Slow Burn

Chapter 21

The emotion I feel is so strong that I don’t think I can speak, so I try to show him. I press my lips to his as my hands roam down the strong lines of his back. I’m desperate as hell to take and sate and feel, but at the same time I want to linger and memorize every sound and taste and sensation.

“Haddie.” He murmurs my name, an oath and a curse at the same time, and I steal anything else he planned on saying by slipping my tongue between his lips and taking everything I need to keep the seams holding myself together from unraveling.

“Make me feel, Becks.” And this time when I ask, when I whisper it against his lips, it’s not to make me forget the grief of Lexi’s death but rather to own the emotions I now feel for him. The ones I can’t deny anymore.

Together we begin the slow dance of undressing, removing his shorts, lifting up my skirt, and pulling down my panties because right now we both need this connection between us more than anything. I sit up and push him back, my hands on his shoulders, my lips on his. I move my hands ever so slowly so that my fingernails scrape down the firm lines of his chest until I hold his cock in my hand. And the feeling, the notion that I can make him so hard, so fast, is a powerfully intoxicating one.

He groans out as I encircle him and stroke my hand up and back over his steeled length. I drag my mouth from his, my lips tasting the salt on his skin, my nose breathing in his scent, my hands feeling him pulse and ask for more without words. I lick and nip at the flat disks of his nipples, earning me a hiss of breath and a hand fisted in my hair in response. His hand urges me farther down his body with a hurried desire while I prefer to take my time. To lick, and kiss, and tempt him with my mouth. To kill him with the slow descent so that by the time I reach the crest of his dick, the anticipation is so intense, he’ll lose that stoic restraint and cry out my name like he owns it.

I slide my mouth over his infinity zone, and when my nipples scrape through the fabric of my bra over the top of his thighs, I moan at the eroticism that just heightens every single incredible sensation. I finally reach his cock and pump it once in my hand while I close the wet heat of my mouth around the crest. Becks’s hips jerk in reaction and “Fuck, Had,” falls from his mouth, and his hand fists even tighter in my hair.

I position my body so that I’m sitting astride one of his thighs, my own sex grinding against his leg with each draw up and down of my mouth on his dick. I lick my tongue along the underside of his shaft, adding pressure there before sliding back up and circling the crest. I tease him like this a bit more, only allowing my lips to close over his head and denying the rest of his length the suction of my mouth while my own body trembles from the sensations I’m creating for myself.

His fist in my hair urges me to slide him all the way in my mouth while his other softly caresses my cheek and underside of my chin in an oddly intimate way for this carnal action. I take my time with licks, my fingers teasing his balls with scrapes of fingernails and then a gentle pulling motion down and away when they tighten up.

“Goddamn it, Had. Suck me.” His voice breaks, and his hips urge up in a plea as I moan, my clit getting the perfect friction with his movement. “Fuck me with your mouth.”

And his words urge me on to give him what he wants. To bring him the pleasure he deserves for always being such a generous lover with me. I place my head over him and slide him all the way into my mouth until I can feel him hit the back of my throat. And when I do, I remain still for a moment until I can’t take it anymore before I slide it slowly back out, hollowing my cheeks and adding suction with the withdrawal.

I love the strangled groan my action causes and the thrill that shoots through my body at being able to give this to him, do this to him. I continue my movements, varying the pressure of my tongue, the degree of suction until his hand is urging me to go faster and faster. I give in to his demands and start working him with both my hand and my mouth, my own ache intensifying as he gets harder and larger from the increased flow of blood.

And I think he’s just on the verge of coming—I’m so wrapped up in bringing him to the cusp that I don’t realize he’s sat up some—when he grabs at my shoulders and yanks my body up so that his lips can meet mine. The man kisses me with complete abandon and total ownership. He stakes a claim that I’ve already handed him, but it doesn’t stop him. His tongue continues to brand me, lips bruising and hands urging my hips up and over his all the while.

One hand holds my face still so that I’m a willing victim to his barrage of mouth intercourse while his other hand lines his cock up at my wet and willing entrance. I can feel the width of his head there, ready to divide and conquer yet claim my heightened emotions with physicality as he deepens our kiss, pouring everything and then some into it. This feeling is twenty times more overwhelming than any sex I’ve ever had.

Letting a man claim me with his cock is one thing, but letting Becks kiss me senseless and own my response is more moving, more intimate than anything I’ve ever given any man before.

He’s opened me up, made me vulnerable, made me his.

