Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Maisey Yates (inspirational books .TXT) 📗

too much for them. And sometimes I wonder if maybe my dad not being in love with her made him more able to take care of her during that time. It’s complicated as hell. Because there was a very real partnership between the two of them, but sometimes it made my mother feel broken, and I will never not feel responsible for that. Like I should’ve found some way to fix it.”

“They made their choices,” Cricket said. “That’s what I’m realizing about my mother. For all her own misery, for all that I feel bad for her sometimes, for all that my father was an unforgivable asshole, my mom made her choices. She wanted money. And she thought that would be enough. She wanted to have things, and thought that would transcend love, but it didn’t. And then she didn’t leave. She stayed. Because she was afraid. And all her reasons, they were real enough, but they were still excuses. Even if they were pretty valid ones. My mom stayed with James for us. Because she was afraid that he would find a way to take us from her. But she also could’ve had the fight. She weighed her options. And she chose.”

“I have some sympathy for that,” he said. “If she thought she couldn’t win…”

“It was still a choice. Just like your mother had one. It’s not like it was the 1800s. They could’ve gotten a divorce. They could have. Nobody had to be unhappy. They sat there in rules they made for themselves, and lived lives they made for themselves, prison walls they decided were okay. That isn’t your fault, and it isn’t mine.”

“Yeah, but on the other side, now your mom has a chance to make something new. Mine doesn’t. It’s a hell of a thing.”

“I know.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying it would’ve been easy. I’m just saying you can’t take their choices and blame yourself for them.”

“You’re twenty-two years old.”

“Yeah. And you’re what? Thirty-four? Thirty-five? So what? I’m not stupid. I’ve had a lot of time to think. That’s what comes of being the isolated, odd one out in your family. You have way too much time to think. And believe me, I’ve had tons. I don’t need experience to have figured that out.”

“So you have the whole world all figured out, do you?”

“I mean, I’m not gonna say the whole world. But maybe my piece of it.”

This girl. This woman. She didn’t know when to question or doubt. She dove headlong into everything. Bets at a poker table, wild conclusions and into his bed. And he just…he liked that about her.

“Bold claim, little Cricket.”

“I don’t know, things make more sense now than they ever have. I didn’t think that was possible. I just walked through the messiest, weirdest time of my life. And it’s really not so bad. And yeah, I basically do have it all sorted out.”

He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her on top of him, laying them both back on the blanket. He looked into her earnest face, and desire stirred in his body. “You have everything figured out, is that it?”

“Basically. The mysteries of sex are even solved.”

“Every last one?” he pressed.

He didn’t know why he needed this right now, but he did. It was deeper than lust, that was the problem. He couldn’t write it off as simply basic desire. He’d wanted to. He’d tried to. But it was so much more than that. That was the thing. With her, it always would be. And whatever was happening between the two of them, she didn’t have to be here. They didn’t have to be here. They were choosing it, out here under the unending sky. With the land and the ranch in their blood, and his need for her pumping hot and insistent through his body.

“Bet you can’t teach me anything,” he said, his voice rough.

And Cricket, true to form, sat up, her thighs on either side of him, and stripped her white tank top up over her head without pause. She was wearing a plain, matching bra, her lean, athletic body a sight to behold. “Is that a bet bet, cowboy?”

“Sure.”

“You know, historically, you lose bets with me.”

“Yeah. I feel like a real loser right now.” With her sweet ass perched on top of him, and all her beauty blocking out the sun.

“Well.”

“Just remember that there are some bets I lose on purpose.” He gripped her hips, sliding his hands up to her slim waist, then up further still, brushing his thumbs over her breasts. Then he reached around and unhooked her bra, flinging it off somewhere in the grass.

She made a small sound that might have been indignant, but he didn’t much care. Because she was bare and gorgeous and perfect and he was dying for a taste.

He pressed his palm firmly against the center of her back and brought her down toward him, toward his mouth. He sucked one perfect, ripe bud between his lips, and the cry that escaped her lips wasn’t indignant this time. Not at all. It was one of pleasure, one of desire, and he reveled in it. She wrenched his shirt over his head, wiggling away from him as she did. And he pinned her down on her back, her arms up over her head, and kissed her deep.

“Little Crickets with smart mouths get themselves in trouble,” he said.

A challenge glimmered in her eyes. “Do we? I sure hope so.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I lack discipline.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ve mostly been neglected. I need a firm hand.”

“I could probably provide you with one.”

“So many promises. And yet…”

He growled, unsnapped her jeans, unzipped them and pushed them down her thighs, and she helped eagerly. Then she wiggled downward, kissing his chest, his stomach, still on her back beneath him as she undid his pants and freed him. She peered up at him, squeezing his length and making a sound of purely feminine satisfaction.

“You’re really kind of a work of art,” she