The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(105)

So he gathered her up in his arms and he took her back to bed, even though he knew he should let her have a break. Even though he knew they shouldn’t do this again.

But he couldn’t resist her, and the clock was ticking.

He had promised a night. And the night was all he had to give. A night was the kindest thing he could offer her.

Anything more and he risked tainting her with everything they were. The McClouds.

And she deserved better than that. She just damn well did.

But here in his bed, with his hands skimming over her curves, and her body underneath his, he could pretend. That the impulse to pull Nelly’s pigtails was fate. That her being here was fate. That everything that had ever been together was fate. And that he was the kind of strong she was. That could still have softness and feelings and not just scarred over tissue that could never truly feel again.

Every sigh beneath him was a gift, every kiss against his lips was something extraordinary.

And when she found her pleasure and arched against him, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful. He didn’t think there ever had been anything more beautiful. His own pleasure didn’t mean a damn thing. Not in the face of hers. In the face of what they shared.

Because in this moment, Tag McCloud didn’t have to be a man of action. He didn’t have to keep going. Didn’t have to keep running. In this moment, he could just feel. With Nelly Foster.

And it was a gift that he had never known he needed. A gift that would expire with the sunrise.

A gift that he feared would leave him hollow with the loss of it for the rest of his life.



CHAPTER SIX


NELLY WOKE UP on the floor. They were in front of the fireplace wrapped in a fur. It was the strangest thing. She remembered the lake, talking, going back to bed... But now here they were, tangled up in each other by the fire...

Her cheeks went red. She remembered. They had made love again in his bed, and then they had woken again and it was like he was possessed by an animal. It had been amazing and wonderful. Sharp and bright and verging on violent in a way that had made her feel powerful and strong, not small and scared.

He had pinned her arms above her head the better to kiss her entire body. He had growled like a beast, and thrust into her with a ferocity that had stolen her breath. With Tag hard and hot above her, and the furs cozy and soft at her back, she had felt thrilled, protected and invigorated all at once. It was truly a miracle. Being with him. A miracle in a way she had never thought it could be. But the sun was rising now, and she didn’t know why, but she had the terrible feeling that everything had ended. They hadn’t spoken about this. About it being a single night, but it was as if they both knew. Maybe that was what had driven him in the wee hours of the morning. The knowledge that it was over. The knowledge that it had to be over.

She felt scratchy. And tragic. And she wanted to hold all of her hurt hard to her chest so that she didn’t have to look at it too closely. So that she could absorb it and pretend it was just part of the pain that had already been there. She looked at Tag, who was still sleeping, the hard cut of his jaw, the softer side to his mouth. She had read so many times that men looked younger in their sleep. Carefree. Not Tag. She could see the lines, the cares and the pain written across his face most particularly as he dreamed. As if the facade of carefree scoundrel had fallen away entirely, leaving in its place the truth of him.

The man that had been so badly hurt by his father.

They all had been. The McCloud boys. Tag, Brody and Hunter had gone rogue. Gotten wild. Lachlan and Gus more serious. But it was all the same. A mask for the hurt. A mask for the immense pain that they had endured.

And she wondered what he would do. If she said that she loved him.

Her insides shivered.

Did she love Tag McCloud? She had told herself that he drove her crazy, for all of her life. But she understood now that that had just been self-defense.

She had been bothered by him because he had been something that she couldn’t be. Because he had been loud and brash and wild in the face of his particular trauma, and she had shrunken in on herself and gotten more and more afraid. The fear that she had taken on from the way her father had treated them, the fear that she had absorbed even deeper into her bones after Breanna had died. This sense of uncertainty and fragility.

But not Tag. The more the heart of the world pushed at him, the harder he pushed back. He refused to be small. And that had challenged her.

It had disrupted her.

It had damn near destroyed her.

But not now. Now she had followed this attraction all the way to its conclusion. Now she had followed it to the very brave end. And here she sat, her heart ringing with something that she was certain was love, and she was tempted to shrink yet again.

But no. She would be strong. Because that was what tonight had taught her. That the past was simply the past, and if you let it hobble you rather than teach you something, there wasn’t much point to it.

What a terrible honor for her friend to have stopped her entire life because she couldn’t get over that loss.

It was not right or fair. Breanna deserved more. More and better.

And so did Nelly.

And death and her father deserved no piece of who she was. No say over what she became and how far she went and how loud she lived.

“Tag,” she whispered. She feathered kisses across his jaw, and she felt an echoing inside of her.