Morgan let loose her tears in big sobs that racked her body. This was the first time she felt it was safe to let her guard down and feel the deep wells of emotion that had been building in her for so long. She hugged Nathan to her and realized she needed him more than she ever had.
“I love you, Morgan,” he told her in a hushed and adoring voice.
“I love you, too, Nathan. I’ve always loved you.”
As he held her and let her cry, she realized for the first time that her man really and truly had come home to her.
Nathan felt good to be back inside his own bedroom. Morgan was in the bathroom taking a shower and would join him in a minute.
He went through his clothes hanging in the closet. They were all still intact just the way he had left them. It looked as if Morgan had even washed them once or twice to avoid having to put them in mothballs.
He noticed a couple pairs of another man’s trousers hanging down from an overhead bar. Nathan was a large man, but he noticed from their size the other man had been almost as large as he was.
They didn’t belong here, but he left them where they were. There would be time to take care of that later.
Then he glanced to Morgan’s half of the closet. There were several new nighties hanging there. He didn’t remember her having those before. They were sexy and slim, and he ached to see her body in them.
He smiled to himself. Those other two shifters had certainly been lucky to possess a woman like Morgan, if only for a little while. He hoped with everything in his heart that they had made her happy and taken some of the hurt and fear away when he was gone.
He realized he owed those two a bigger debt than he knew how to repay.
Morgan was standing behind him when he turned from the closet. She was brushing her wet hair. Her body glistened from just having come from the shower. She wore a nightgown that was sheer. Beneath it she was wearing nothing else. He remembered how he always used to love her in this gown. Remembered even more strongly how he used to love taking it off her.
She opened her arms to him as he came up to hold her. The two of them were silent for a while as they held each other. They knew each other so well that sometimes words weren’t required.
“I have missed you so much, Morgan.” She shivered beneath his touch. “Are you cold, darling?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked up at him. “But this feels so different.”
“Haven’t you been waiting for the past year for this moment?”
“Yes. I have been.”
“As have I.”
Still, she shivered under his touch. He knew he would have to take it slow with her.
“Come with me to bed?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
They sat on the bed on top of the covers, not yet bothering to lie down. Nathan didn’t want to rush her. He stroked her shoulder, and the touch of her skin under his fingers felt like a luxury. Finally she stopped shivering and sighed into his gentle touch. Still, he took his time with her.
“Tell me about the other men?”
She buried her face against his chest. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, only his boxer shorts. Already an erection tented them.
“I don’t think I can.”
“Then let me ask you some questions about them, all right?”
“All right.”
He brought his fingers up to caress her face lovingly and forced her to meet his eyes. “First and most important—were they good to you?”
“Yes. They were very good to me.”
Nathan breathed easier hearing her say that. He knew from the way she said it he could believe her. The other two shifters had indeed treated her well.
“Did you make love to them in our bed?”
She bent her head as if in shame, and he had his answer. But he lifted her head back up to face him. “No…no…don’t,” he admonished her. “It is all right. I’m happy you were with them. I am very happy they treated you well.”
“I’m sorry, Nathan.”
He brushed her lips with first his fingers and then his lips. “You’ve nothing to be sorry about. I won’t have you feeling guilty.”
“I can’t help it. I do. I’m not a shifter like you. I feel like I cheated on you when you were away and needed me the most.”
“I gave you my permission.”
“I know. But now that it’s all over, it still doesn’t feel right.”
He looked her square in the eyes. “Did you enjoy having two men?”
She hesitated for the briefest of seconds. Then she nodded. “Yes, I did. They were incredible.”
“Did you let them take you together?”
Her face was fully hidden against his chest once more, he suspected to hide the pink blush that made her face so pretty. But he had her talking now. She had obviously come to care for those two shifters.
“At first, no. Then later, after I felt more comfortable with them, yes.”
“Shifter men can be very creative in pleasuring a woman. I’m afraid after I lived in Chicago all those years, I rather lost my touch. Tell me, did you learn anything new from them?”
He took her chin in his fingers and brought her head back away from his chest. He saw a smile playing across her lips in spite of the embarrassment she must have felt.
“Yes. They taught me quite a bit I didn’t know before.”
He gently lifted her up for another kiss. She opened her mouth willingly to him, and his tongue danced on top of hers.
“Will you tell me what you liked with them? We’ll do it as well.”
“Maybe.” He saw she was breathless against his lips as he kissed around her face. She could barely talk now. Then she pulled away from him. “Do you see why it feels so awkward for me to be in this bedroom with another man tonight, Nathan? It is you, and I am in love with you, but it has still been a year, and during that time I shared a lot of intimacy with two other men.”
“I understand.” He looked down at her beautiful face. He would have done anything for her. “If you want, I’ll just hold you tonight…I mean, would that be okay? It would sure make me sleep a lot better just to be holding you in my arms again while I slept.”
She reached up and gave him a kiss, a relieved smile on her face. “Thank you, Nathan. I would love for you to hold me tonight.” Then she ran a hand up his chest and pulled her warm little body back in close to his. “Are you sure it’s okay with you if we don’t do anything else tonight?”
“Yes.” He gave her a smile and a peck on her lips. “Everything is going to be okay from now on.”