He leans back and stares at me, our breaths mingling just as our hearts are. “Can you feel that, Haddie? I know you can, know there’s not a chance in hell you can deny what’s between us anymore. Feel this, feel me…. Want this, want me.” Our eyes hold, and then he leans in and brushes his lips to mine in a soft and tender assault to my senses once again.

And then the moment his hands urge my hips down and he pushes his pelvis up—the moment we join our bodies—I can feel my heart tumble endlessly out of control to that deep, dark corner I can’t reach, even if I stretch my muscles and fingertips as far as I can to try to grab it back. But I can’t. Don’t know if I could reach it if I’d want to reclaim it.

Because I’ve just fallen in love with Beckett Daniels.

The idea hits me as his cock bottoms out in my clenching sex, and my head falls back as I gasp.

Becks’s mouth descends to my exposed neck as we both move in unison to give our bodies what we need to climb that peak that’s just within reach. My teeth find my bottom lip as I lose myself in the moment, accept the feelings and sensations, and drown in the chance he wants us to take.

I moan with the movements, both the feelings they create and the touch of his hands urging me on. His mouth leaves my neck, and I find myself looking into his eyes as one of his hands moves from the side of my neck to my right breast, his thumb pulling the fabric down and grazing over my taut nipple to send shock waves through my body at the mind-numbing sensation. I cry out, urge him to continue, our eyes locked on each other’s so that we can see the pupils darken and widen as we chase our pleasure.

And when it hits, when the desire skyrockets into an explosion of heat and sensation that pulls me under its addictive haze, I can’t focus on anything else but letting it take me for its incredible, serendipitous ride. My body trembles, and my walls pulse around Becks as he tries to still himself so that I can feel the full impact of my climax.

“Haddie …” My name is a guttural groan on his lips as his hands dig tightly into my bare flesh and his hips rock into mine, emptying himself into me. His mouth finds my shoulder, his teeth pressing there as he comes, the slightly painful sensation causing my own muscles to tighten around him in an unexpected arousing response.

We sit there for a few moments, our hands lazily stroking up and down each other’s backs as the sweat that mists our skin dissipates with the cool afternoon breeze sliding over us like a blanket in this outdoor haven.

After a bit he pulls away and just stares at me, the intimacy of his look so profound that I know I can no longer deny either of us the chance at what could be, regardless of whatever the future holds. He angles his head to the side and whispers ever so softly, “You’re beautiful. You know that?”

And I want to laugh, want to tell him that I’m sure I must look it right now, with grass in my hair and covered in sweat and my bra half off, but there’s something in the way he says the words, something in the expression on his face that stops me, moves me, undoes me … because I realize that he calls me beautiful as if it were my name.

Even looking like this, I’m beautiful to him.

My heart swells with so many things, I can’t compartmentalize for once, so I let them take over—all of them—and own the moment for me. I reach up and frame his face in my hands and lean forward and press my lips to his, the emotion so great within me that I don’t want him to see it in my eyes just yet. I’m too exposed, too vulnerable right now, so I use that to fuel my need for this innocent action with him.

He accepts the soft sigh of a kiss I offer him, and we slip into it, prolonging the intimacy between us. I shift some, and he slips from within me as his mouth leaves mine and begins a trail of kisses down the line of my neck. My body, which was so satisfied moments ago, no longer is. Fuck, the man knows how to make me lose my focus and render me thoughtless with just the touch of his lips. It’s just freakishly wrong how much he affects me.

“Damn, City,” he whispers to me between kisses. I can feel him beginning to harden slowly against my thigh and marvel at his recovery time but most definitely have no complaints with it.

He laughs softly, the vibration rumbles against my skin as I score my fingers up his arms, the only thing I can do coherently. He pulls back, and his laugh is more earnest, and I tilt my head down to look at him.

“Your ladybug friend has decided to beat me to the chase here,” he says with amusement in his tone.

I’m unsure what he means, and so I look down just in time to see him reach a finger beneath the lace cup of the left side of my bra. He tugs it down so that the little ladybug, who’s obviously preferring to be a horny toad, can escape unscathed. I’m so scattered from the sex, my tumult of emotions, his mouth, and this little distraction that I react about five seconds too late to prevent it.

And I’m such a dumb shit, angry at myself for being so lost in the damn moment that I try to cover the jagged edge of stitches sticking out beneath the steri strips before he can see it. But I’m way too late.

“Haddie?” His voice is even, but the concern and confusion lacing through it is obvious to my ears.

