Chapter 11 #2
“Billy backs me up, and Wallace, if I need it. You didn’t need to—”
“What? Worry about you? Of course I worried. Billy and Wallace aren’t me.
I”—he pointed to his chest—“didn’t know if you were safe.
I felt like I was leaving you to the wolves every time I went out that door to do my fucking job, and it was killing me.
I didn’t know if you were going to be there when I got back. ”
Did he believe he was the only one who felt that way?
“I’m sorry… What the hell do you think I felt when you left?
Your chance of dying was much higher when you went out the door than mine ever could be.
Did I once tell you not to go? Did I once say anything that wasn’t supportive?
Every time you went out the door, I couldn’t breathe until you returned.
But I kept that terror to myself, because it wouldn’t help you.
I just threw myself into work, marking time until you showed up again. ”
Cross’s eyebrows went up. “You never once said you didn’t want me to go. Not once did you tell me you were worried about me.”
“Because I know that doesn’t help. I didn’t tell Mac, either, but I worried about him, too. I didn’t want to put that on you or him. I didn’t dump you over it.”
“No, you just never said anything. I…thought it didn’t matter to you.
That you didn’t…care.” He ran a hand through his hair again.
“I thought you didn’t love me the way I loved you, and I didn’t think I could live with it if you got hurt while I was away.
Or worse, if I came back and you’d moved on with someone else. ”
Drew’s knees went weak, and she thought she might be ill. “You dumped me because you thought I didn’t love you?” she demanded, her voice breaking on the last two words.
Cross nodded once.
“I loved you more than anything or anyone else in my life. I was devastated when you dumped me. Fucking crushed! You told me I was too much to deal with. That broke me. It’s taken me ages to put myself back together and all because you were afraid to get your ego bruised or your heart broken?”
She whirled away from him, looking for somewhere to go, but there was nowhere to hide. This was all too much. Her system was in overdrive. She needed to get away. To be far away from Cross so she could deal with his confession.
He grabbed her arm and swung her back around.
Moonlight streamed through the cracked slats in the wall, turning the small room into silver and shadow. Cross was so close she could smell the soap on his skin, and the heat radiating off his chest was blistering.
“Drew,” he murmured, but she started shaking her head. She couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t breathe. Their gazes locked, and he reached for her at the same time she grabbed the front of his jeans. Their mouths crashed together, all fury and ache and desperation.
She tasted anger and longing in his kiss, and gave it right back, her hands already dragging down his zipper.
She wanted him. Wanted everything to go back the way it was.
She needed this. Needed him. The feel of him.
The weight of him. Proof that she was enough, not just to herself but for him.
Proof that he still cared and that he was still hers, even if only for tonight.
They stumbled back toward the cot. Cross stripped off her shirt in one smooth tug, his hands hot and reverent against her skin.
She climbed onto the mattress as he followed, sliding between her thighs.
The mosquito net brushed over them like a veil, making it feel more private somehow—like they were cocooned in some fever dream.
“You’re shaking,” he said, fingers tracing her ribs.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed. “Don’t you dare stop.”
His mouth sealed over hers again, slower this time, deliberate.
He mapped her body like he’d never forgotten a single inch.
She arched into him as his hand slid down between her legs, teasing her through her panties before tugging them off.
She moaned into his mouth when he slid a finger inside her, slow and deep, curling just enough to make her hips buck.
“God, Cross—”
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against her throat. “I always had you, honey.”
Her hands scrambled at his jeans, pushing them down. She wrapped her fingers around him, and he groaned, deep and low. She loved that sound. Missed that sound. Missed him. His weight, his body, the way he knew exactly how to touch her, to pull her apart and put her back together again.
He shoved his jeans down just far enough and positioned himself at her entrance. “Last chance to stop,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t you dare give me that out.”
His eyes flared. And then he was inside her, one long, slow thrust that filled her completely, stole her breath.
She gasped and clutched at his shoulders, back arching as he began to move.
It was everything she remembered. And more.
Slower. Rougher. Charged with all the pain and heat they’d buried under years of silence.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and met every thrust, her nails digging into his back as he drove them both toward the edge. Sweat slicked their skin, the air thick and humid, the sound of their bodies colliding muffled by the buzz of insects and the creak of the cot.
“Say my name,” he groaned.
“Cross—” she gasped. “God, yes—Cross—”
His rhythm faltered, his control fraying as he reached between them, circling her clit with his thumb.
She shattered around him, crying out as pleasure ripped through her, white-hot and blinding.
Her whole body clenched, holding him tight as he groaned her name and followed her over, hips thrusting once… twice, before he spilled inside her.
They lay tangled in the sheets, breathless and shaking, the world reduced to the thud of their heartbeats and the warm press of skin on skin.
She didn’t speak. Neither did he. Because there were no words for what just passed between them.
Only the knowledge that something had cracked open between them again—something she wasn’t sure they could ever close.
She knew as she lay there that her only way of surviving was to get as far away from Cross Morgan as possible.