Unbreak My Heart (Rough Riders Legacy #1)(59)

“No. I just want to try this.” Her cold feet landed on my belly and she inched her toes up my torso. “With my legs on your shoulders.”

My inner beast roared a “f*ck yeah” snarl and I pulled her up higher. My cock homed in on her * almost without my assistance and I slid back inside.

Sierra reached for my hands and pulled me down. “Rest your weight on me.”

Damn. That felt good.

I kept a slow pace until Little Miss Position Changer said, “Stop,” again.

“What?”

“We’re taking a break after this, so maybe you’d better make this one count.”

She was seriously telling me how to f*ck her?

Of course she was.

I loved that—even when it sort of annoyed me.

So I lowered her heels to the mattress and dropped to my knees.

“What are you doing?”

“Making this one count. Any objections? You have another position in mind?”

No surprise that she didn’t offer suggestions.

Only after I made her come with my mouth did I return to making love to her.

Her soft sighs were as satisfying as her gasps and groans. Her gentle touches and melting kisses were what I needed.

After I poured myself into her again and my mouth was tasting the sweet flavor of passion on her skin, she whispered, “I want you in my bed all night, Boone. But if you need…space. There’s a blanket on the couch in the living room.”

“Thanks. But I’ll be fine right here.”





Boone slept in my bed all night. Not entwined with me but I’d just been happy to wake up and find him still there.

Although it’d been a late night, I wasn’t one for sleeping in.

Before I tiptoed out of my bedroom, I tucked the covers around Boone’s shoulders. I wanted to smooth my hand over the nape of his neck and kiss his forehead, but I wouldn’t chance waking him.

I grabbed my exercise clothes. I used a corner of the extra family room for a workout space—I’d never be a toned gym-rat, but I did feel healthier if I worked up a sweat. After setting the program on the elliptical for forty-five minutes, I hit shuffle on my iPod and did my time in hell.

Most people I knew could multitask while churning away on an exercise machine. Not me. Music was the only thing that distracted me enough not to say f*ck this and hop off the machine to do something productive that I actually enjoyed.

After I finished, I poked my head into my bedroom and saw Boone still sprawled in the same position. I smirked at seeing the scratch on his shoulder blade, knowing he bore my marks in other places, as I bore his. I left the door cracked open and headed to the kitchen. Without the music from my iPod blasting in my ears, the events from the past twelve hours raced through my mind.

Last night had been a revelation.

Okay, a night filled with a bunch of revelations.

We’d hit that explosive physical stage, where sex is everything; a drug, a tonic, a crutch, a relief, a necessity, more vital than food or sleep. I’d never experienced that combustion or that type of obsession. Neither had Boone. It hadn’t surprised either of us we experienced it together.

While the physical connection had been astounding, the emotional upheaval it’d brought with it…that’d been a total shocker. To both of us. To Boone, because he actually spoke of things he’d kept shoved down deep. To me, because I had no idea how much those things had affected him.

No f*cking idea and it cut me to the quick.

I paused in front of the refrigerator and pressed my forehead against the cool metal door, needing a moment to let the truths about his childhood slowly wash over me before my distress swamped me entirely.

The indifference to his existence.

The complete lack of any affection.

My heart ached for him.

Ached.

From the moment I’d met Boone and we’d become friends, I’d wished for more from him. Until last night I hadn’t realized how much of himself he had given me. Just me. He’d let down his guard during the times we’d spent together. He’d gotten to be a cocky, sweet eighteen-year-old-boy, flirting with a girl he liked, talking about everything and nothing. I loved those times with him.

But he treasured them because they were the only ones he’d had.

God.

To think that back then, and all this time, he’d held me up as his ideal? He wanted what no one before me had bothered to give him? I almost told him he was mistaken to put that much value in me. But he felt the way he felt and I’d never discount that. Never.

It seemed everyone in his life had discounted him.

Except me.

The tears I’d held back since last night fell in silence.

When the alarm for the patio door had gone off, I’d experienced fear and a feeling of loss. I’d sent the universe a silent plea. Don’t let this be the end. Don’t let him have regrets. After I mustered the guts to crawl out of the bed that smelled like him—like us—to reset the alarm, that’s when I’d noticed him in the pool.

I’d watched him from the shadows, submerging himself and surfacing as if he’d been practicing drowning. But that had been Boone’s way of reasserting control…and reminding himself to breathe.

So after I’d gained control, warning myself not to f*cking cry because it’d send him running, I’d strolled out, alerting him to my presence. Hoping he’d open up to me, even if that meant dealing with his regrets about cramming as much sex as we could into as short a time as possible and his need to walk away or even cool it.