“But I don’t know that it is enough. Not after what I did. How I ruined your life. Betrayed you. I don’t know how it can be forgiven.”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
He took a step forward, setting his body close to hers but not touching her. Not yet. “We make sense together, Pen. Somehow, we do. No matter what has happened to each of us. No matter what choices we have made. We make sense.”
“But do we?” Her head shook slightly. “Truly? Or is that just something you’ve told yourself—I’ve told myself—because it seems like it should be so?”
He drew in a deep breath, holding it in his chest, resisting the urge to wrap his hands along her face. “No. After all this time, I know it down to my marrow. My world makes sense when you are with me. You are the best of me—the middle of my extremes—the center of me, of who I can be. You are what I have been missing all of these years.”
“No.” She paused, her lips pulling inward for a breath, the torment she was layering upon herself making the edges of her eyes crinkle. “What you were missing was what I took away from you—the title—that life. I forced choices upon you that you never should have had to make.”
“What happened, happened.” His shoulders lifted. “Did it make me into a different man than I would have been? Yes. Did it make me into a better man than I would have been? Yes. I know that as well. I know what it means to survive. To build something out of nothing. That there isn’t a thing in this world that can bring me to my knees.”
His eyes closed to her, his head shaking. “Nothing but you, Pen.”
He exhaled as his eyes opened to her, his gaze piercing her. “You are the only thing that can bring me to my knees. For right or wrong, I will forgive you anything.”
She drew a shuddered breath. “Strider—”
He moved in even closer, the front of him brushing against her chest, his eyes locked on hers. “I have never been right, Pen. Not since I left you with the Flagtons. I have always been trying to get back to the happiness of our youth—only to find out that it is unachievable. And I’ve become ruthless—bitter—hard, because of it, and I didn’t even recognize how far I had sunk. And then you appeared at the Den and I realized something.”
“What?”
“There is no happiness. Not without you. Not for me. You are my happiness.”
Tears welled in her eyes, making her green irises shine. Her hands lifted to clasp onto the sides of his face and his eyes closed, her fingertips bringing heaven down to earth.
“And you have always been mine.”
His lips crashed into hers before the last word was out of her mouth. The second he’d seen her in the field, the knowledge that she was everything—everything—set so firmly into his mind that he’d been amazed he managed to hold back this long.
His mouth demanding against hers, she laughed—pure joy—against the kiss. The magical sound sent his cock long and hard—that he could possibly be the cause of the sound.
Not willing to break the kiss—he wanted to devour her for how he had missed her lips, the touch of her hands these past weeks—his hands slipped down her backside and he lifted her.
Her legs wrapped around him, her thighs resting on the cut of his hip bones, as her nails slid up along his spine and into his hair, spiking all of his nerves. With a guttural mewl, her head dropped away from his, her lips finding his neck, her teeth raking across his skin. She was as hungry for him as he was for her.
This. Now.
He turned toward the willow tree and charged across the field, his member straining uncomfortably against the crux of her with each step. Doubtful he’d even make it to the willow.
His feet pounding along the ground, he made it to the slight cover the long branches afforded.
He glanced over her head at the trunk of the tree.
He’d already imagined Pen with her back against the tree, his cock sinking into her. But now he wanted—needed more. He needed her body, all of her skin cool against the heat of his.
He wasted no time.
The laces on the back of her dress. The stays, the chemise.
He lifted her off of him for the moment it took to drag her clothes off. She grumbled at it, but then took to removing his clothing in a whirlwind, popping several buttons in her haste.
Their bodies free to the air, he dropped to his knees in front of her, fully intending to taste every inch of her skin.
She would have none of it. Her right hand solid against the center of his back, she slid down along his body, her mouth meeting his in a carnal kiss. Her legs wrapped around him as she lowered, easing herself directly onto his shaft. Bloody exquisite. And sending every raw nerve in his body to raging.