I shove back off him immediately—and I catch him off guard so that I’m able to escape the confines of his arms. I’m panicked and unsure what to do, so I do the only thing my mind can grasp. I grab my discarded panties and clean myself quickly before tugging my skirt down, picking up my tank top, and then striding off across the field with so many thoughts I can’t think straight.

I can hear Becks behind me, swearing up a storm, as he pulls his shorts on, but I don’t care. All I can think of is the question that’s coming and how I’m going to answer it when he knows that scar and the stitches weren’t there two weeks ago. My head swims with uncertainty, and it’s prompting me to run once again, but the problem is, where in the hell am I running to? I’m in the middle of Bum-fuck Egypt, and I have no transportation.

But I don’t even get a chance to contemplate what comes next because Rex is barking and circling around me in excitement, and I’m shoving my tank top over my head, and it’s all tangled, and I’m flustered and frustrated.

And scared.

Scared because I just let him in, and now I’m probably going to have to shut him out. Fuck, damn, shit.

“Goddamn it! Stop, Haddie. Stop!” I can hear the plea in his voice, and I try to ignore it so that it doesn’t faze me. I keep walking, keep moving to expel the frantic energy that has me doing anything but standing still. “Had! There’s nowhere to go.” His voice is firmer now, more resolute, and I know he’s right, but I just don’t want to do this right now.

But my feet falter, and the mixture of the sun and my anxiety makes me feel like my skin is on fire. I know he’s closing the distance, can hear his feet crunch the ground along with his muttered curses, so I try to withdraw, prepare to disengage. Hope I can remain that way.

My arms are crossed over my chest in a protective gesture in more ways than one, and I step into the shade of a huge oak tree, head down, thoughts racing. I shrug out of his grip as his hand lands on my shoulder. It’s stupid on my part, really. Like I’m actually going to escape him, but I trudge on, hoping avoidance will help in whatever context it might come.

“You can’t run forever, Montgomery.” His words stop me. My steps falter, and my body deflates because I know he’s right, know that I’ve been running, but I’ve been doing it for so long, it seems that I don’t know how not to anymore.

My back is to him. Rex sits in front of me with his tongue lolled out and his head angled up at me in anticipation, like I have a ball I’m going to throw for him. Becks’s harsh breathing fills the space between us, and my heartbeat rages in my ears.

I close my eyes when I feel Becks’s hands on my shoulders, steel my body for the heat of his touch and the rush of words to come out of my mouth. But nothing comes. My thoughts are so jumbled and my mind is trying so hard to figure out what to say that my mouth falls open and then closes several times before shutting again.

“Hey.” The tenderness in his tone as he pulls me back against the solidity of his chest causes everything in me to feel as if it weighs a thousand pounds. And it does because the effort it is going to take to navigate this minefield is going to be unforgiving. Becks wraps his arms across my chest, cautious of my stitches, and just holds me tight. He presses a kiss to the curve of my neck and then rests his chin on my shoulder. “I’m trying not to be pushy here. I’m trying to let you have a moment to explain to me what I just saw and why you got spooked and ran … but you’re scaring the hell out of me right now. Your silence, you running … all of it’s scaring me.”

I bite my bottom lip to stifle the quivering of my chin and to allow me a moment to fortify my voice with the confidence I don’t have but need him to think I do. “The night at your place …,” I begin, my hands fisted and my body rigid, not wanting to accept any of his comfort right now. Needing to get through this, be strong, not break. “I woke up. Something felt pinched. I swore that I was imagining things. Spent like forever trying to prove otherwise, but I found a lump.” His arms flex ever so slightly in response, and I’m grateful that he stays silent. “I freaked out. Left and went to the doctor as soon as possible, had a biopsy where they removed whatever it was. That’s it.” I try to add a bit of insignificance in my voice, play it off, but when I hear his unsteady inhale, I know he doesn’t believe me.

I begin to pull away from him, but his arms remain steadfast in their hold. “Uh-uh,” he murmurs against my shoulder, the heat of his breath hitting the fabric of my tank top and trapping it between his mouth and my skin. “Just give me a minute.”

And so we stand there as he processes what he’s heard, and I try to figure out where to go from here because damn it to hell, I’ve let him in. He’s using all he has to be the can opener to peel back everything I’ve sealed so tight, and that scares me to death.

“What did the biopsy show?” he finally says, and the question hangs in the air like an oppressive cloud.

I swallow the truth I know deep down and aim for cautious optimism in my answer. “I don’t know yet. Any day now.”