* * * *
Morgan woke up in the middle of the night. Everything was back to normal. The hard, familiar edges of Nathan’s body were next to her under the covers. His arm was wrapped around her shoulder, and her head was cradled beneath his muscles.
She gave him a kiss on the chest and looked up at the handsome features of his face in the dark of their bedroom. His eyes were closed and his breathing steady. He was asleep.
She worried about him. Was he really well now? Or had he returned too soon just so he could keep his promise to her, a promise she would have never forced him to make if she had known how ill he was?
She resolved that she would take him into town to see Doc Hughes in the morning. Now that he was back, protecting him and what they had together was going to be at the top of her list.
Rearranging her position in his arms, her leg brushed the hardness of his erection. A smile turned the corners of her mouth. It had been a long time for him. He really did want her.
She ran her hand down his chest and under his shorts. His cock was standing straight up his belly and didn’t seem to have enough room to breathe down there.
Nathan had gone without for a year while Hunter and Drake had kept her more than satisfied during that same time. Morgan felt selfish for having denied Nathan her body that night. There was a need inside him, and she was the only one who could quench it.
He stirred as she stroked him with her fingers and opened his eyes to look down at her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You have my permission to wake me like this any time you want.”
She moved up along his chest and brought her lips down into his. He opened his mouth to her. She explored his mouth with her tongue. He tasted just as she remembered. He tasted of his own unique flavor as strong and natural as the mountains surrounding their house.
As their saliva mixed, her breathing became heavy, and her desire increased to match his. Beneath his shorts, his swollen cock was taking on a life of its own as she continued to stroke him. To her touch, it felt like the giant distended muscle was on fire. Exploring the tip with her fingers, she felt the first drops of his liquid prerelease forming.
Her other hand ran up from his flat abs along his sculpted chest. These were muscles she had touched a hundred times in the past. This unyielding body beneath her belonged to her and her alone. In a year’s time she had almost forgot what he was capable of doing to her, of what he could make her feel. Her sense of pride in knowing he was her man had always burned passionately through her.
Now as she claimed him as her own again, all those old erotic feelings came flooding back. Warmth flooded her belly. His kiss made her dizzy. Between her thighs, her pussy was already wet and contracting in anticipation.
“I was just going to hold you the first night back,” he reminded her.
“That’s a stupid rule. You and I have waited a year for this. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait another minute.”
His hands had roamed down her body and clasped her buttocks. Her gown had pooled around her waist. He gathered the hem between his fingers and lifted it up her body. She had to pull her hand out of his shorts long enough to lean up and raise her arms over her head.
Nathan was swift and sure. In a single fluid motion, he had relieved her of that annoying gown. Now she was naked, free to touch him skin to skin.
She went back to kissing him and exploring his body with her fingers. When his hands began to roam across her curves, she was gratified and moaned into their kiss.
She got to her knees above him and helped him to slide his shorts down his legs. His erection positively popped out at her once she had freed it. He looked too good to resist, and she bent over him and took him in her mouth, once more tasting his unique flavor, savoring the beads of thick white liquid oozing from the tip as they coated her tongue.
Finally he pulled her off. She knew she had coaxed him to the very edge with her playful tongue. It was obvious that he wanted inside her pussy, and she wanted to feel him there as well.
Hiking a leg across his hips, she took his hardness between her fingers and guided his entry inside. Once the head had pushed past her lips, she sat down and impaled her body along his thick shaft.
“I’d almost forgotten how it felt to be inside of you,” he whispered and pulled her down along his body so he could wrap his arms around her once more and go back to kissing her mouth.
“I’d forgotten many things, too,” she confided in him. “But I never forgot that I loved you.” She moaned as he began to softly thrust up between her thighs. “I can’t believe this is happening, Nathan. Are you and I really back together?” She looked down into his beautiful eyes. “Are we going to be as good as before?”
He sealed the deal with another kiss. “I believe we’re going to be better than we were before for having overcome this difficult time. What do you think?”
He raised himself up inside her deeper. His tip touched her cervix. She groaned and knew she was agonizingly close. “I believe you’re right,” she answered him.
She realized only she and Nathan could have had this kind of conversation in the middle of sex. They were truly back as a couple.
Morgan enjoyed a very fulfilling orgasm that left her spent. Yet as she was trying to get back to sleep that night she realized her life couldn’t be perfect. Not just yet. There were still two pieces missing, and she had no idea how to fit them back into the puzzle.
The next morning Nathan was up at the crack of dawn. He left Morgan sleeping peacefully in their bed. After placing a loving kiss on her cheek he took a hot shower and then made himself some strong coffee out in the kitchen.
He was pleased to see the two shifters who had taken care of things in his absence had stocked the refrigerator and the cupboards well. There were the makings of breakfast pastries. Morgan had always liked these, and he made a batch just for her.
He took his coffee out onto their deck in back. It was chilly outside, but a light jacket and the hot coffee water kept the cool mountain air at bay.
This morning he felt invigorated. There was a lot that he had to do now that he was home. His cell phone was with him, and he made a dozen calls, half business related, the other half personal. He had a formerly successful business to restart and a family to reconnect with.
“Good morning and thank you.” Morgan came out on the deck with him. She had a cup of coffee and carried one of the pastries he had made for her. “You’re the one who’s been sick. I should be making these things for you.”