I lay myself bare to Dale Steel.

I’m his. His and his alone.

But he chooses not to take the time I wish him to. Instead, he spreads my legs, eyes my pussy with hunger in his green eyes, and then he unzips his pants and frees his cock.

Before I can give it the adoration it deserves, it’s inside me, and Dale is pumping.

Hard. So hard.

I’m wet, so he slid in with ease, but my nipples ache for his attention. My clit yearns for his mouth.

He’s still clothed, his shirt abrading my nipples with delicious friction. His pubic hair does the same for my clit, and I’m nearing a climax way before I want to.

I can’t hold back, though. Not with Dale. He invades all my senses, and an orgasm rises almost of its own accord.

Colors drape over me, and music swells in the background. The spicy taste of our kiss lingers on my lips, and his green eyes bore into mine.

Is it the joyous green caroling?

The burgundy silk of his low growls?

The red rage of his body driving into mine?

Everything. It’s a psychedelic kaleidoscope. A rainbow of passion.

He thrusts and he thrusts, harder each time, his dark-red groans the torrent melody around me.

I love you. Dale, I love you so much.

Will I ever be able to share with him my true feelings?

Those feelings that grow stronger every moment?

The thought of being without him is more than I can bear. I close my eyes as the peak draws nearer.

One more thrust against my clit—

I erupt. Words leave my mouth and hang in the swirl of color around us. I can’t tell you what the words are. They’re jumbled phrases of lust and passion. Of want and need.

And I take a giant leap into paradise.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dale

Yes! I’m coming, Dale. So good! Fuck me. Fuck me harder!

Her words ignite a hotter fire in my loins. I’m harder than ever, and I plunge into her faster and faster, letting her feed the emptiness in my soul.

She fills me. With her beauty, her laughter, her brilliance.

Everything about Ashley White propels me further into orgasmic bliss.

I’ve never felt like this before. I fear I never will again.

I hold back, making it last as long as I can. Don’t want it to end. Never want it to end.

But her orgasm milks my cock. Squeezes against me like a fist encased in a fur-lined glove. She’s a perfect cast for me.

And though I long to hold on… To make it last forever…

I thrust.

Once more.

Then give her everything. Everything inside me. So much more than my seed. I give her my heart, my soul, my deepest darkest desires.

And I know I’ll never be the same.

When I finally turn onto my side, I’m still hard despite my soul-burning climax. My jeans are like a rubber band around my thighs, and I struggle out of them. I need freedom. Freedom from my clothes so I can touch all of Ashley with all of me.

Once I remove my boots, socks, and jeans, I tackle my shirt, nearly shredding it to get it off my back.

Then I lie next to her.

Her eyes are closed, and she looks like an angel. Blond hair in disarray on the comforter, almost like a halo. Her cheeks are pink and her lips red. And her body—flushed all over as if painted with the petals of a red rose.

I touch her warm hand, and she entwines her fingers with mine.

I don’t even know how to hold your hand.

It’s easier now. Her hand, so small next to my own. I massage her thumb with mine.

If I can learn to hold her hand, can I learn to do the rest of the stuff she wants? The rest of the stuff she deserves?

Because she deserves everything.

And I want it. I want it more than anything.

Dare I hope?

Dare I risk everything?

She turns then and snuggles her warm body next to mine. “Mmmm,” comes from her throat.

Something foreign cascades over me. It’s more than love, or it’s a love I’ve never felt before.

Everything I feel for Ashley is brand-new to me, but this…

This is something so pure… That thing I can’t describe…

It wants to fill the emptiness inside me. It wants to bring the darkness into the light.

But I resist.

How can I not? I don’t know how to be the man she wants me to be.

I don’t think I’ll ever know.

But as she snuggles against me, and as I grow harder once again, I vow to try.

I brought her home wanting to make real love to her, and I ended up fucking her. I let my rage take over, and I ended up taking her hard and fast.

When a soft snore escapes the back of her throat, I smile without meaning to. She worked hard in the vineyards today, and then she had a dinner date—damn Brendan Murphy—and then a game of pool. It’s late. No wonder she’s asleep.

Maybe in the morning.

Maybe I’ll make love to her then.

But I don’t.

I end up in the vineyards.

I leave Penny at home with Ashley. I don’t want Ashley to wake up alone.

She sleeps soundly as I untangle myself from her body and quietly dress.

Now I’m in my special place, where I do my best thinking.

I lie, encased in my sleeping bag, not inside a tent but under the starlight. I memorized all the constellations decades ago, and now I see them in pictures. Images of what they’re meant to represent. Tonight, Cassiopeia stands out. The beautiful self-absorbed queen, who nearly sacrificed her own daughter to Poseidon’s sea monster and then fought with Hera, only to be banished to the sky.

Her husband, Cepheus, then begged Zeus to let him go with her, and now they both live in the sky, eternally bound.

A self-absorbed queen and her whiny king.

Two very damaged souls who are now happy in the starlight.

Myth, of course, but what are myths but stories to teach valuable insight?

If those two souls can find true happiness, can’t anyone?

Do I, as Ashley suggested, have the power over my own happiness?

Aunt Mel and other therapists have said the same words over the years. I’ve always brushed it off. I’m content, and I can live with contentment. True happiness always eludes me, and I recognize my own part in that elusion. My fear of letting the good out because of what will ultimately come barreling with it.

It’s already here, and the day will come when I can no longer contain it.