He makes an incoherent sound in response, his thumb beginning to rub up and down gently in reassurance. “I’m … I’m having a hard time processing this, Had—”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t intend for anyone to know. I just …”

He releases me and stalks past me a few feet, his shoulders tense, and his emotion transparent in his posture. He starts to talk and stops himself, his hand gripping the back of his neck as he stares at the pond before turning back to look at me. “You didn’t intend for anyone to know?” His anger surprises me. Pity, I expected, disbelief too … not anger. “You think that little of me? You think I’ll take you in my bed but don’t care about you as a person? What the fuck, Had?”

He shakes his head, his eyes boring into mine. I see his hands clench and unclench, his chest rises and falls in anger as we stand in a silent standoff. “You don’t get it, do you?” The question hangs between us, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer it or not, and if I am, what the hell am I not getting? Which part of everything I’ve done to piss him off am I not understanding right now?

He clenches his jaw and looks up to the sky momentarily as if he’s asking for the universe to grant him some patience. When he looks back down, I see hurt in his eyes, and as much as I want to look away, I force myself to hold his gaze, tell myself that this look is nothing compared to what could be there if we held tight to whatever this is between us.

“I care about you, Haddie. I more than care about you.”

“That’s not possible,” I tell him, immediately pushing the thought away. Uh-uh. Not possible. Caring leads to devastation, and I can’t have that on my shoulders. “No strings, remember?” I spit the words off my tongue like they’re acid. Defense mechanism and all that. I see the impact of my statement flicker in his eyes and chastise myself. Crap! How can I feel it’s okay for me to feel like I’m falling for him, and yet I don’t want him to have any feelings for me? But isn’t a woman allowed to be a tad hypocritical when dealing with the bullshit I’ve had to deal with over the past year?

He walks toward me, his eyes narrowing and his mouth set in a firm line. “Fuck you and your goddamn strings. I may be too cynical to believe in love at first sight, Montgomery, but I believe in the click that happens between two people. And you can stand there all you want and lie through those sexy-as-hell lips of yours, tell me there’s nothing between us … but there was a click,” he shouts at me, jabbing his finger in his chest. “And I believe in that click.”

His eyes glare, dare me to deny it, and I can’t bring myself to look away or to refute him. The honesty in his words and the tangibility of him before me readily admitting it are just too much.

He steps closer, a ball of anger, concern, and confusion on continuous rotation. “Why …,” he begins, and then stops, regrouping his train of thought. “Why didn’t you wake me that night? Tell me? Pick up the phone when I called and explain what was going on so that I could have been there for you? I just don’t get it….”

“It’s not your problem.” It’s the easiest answer I have. I’ve told him more than I wanted to, more than I’d planned on, and yet I still feel lost in my decision. I’m not a half-ass kind of person, and yet that’s exactly what I’m being to Becks right now. And a pitifully pathetic one at that.

“There you go again, insulting me,” he says, cynicism dripping from each word. “It’s not my problem, huh? You leaving in the middle of the night, scared and alone? Yeah, you’re right….” He nods. “I wouldn’t care about that? About you? For fuck’s sake, Haddie, you’re not making any goddamn logical sense….” He blows out a loud breath of disbelief.

“Becks …” Any excuses I have die a strangled death on my tongue when hurt flashes once again in his eyes. “I didn’t mean it as an insult….”

He groans in frustrated exasperation. “Please tell me Ry thinks you’re being just as frustratingly stubborn about this as I do.”

I’m not sure how exactly I give myself away, but the brief hesitancy in my movement or the hitch in my breath tells him everything. His eyes widen and his nostrils flare. “What? Un-fucking-believable! You haven’t told her?” His voice rises as he walks away from me and kicks a small log on the ground so that it flies and hits against a tree, dust particles floating into the air.

I focus on those particles shining innocently against the sun’s backdrop. They look so free, so light, and I’d give anything to be one of those right now.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The words flicker into my head—words as tried and true as time—but their significance right now is a bit much for me. I try to shake the images the thoughts evoke from my head and only succeed in becoming more panicked, more desperate.

“There’s nothing to tell yet,” I shout at him, hoping that the escalation of my voice reinforces my statement.

“Yeah, there’s nothing to tell, and yet you haven’t told the person you’re closest to in the whole goddamn world about it. I’m sure you have some oceanfront property in Arizona you want to sell me since you seem to think I’m that fucking gullible.”

His words slap at me and, God, yes, I deserve them but the anger overrides the confusion and disheartened fear. “Fuck you.” My tone is low and even, a chill to it that he doesn’t deserve. How dare he judge me, mock me, come at me in regards to anything with Rylee?

