I choked on a laugh and tossed my head back on the pillows as my toes curled and my legs tensed as pleasure unfurled slow and steady throughout my blood. It wasn’t the same kind of mind-melting, body-bending orgasm I had with him buried deep inside of me, but it would hold me over until I got the real thing.

“Promises, promises. You have a lot of them stored up to make good on the next time I see you, soldier.” It had been two months and we had one more to go before I was throwing everything I owned into a U-Haul and heading back to Lowry. I flew in to see him one weekend each month, but that hadn’t been enough. One thing the distance had shown us was that we were far happier when we were together than we were when we were apart no matter where we decided to call home.

“I should have made you FaceTime me.” There was a grunt on the other end of the phone and my breath quickened as I imagined the look on his face as his fist pumped up and down the strong, thick column of his cock. I could see the heavy muscles of his chest rising and falling. I could see his massive thighs tensing, one leg bent so that I would have the perfect view of all his impressive masculinity. I could almost feel the delineation between each carved ab muscle and the flex in the defined V that arrowed down on either of his sides.

“Your voice works wonders. It gives good sex,” I purred into the phone and heard him pant as he got closer to his own completion.

“Yeah, but I like your face. I like to see that soft smile you get when you come. I like the way your eyes go out of focus and the way your cheeks get pink. It makes your freckles stand out and that gets me off, every, single, time.”

I sighed and reached up to twist a sweaty curl around my finger. “You know what else gets you off?” He grunted and I could hear the sound of flesh against flesh. It had my already sensitized sex doing a lazy little clench and release of appreciation. “When the tip of your cock hits the back of my throat. When I suck you back as far as you can go and look up at you in awe because there is still so much of you that doesn’t fit. When I trace the tip with my tongue and hold your balls in my hand. When I hum because I like the way you taste and feel in my mouth. That always gets you off.”

“Fuck me.” I was more than ready to. Stupid miles and miles between us.

He panted his way through his own orgasm, threw in some dirty words for good measure, and once he caught his breath he grumbled, “I would give up my bike right now to finish inside you, hell, I’d even take coming on you at this point. I’ve been wanting my cock between those pretty tits for a long time. Anything would be better than my hand and making a mess on my stomach.” I heard sheets rustling as he moved around to clean up. I didn’t tell him that I had no problem watching him finish all over himself, it was hot. But I had to agree finishing together was a thousand times more satisfying.

“It won’t be much longer. Speaking of which, how is the training going?” He’d decided to take Jules’s suggestion and go through Mississippi State testing so that he could join the sheriff’s office and work with his dad. The three months we were spending apart was not only so I could get things settled and squared away in Denver but so he could focus on the training and his future in law enforcement with the minimum of distractions. The job opportunity was only one of the reasons that I ultimately decided it made more sense for us to look at building a life in Lowry instead of Denver. As feisty and fierce as she was, Elma Mae wasn’t getting any younger and I didn’t want to take Church away from whatever time he had left with her considering the years he had squandered. He might be willing to drop everything and be where I wanted to be, but what I really wanted was to be there for him as he made things right with the people that he loved.

Plus I liked Lowry. I liked the slower pace of things and the laid-back vibe, especially since Kallie had finally come clean and told my parents the wedding was off. She refused to tell them why and as a result Wheeler was persona non grata in the Carmichael home due to my parents’ belief that it had been something he’d done, that he was the one at fault for everything falling apart. I begged Kallie to come clean, to tell my parents and Wheeler the truth about why she was willing to lose everything but she refused. So everything was a mess that I felt caught in the middle of and I’d made the decision that Church was right, none of it was mine to worry about, not my circus and not my clowns. What was mine needed to be back home making amends.

Frankly I couldn’t wait to watch Dalen play football and to help Elma make cookies. Church had already found an adorable home similar to Jules’s in a neighborhood close by to rent. He told me I was in charge of making it a home because he didn’t have a clue what that meant. His only requirements were a garage for the Harley, a big TV and a comfortable couch in front of it, and of course a big-ass bed with me in it. I could give him all those things and I was dying to do so.

“Training is fine. I guess it’s like riding a bike, you never forget the basics no matter what they apply to.”

“I think it’s more likely that some men were born to protect and serve others and you happen to be one of them. It doesn’t seem hard because it was what you were meant to do.”

He snorted. “You always think the best of everyone, me included.” There was a long pause and then he sighed. “Don’t ever stop doing that. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

I laughed a little and got up when I heard Dolly making noise in the living room. She had no use for me when I was a puddle of goo after Church talked me into a bone-melting climax.