Chapter 11
RAVEN
What the fuck was that?
It takes my brain a second to process what just happened.
We were arguing…then Connor McBride was suddenly kissing me. And I didn’t shove him away. I didn’t slap him across the face and scream at him for being a barbaric asshole. Instead, I fell into his arms and kissed him back.
Hard.
I don’t understand what’s happening. My brain is too overwhelmed with everything we just said to each other and my body is too buzzed from that kiss.
And I don’t know what causes my feet to move toward the door he just slammed shut. Especially when the lightning and thunder have been sounding outside for the last hour or so and the rain falls even heavier now on the cabin roof.
The last thing I should be doing is going out after him.
This is one of those just let him go kind of moments. Ones I’ve learned are necessary when it comes to Connor McBride over the years. For both our sakes and sanities.
We need space from each other, time to let tempers cool.
Deep down, I know this, but I still pull the door open and step outside.
A flash of lightning splits the sky and illuminates the clearing, along with Connor stalking across it toward the path that will take him toward the river.
“Connor!”
His name gets swallowed by a boom of thunder close enough to make me jump, yet he doesn’t seem at all affected by the storm that’s rolling onto McBride Mountain.
But he was definitely affected back there.
I’ve never seen him so out of control, even in the last several months, when he has seemed to have been unravelling, he’s always managed to conceal the worst of it, to bring himself up here before he truly fell apart.
But the way he woke up from that nightmare, the way he trembled, that terrified, horrified, lost look in his dark eyes, and what he just said… not to mention what he just did.
I can’t let him walk away when he’s like this. Not after what he inferred back there—that there were times he thought about never coming back—permanently. Not after what he said to me about the night he broke my heart which he seems to truly believe.
Despite the rain falling steadily now, I reach back and snag my boots, slip them on without even tying them, and race out after him. They squelch in the mud outside the cabin, and I wince as my t-shirt and jeans that I fell asleep in are almost instantly soaked.
Something tells me I’ll regret this later, but I take off after him, running as fast as I can on the uneven and unfamiliar ground in the boots that are too loose, in the dark that’s only illuminated by the flashes of lightning that occur every few minutes.
By the time I reach the entrance to the path, he’s already on it, several yards into the thick, high trees. The canopy arching above us blocks out the flashes of light, leaving him to flee in the dark.
“Where the hell are you going?”
This time, my voice reaches him.
He freezes mid step, his back and shoulders tensing before he turns his head and looks over his shoulder at me. “What do you care?”
“Jesus Christ, Connor.” I approach him slowly, like he’s a wounded wild animal that might lash out and bite if I get too close, even though all I’m trying to do is free him from the trap he put himself in. “We’re not going to talk about what just happened in there?”
Even in the darkness, I can see his jaw clench and his biceps bulge as he tightens his fists at his sides. “I don’t know what the fuck just happened, Raven.”
Water cascades down his suntanned skin, over his heaving bare chest and rippling abs. Every part of him is so tense that he vibrates the same way the ground under us does with each roll of thunder.
Another explodes somewhere close enough to make me wince, and I glance back to what I can see of the clearing through the trees at the end of the path. “We need to get back inside.”
Connor inclines his head toward the cabin. “You should. I’m fine.”
“You’re definitely not fine, Connor.”
The echo of our earlier words when I woke him from the nightmare only seems to anger him more.
His low growl of warning couldn’t be more clear. “I don’t need you to remind me of that, Raven.”
I throw up my hands, the helplessness of my situation and his role in it overwhelming me. “Then stop pretending you are. And stop pretending that you didn’t just kiss me.”
He winces as if acknowledging that fact hurts him physically.
Maybe he wanted to pretend it didn’t happen.
Maybe he hoped he would come back tomorrow and I would pretend it hadn’t.
Maybe he’s so far gone that he doesn’t even think it was real, just another nightmare that came after the first.
But he’s spent too much time hiding from his demons, including the one that he’s staring at now. He won’t walk away from me again without us having it out about this, without facing what we didn’t all those years ago.