My friend, my business. And then I groan inwardly because he’s right about it on every level, and all of a sudden it hits me that not telling her is still lying, regardless of whatever intention was behind it.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Montgomery?” he challenges as he steps closer, his anger vibrating off him and crashing into me. “You’d prefer to be fucked so mindless that you can’t remember what lies you’re keeping from whom and how many people care about you that you keep treating like crap and pushing away. What kind of game are you playing here? Let’s see how alone I can be? Let’s prove how stubborn I am?” He runs his hands through his hair, exasperated. “It’s like you’re trying to make me second-guess my feelings for you….” His words come out in a burst of heat but then trail off, and I can see the moment it all clicks for him. When the scattered jigsaw pieces of my sporadic and confusing actions suddenly fall into place.

Fuck me running.

Becks’s head angles to the side again, and his eyes narrow. I can see him trying to process what he’s just concluded. He takes another step closer into my personal space, and even though I’m outdoors with nothing around me, my feet are glued to the ground, and I feel like my back is up against a goddamn wall.

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

I can’t speak, so I simply stare at him as my eyes burn with tears I don’t want to shed. I work a swallow down my throat, and I see his eyes track me, struggling to get the words past my lips. His expression softens immediately. Within a second, his arms—the ones I don’t want around me, and yet I want them so desperately at the same—are there, drawing me into him.

I tell myself to fight it, not to accept the comfort because I don’t deserve it, but my body’s innate reaction takes over. My hands grip in the shirt he slipped back on when he chased after me, and my face finds that spot just beneath his chin. His hand is on the back of my head holding me to him, our hearts thundering against each other’s.

The world spins beneath our feet, and nature hums around us, but I feel like time stands still, and I just hold tight to Becks and to that comforting thought.

“I don’t care how hard you push me, Montgomery. I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs into the crown of my head, his hands pressing me farther into him. “You don’t have to do whatever this is alone.”

My emotions spiral into a continual free fall with his admission. I want to tell him that this isn’t anything—him, me, us, a bad diagnosis—but I’m so sick of pushing people out that for once all I want is to pull him in. My hands fist tighter into the fabric as I try to gain some kind of control of my inner turmoil, but it’s useless. We stand there for a moment, both breathing each other in and trying to understand the other’s reactions.

After a bit, when my fingers are relaxed on his shirt but his are still grasping me tight, I say in an even, unemotional voice that surprises even me, “Nothing has happened yet, Becks. Nothing.”

He sighs, and I can feel his jaw clench. “You’re scared so shitless you’re running…. That’s something. That’s more than something.”

I accept his words, know they are the truth, but I still need to warn him away. “I don’t know what it is yet, but I know that if it’s what I fear, asking anyone to stand beside me, suffer as I go through it, deal with the crap that comes with it … the side effects, the aftereffects, the scars inside and out … that’s something I can’t ask of anyone. Ever.”

His fingers dig into my shoulders as he pushes me back so that I’m forced to look into his eyes. They search mine for the remainder of the truths he knows are there but that I won’t voice: life, death, losing my breasts, losing my hair, scars, infertility. I try to guard those fears, not even wanting to go there yet, not wanting to admit those to him.

“And again, I call bullshit on that. You don’t get to choose the people that care about you. You don’t get to make choices for others, tell them how to feel or, better yet, block them out because of what you think they’ll go through.” Anger starts to weave through his voice, despite the soft brush of his thumb over my cheek, a gentle reassurance against the onslaught of chastising words I hear but struggle to accept. “It’s my choice, Ry’s choice how we choose to deal with it … not yours. I just …” His voice trails off as he shakes his head and leans forward so that his forehead rests against mine.

“Becks, I’m just trying to do what’s best for everyone.”

“What’s best?” He pulls back, irritation rising in him again. “God, you stubborn, fucking woman. Quit being a martyr. What’s best is you letting me make my own goddamn decisions and for you to stop lying to me so that I can.” He releases me and paces a few feet, energy so raw he needs to move. “What’s best is you pulling your head out of your ass long enough to realize I care about you, Ry cares about you—”

“I don’t want her to know.” My voice is implacable as I think of the heartache Ry’s endured over the past few years and how I don’t want to add to it until there is a finite answer. I don’t want to add undue stress to her. “And I never lied to you….”

