He shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I hadn’t talked about it in a long time before I told Rubi a while back, when Willow passed her driving test and I got in my feelings about how fast the time passes.”
“How old were you?” Despite Locke’s constant comments about his old age, he was a young dad. Willow would be eighteen in a few days and he was barely out of his thirties.
“Nineteen,” Locke confirmed. “If Wren had been born on her due date, she’d have turned twenty-one tomorrow.”
By choice or by something deeper tugging us towards the willow tree, we started walking again. The silver birch and beech trees thinned out, revealing a clearing that was shadowed by night and likely sun-dappled by day. The willow tree stood proud in the middle, and she was glorious.
We ducked under her sweeping leaves. Locke ran his hands over her trunk, easily finding a carved set of initials without the light from my phone. “Here. Mine and Logan’s are higher up.”
I took his word for that and studied the WH that belonged to his first baby girl. “Did you carve them?”
“Yeah, but I don’t really remember doing it. Just that I did—it was a weird time for me. This sounds fucked up, but I didn’t know how much I loved Wren until she was gone. And even then, I didn’t really get it until Willow was born and I knew for sure what we’d lost.”
We were still holding hands. I let go to slide an arm around his waist, noting that he still felt slimmer than I was used to, and traced the letters with my finger. “How often do you come here?”
“I was here a few months ago, but that was business.” He pointed back the way we’d come. “Before that, I hadn’t been here since the day Nash rode out here to round us all up—me, Ranger, Folk.”
“I don’t visit my parents much. Or Lark.”
“Rubi’s brother?”
“He was my best friend.” I closed my eyes as Lark’s pretty laugh echoed in my head. Forced them open to find sanctuary in Locke instead. “Do you think it’s fate that they both have bird names?”
Lark and Wren.
I felt Locke shrug.
“Maybe.” He claimed the hand that was still tracing the initials of his angel baby and turned me away from the tree.
He kissed me and I melted against him, as lost in him as I’d been since Nash had brought him home.
I’d never seen him before that day. Nash had, and as Locke set me on fire from head to toe, I wondered if this was what Nash had pictured when his attraction to Locke had manifested enough for him to tell me about it.
“I want to watch him fuck you, Orls. Is that weird?”
Not weird at all, but probably a strange thing to be thinking about in front of this sacred tree.
Locke felt that too and spun me away from it, balanced enough for both of us as we danced in the dark. Desire rose between us, but with Mother Nature working against me, it had nowhere to go except the dismantling push and pull of his lips on mine, his hands on the hot skin he found beneath my clothes.
Iachedfor him.Everywhere. My breasts heavy and full, the heat between my legs a filthy beat of frustration that wrenched a groan from my belly.
Locke chuckled. “Horny, queenie?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I believe it.” He tugged me closer, the bulge in his jeans an iron rod against my core. “I think I dreamt about fucking you against a tree once.”
Another groan escaped me. “Not helping. Unless you want to fuck me another way.”
Locke drew back, brows raised so high they disappeared into his hairline. “You’re into that?”
“I’m into anything that’s good, and I figure you and Nash both know how to make that happen by now…together.” Because I knew how hard Locke had got when Nash had been inside him.Fuckinghim. How his low groans had gravelled deeper and rougher until he’d come in me with such intensity that I still felt the pulse of himnow.
“DP. Right.” Locke bit my neck. “Fuckin’hell. You two are going to be the death of me.”
I laughed and let him kiss me senseless again, riding the high of a heady promise.
Too soon, though, he pulled away again and I saw the weight of the elephant in the woods descend through his features.