I take three more steps, until I’m so close to him I can feel his body heat radiating through the chilly air and hitting my cold, damp skin.
Lightning flashes overhead, tiny slivers of it sneaking through the canopy above us, and thunder booms. A shiver rolls through me, and instinctively, I want to press into that warmth to escape the storm.
But Connor McBride is the storm.
His mind is a swirling maelstrom of emotions he’s not capable of sorting through or even recognizing.
He is lost twisting in the blustery winds of the hurricane his own actions stirred up.
Both what he did on that homestead to protect his family and what he did that night in a misguided attempt to protect me.
Connor stares me down, blinking away the water collecting on his long, thick dark lashes. “What happened back there was a mistake, Raven. Just like it would’ve been if I had touched you that night.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
He glances away, looking off into the pitch-black to the right of him as if he might find the answer there amongst the endless trees.
“I don’t know. Because I wanted to end the entire conversation.
Because I wanted to shut you up.” His shoulders slump slightly, as if some of the fight is starting to melt away in the falling rain.
“Because I’ve wanted to kiss you since that night. ”
My breath catches in my chest. “What?”
More lightning and thunder split the darkness and shatter the silence, and Connor turns his head back to face me.
All the words he just said in that cabin race through my head, and I struggle to make sense of any of it.
His intense gaze sweeps over me. “You’ve hated me for fifteen years because you thought I didn’t want you that night, because you thought I rejected you, but if anything had happened between us, I would have hated myself.
I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I didn’t want you to make a mistake you were going to regret.
When we were finally together, when I had my first time with the girl I wanted it to be with, I wanted it to be perfect.
Not when we were both so young, and definitely not when you were fucking drunk and incapable of really making that decision. ”
“What?”
His words don’t really register.
They can’t.
Not through the fifteen years of hatred and anger I’ve had pent up against him.
“Then…why have you acted like you’ve hated me for so long?”
“Because you turned into a bitch on wheels with a vendetta against me. Because you acted like I had done something wrong. Because you set your sights on taking me down any way you could and you have for a decade and a half. Because you made me the villain in your fucking story and hung me out to dry and I didn’t understand why. ”
Holy shit.
His words reverberate through my chest the same way the next crack of thunder does, and I struggle with the war raging so violently inside me.
Connor McBride has always sparked something intense in me—emotions that were too big, too real, too much, whether good or bad. Mostly bad.
We spent so long hating each other that we never bothered to figure out why, never wanted to fix it.
Maybe there is no fixing so much time and so many harsh things said to each other.
The wounds we caused each other slinging those barbs and taking each other down to the mat over the years still feel so raw, so open and fresh. At least, to me. So, they must to him, too.
He takes a step closer and lightning flashes again, casting strange pieces of light across the harsh set of his face.
“I’m sorry about what happened in there.” He tips his head toward the cabin again. “You told me you didn’t want me to touch you, and I won’t again.”
Connor starts to walk away, to continue his march toward the river, but I reach out and grab his wrist, stopping him.
“What if I want you to?”
I don’t know where the words come from.
Certainly not me, not from the woman who hates every-fucking-thing about Connor McBride. Not from the woman who despises his arrogance. Not from the woman who loathes his black and white view of the world. Not from the woman who is still fucking livid that he dragged her up here against her will.
But when he fully turns to look at me again, instead of letting him go like I should, I tighten my grip on his wrist.
He glances down at where my much smaller, paler fingers wrap around his strong, tanned skin, and when he looks up again, I close the distance between us and press my lips to his.
Connor goes stock still for a moment, his entire body stiffening before his strong arms wrap around me and tug me up against him. That heat I so badly wanted to lean into earlier seeps into my skin where it presses to his.
He groans against my mouth as the sweet taste of bourbon he must’ve been drinking before he stumbled into the cabin tonight hits my tongue.
Fuck, does he taste good…
Exactly as I always thought he would.
Like something spicy, rugged, dangerous, and forbidden.
He reaches down and grasps my legs, lifting me easily to wrap them around his waist, then he turns and takes several steps, pinning me back against a massive tree along the path.