He bites his bottom lip and grimaces. “Fuck!” he growls out to the trees above him, and then rolls his shoulders to dissipate some of the stress I see settling there. “Semantics aren’t an excuse. An omission is the same as lying, Haddie, but you’re missing the point entirely. It’s not whether it was a lie or not. It’s so damn far from that. It’s you using the sex we’ve had to numb yourself when it should do the exact opposite. It should light your body on fire and burrow so deep under your skin that all you think about is the next time you can have me … because fuck if that’s not what you’ve done to me. So I call your bluff. I’ll keep calling it every fucking day until you admit you want me, that being with me does that to you too … but you won’t, will you?” I just remain still, face impassive, body raging with emotion beneath the surface. “You’d rather stand there and tell me you prefer the numb, the void, the nothing, than admit you need me.”

His eyes have their own language as we stare at each other, the power of his words bringing tears to my eyes and knocking the words from my lips. “I was just doing what I thought was best, protecting everyone from more hurt, more everything.” And I hate the numb, I scream silently. I hate it so fucking much that every time we touch you make me feel so alive, I realize how dead I’ve felt inside over the past year.

I don’t know why I don’t tell him the rest. Like if I do, then I’m just sealing my fate by Murphy’s fucking Law so I keep quiet.

“Really? That’s all you’ve got for me? Next time make sure your eyes and your lips match up, City, because you’re just adding insult to injury right now. Your refusal to answer is infuriating. Need me, Haddie. Use me as your goddamn emotional punching bag or your real one, for that matter, but fucking need me. I’m not some schmuck who’s going to bolt at the first rough patch, and the fact that you still don’t see that is a crock.” He blows out a loud breath, jaw clenched, anger palpable. “I’m so fucking pissed, but I’m also so fucking mesmerized by you right now, and I don’t know what the hell to do or say. All I know is that protecting someone from the truth is just another way of shutting them out.”

My eyes snap to his, and I don’t know what to say to him. There are no words to take away the fact that I hurt him, but at the same time, his plea causes my chest to constrict so that I can’t help but feel the swelling of my heart. I try to justify, to apologize by explanation. “Maybe shutting someone out is my way of not forcing someone’s hand to react out of duty or stick it out when the shit starts rolling downhill. Pity by association is not needed, nor is it welcome.”

“By association?” He pulls back. “A formal way to phrase that, don’t you think, considering we were associating in the field over there?”

I try to bite back the smirk that starts to curl up the corners of my mouth at his comment. This conversation has been so damn serious that my nervous energy grabs onto his quip, and I fire one right back without thinking. “Associating? I thought we were clicking.”

Becks’s grin spreads wide, lines around his eyes crinkling as it reaches them, and something about the way he angles his head to the side and looks at me with a combination of amusement and adoration warms parts of me that being physical with him doesn’t. “Oh City, we were most definitely clicking.” He laughs, full and loud, and the sound is so good to hear.

I still have my doubts, my reservations, my fear that if results are not in my favor, I’m dragging him into a bad situation, but for right now, I just want to let the feelings wash over me when I’m with him. To allow myself these moments, the calm before the storm.

And before I can finish rationalizing why I want this man, regardless of all unforeseen circumstances, Becks walks up to me and grabs me without preamble and presses his lips to mine. The kiss is teeming with such a potent combination of emotion that when our tongues meet, I can taste his anger and raw need. His mouth brands mine without apology as he takes and gives us an outlet to explain our feelings without speaking.

Because when kisses like this are involved, speaking is way the fuck overrated.

He eases away from the kiss and pulls me into his arms again, where I welcome the comfort of his body against mine. “I’m sorry for yelling at you, but irrational makes me crazy, and, baby, your line of thinking is nearing that spectrum.” He sighs and kisses the top of my head. “We’re not finished talking about this yet, but I think it’s ridiculous to dwell on something that might not even be an issue, now or in the future. And if there is more to talk about, you will not be hiding it from me.” His hands angle my head up and down so that I am forced to nod in agreement. I laugh at him, feeling lighter than I have in days. “We are, Haddie. You’d best get used to that.”

Those two words hit my ears and ease the weight in my soul a bit, warming me. I mouth the words, “We are,” back to him and I catch the quick flash of a smile before his lips meet mine again.

We sink into the kiss, and he pulls back ever so slightly to reach out and pull something from my hair. “You’ve got leaves in your hair,” he says with a smirk.

“It’s the new style,” I quip.

“Hm.” He glances down at the ground around us, littered generously with leaves. His eyes look back up at me with a wicked gleam in them. “Well, I plan on making you look a helluva lot more stylish, then.”