Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars 4)

On beach towels, we rested by the shoreline beneath the gleaming rays of the sun with our fingers twined and our souls tangled.

Quietly.

No words needed for this day. Just the satisfaction that we got to have this.

Us.

We needed to talk. We could feel the weight of it pressing down. A menacing, murky overcast.

But I think we both needed the reprieve. A moment to just be.

The drop was coming up fast. So far, I’d gotten no further threats, and I’d started to hope that my mother had given up. Maybe there was a tiny spec of a conscience in her, after all. Maybe she regretted what she’d had done to me last week and had decided to let it go.

Slim.

I knew.

More than that, Rhys had seemed wary when I’d returned to the room after I’d spoken with Royce.

Somber and scared, the dread he’d sank into dragging me to the darkest depths of those blue, fathomless eyes.

So instead of pushing, I’d held him quietly.

Surely.

Resolutely.

After our afternoon on the beach, we ate dinner with the family. Daisy continually made us laugh and giggle and sigh, and I wondered if Rhys might be imagining the same thing as me.

A brood of little boys and girls with their daddy’s southern accent, playing on the lawn out in front of that old rambling house that would always need work, a stable full of our horses out back.

Me on the porch watching over them with Rhys wrapped around me.

Not a cowboy in sight.

Just my stallion and the family I’d been aching for since I was little.

A place to set free this wealth of love that had been searching for a home.

He squeezed my hand on the table and glanced at me, and I thought maybe…maybe we could be.

Our hearts and bellies full, we dragged our drained bodies upstairs and curled on Rhys’ bed just as the sun was sagging in the sky.

“Tired?” he rumbled sleepily where he was propped against the headboard, my cheek on his chest where his heart thudded at a calmed, peaceful beat. He fiddled with my hair as he asked it.

“Exhausted.”

“Wore you out last night, huh?” Playfulness wound into his tone.

I peeked up at his beautifully rugged face that was swollen and starting to bruise. “Are you thinking about wearing me out again?”

“Definitely. But after we sleep. Don’t think I can move.” He groaned with a smile.

“Some kind of stallion you are.” I wasn’t scared to let go of the tease.

No longer tiptoeing around this man.

A low chuckle rumbled from his chest. “I’ll show you stallion. But later. Stallion. Must. Rest,” he grumbled, and then he scooted down until his head was on the pillow and we were staring at each other through the bare space.

His face had really started to swell in a bad way. I ached with the strains of fury that wafted like loose threads around my being.

“I’m sorry.”

“Come now, Sweet Thing. You think you aren’t worth a couple weak punches?”

He winked with a swollen, black and blue eye.

Even though he was being playful, there was no missing the devotion that came on a roar from his being, transferred to me on a whisper that shouted, I’ll never let you go.

He draped an arm around me and tugged me closer.

I let my fingertips flutter through his beard. The way I’d been longing to do for so long. The action no longer illicit. No longer a secret. The truth of the feeling I’d been holding gliding free of my tongue. “I love you.”

He leaned in and kissed my nose. “I love you.”

“This feels like a dream,” I whispered into the lapping shadows that had begun to fill his room, all mixed with the golden streaks of light that blazed through the drapes.

Serenity.

He hugged me tighter. “No pretendin’ with us, remember?”

My spirit squeezed with affection. “No pretending.”

He heaved out a sigh, and he snuggled in closer, and I traced my fingers along the contours of his face.

His eyebrows.

His nose.

His lips.

“I couldn’t begin to fake this,” I murmured.

Massive arms curled so tight. I melted into them.

“No, Goddess Girl. There’s no fakin’ this.”

And like that, we let the world fade away.

My nightmares quieted in his arms, this man who heard me in my dreams.

I jerked awake. My heart was a thunder that boomed in my ears and pulsed like lead through my veins.

Rhys’ heavy arm was still draped over my chest, his breaths deep and long where he was lost to sleep.

I blinked through the thick darkness of his room. Trying to orient myself. To figure out what had knocked me from the peace.

My phone vibrated from his nightstand, the light breaking through the night.

Carefully, I peeled Rhys’ arm off me and gently laid it beside him.

He grunted and moaned before he turned fully onto his stomach.

Trying to slough the apprehension, I quietly climbed over him and out of bed, telling myself to stop overreacting about a text.