Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

They were going to make love.

* * *

The moment she spread her legs and felt Rafe slide inside her, Kerry changed. Irrevocably. She moved with him, let herself fly away to a place where only physical pleasure, sensation, existed. Pulsed against him with a mind-blowing orgasm as his release poured out, and it was all different. She was different.

As he collapsed against her, she held him willingly, with no thought to getting the weight off her. Getting up. Cleaning up. She was his home for as long as he needed to lie there.

And he was her protection from a lifeti

me of aloneness: for as long as these moments could last.

She knew they would end. But she also knew she’d never regret what had happened. Her entire life she’d been on hold, waiting for something.

And she’d just had it.

She didn’t know how she knew. Wasn’t sure where it all led her, but she knew that she was finally free of the not knowing. She didn’t have to wonder anymore.

She just had to figure out how to live without it.

But not yet.

“Please stay,” she said. And then, afraid that he’d think she was begging, asking for more than would ever be there, she said. “Just for tonight. Just until dawn and you can see more clearly to drive out to the ranch.”

His nod made her happy.

* * *

Kerry called James before she took Rafe back to her bedroom. She let her fellow officer know that she’d talked Rafe into staying with her, for his own protection, and that he’d said her couch was plenty comfortable.

Which he had, when they’d first lain down naked and she’d mentioned that she had a perfectly good bed with sheets.

Neither of them had been willing to hold on until they could get there.

“You’re always thinking, Kerry Wilder,” Rafe said, grinning as he picked her up and carried her down the only hallway in the place. He had a few doors to choose from: a bathroom, a spare bedroom she used as a catchall and an office, and her bedroom suite. She let him figure it out.

And didn’t bother pointing out the light switch when they entered her room. She was not taking any chances on James witnessing the shadow of a wealthy Colton carrying her to bed.

Their relationship had been secret since they were five years old—because no one understood.

Because they had to guard against others’ opinions. Warnings. Demands.

He settled her against the comforter and she pulled it down as she scooted her naked butt underneath it, stopping only when she felt the sheet beneath her. When he asked for the bathroom, she pointed to the left of the closet door, and while he was gone, flipped on her bedside lamp. In case James was watching to see that she made it back to her room.

By the time Rafe had flushed, run water and turned it off, she figured she was safe to turn off the light, and did so.

The rest of the night would be theirs.

Their lifetime. Their secret.

Their little piece of happiness.

* * *

She didn’t sleep much. That night they’d made love again. Talked softly about food and movies and sports teams. Changes in the world that made it more inclusive—and scarier, too, as guns entered schools and churches. They held each other through it all, agreed on a lot of it. And they talked about their early days, times on the ranch when his birth father had been alive. And then when only hers had.

They talked about family. About love. About things that hurt.

But discussion of the breakup and the years apart was nowhere to be found in their few hours of seclusion. After a third coming together in body as well as spirit, after she rode him hard, almost as though she could somehow get him out of her system, figuring, as he bucked into her that he was getting her out of his. She slid off him, lying close but not touching, and pretended to sleep.