip of bare skin she revealed rubbed and pressed enticingly against my own.
She smiled at me and it made my dick twitch painfully behind the fly of my jeans. “If you think I’m coming to the middle of nowhere in the woods and getting busy with anyone else, then you’re insane. You are the only person in the entire universe I would ever want to get na**d with in a place like this.” She got her hands on the button of my jeans and told me matter-of-factly, “I pretty much want to get na**d with you whenever and wherever.”
I sucked in a breath as the backs of her fingers rubbed against the aroused length of my cock. “Good to know.”
She muttered something I couldn’t hear through the river of blood rushing between my ears and the hammering of my heart as she used the pad of her thumb to rub all across the head of my erection between the multiple piercings that decorated the sensitive surface. “The feeling is absolutely mutual, just so you know.” I sounded gruff and slightly strangled.