Page 14 of Surrendering To The Forbidden Mountain Man

He enters me slow. Stretching. Full. There's pressure, a burn that makes me inhale sharp through my nose, and he stops. Waits. His forehead is damp. His arms are trembling from the effort of holding still.

My hands find his face. "Keep going."

He pushes deeper. Slow, steady, filling me inch by inch until his hips are flush against mine, until he's all the way inside and I can feel him everywhere. The burn fades to pressure, then to fullness, then to something warm that makes my toes curl.

"You okay?" Strained. His jaw clenched tight.

"Yes." My legs hook around his waist, drawing him closer. "More."

He pulls back, thrusts forward, gentle. Once. Twice. Finding a rhythm that builds. His mouth on my neck, my jaw, my mouth. His hand slides between us, his thumb finding my clit, circling in time with his strokes, and the combination sends electricity through my whole body.

The rhythm builds. Deeper. Faster. His control slipping in increments, his breath ragged against my throat. Every thrust hits somewhere deeper, and his thumb on my clit is relentless, and the second orgasm gathers faster than the first.

"Come for me." His mouth against my ear, voice guttural. "Let me feel it."

I shatter. Clenching around him, pulling him in, my nails scoring down his back while the orgasm tears through me. He follows three strokes later with a groan that rumbles through his chest into mine, his hips pressing deep as he comes, his face buried in my neck.

Stillness.

His weight on me. His breath slowing against my throat. The sweat between us cooling. His hand is still in my hair, his other arm hooked under my waist, holding me against him even as his body goes slack.

He rolls to the side, pulling me with him. Deals with the condom, drops it in the trash by the bed. Then pulls me back into his chest, my head under his chin, his arm heavy across my ribs.

For a long time, neither of us speaks.

"Twelve years," he says finally. Into my hair. Quiet. "You waited twelve years."

"Mm." My fingers trace the scar on his ribs. "Worth it."

A sound that could be a laugh. Could be something else. His arm tightens around me.

"Stay tonight," I say against his chest.

"I'm not going anywhere."

The words settle into my bones. Coming from a man who left for twenty years, who's spent his entire adult life in transit, who doesn't have a single unpacked box in his house because some part of him still expects to deploy, those words mean more than he probably knows.

Or maybe he does know. Maybe that's why they came out rough, like they cost him something to say.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Once.

Ben:

If you're happy, I'm happy. Also dad wants to know if Reid is staying for breakfast. He's already defrosting sausage.

A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep. Reid reads the text over my shoulder, and the sound he makes is close to a groan.

"Your family," he says.

"Your family too. Has been for twenty years."

His chin rests on top of my head. His hand spreads across my stomach, warm and heavy, his thumb drawing absent circles on my skin.

"This could work," he says. Almost to himself. "This could actually work."

And lying in the dark in my apartment with Reid Holloway's heartbeat under my ear, steady as it's ever been, for the first time in twelve years the wanting stops hurting and starts feeling like the beginning of something real.

"Yeah." My eyes close. His arms tighten. "It could."