Chapter 5 Kingston
KINGSTON
I kissed her like it was the first time and the last time all at once.
Her mouth moved with mine… hot, hungry, and furious.
I couldn't tell where the pain ended and the want began. Her hands fisted the front of my shirt, tugging me closer like she couldn’t get deep enough, fast enough, like she'd been holding everything inside as long as I had.
Fourteen years. Fourteen years of silence, pain, and sleepless nights, all crashing into one breathless moment on a mountain during a snowstorm.
When she pulled back, her breathing was ragged, her cheeks flushed. She stared up at me, lips parted, and in her eyes, I saw everything I’d given up. Everything I still wanted. Everything I could never deserve.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said, brushing my thumb across her jaw. “But I can’t stop.”
She didn’t pull away. Her body pressed against mine, soft and warm through the fabric of my sweatshirt. Her pulse jumped beneath my fingers as I tipped her chin up. “Tell me to stop, and I will,” I said. “But if you don’t—”
She surged forward and kissed me again. There wasn’t a sliver of doubt left between us.
I backed her toward the bedroom slowly, giving her time to change her mind.
But Scarlett didn’t hesitate. Her hands slid under the hem of my shirt, palms hot against my skin, and the feel of her touch after craving it for so long almost made my knees buckle.
The storm roared outside, but inside, the world narrowed to the quiet thump of our hearts, the scrape of my zipper coming undone, and the soft sounds of clothes falling to the floor.
She peeled my shirt off, her fingers tracing the scar that cut across my ribs. Her brows furrowed, her gaze catching on the worst of it. Even after all these years, the jagged raised line looked angry. I turned away without thinking, instinct tightening my shoulders.
“Don’t,” she said. Her hand landed on my chest, over my heart. “You don’t have to hide from me.”
Her words undid me. I caught her mouth again, a low sound escaping as I backed her toward the bed.
She knelt on the edge of the mattress then pulled me down with her.
The heat between us flared. There was nothing tentative, nothing shy about the way she touched me.
She kissed like she fully intended on leaving a mark. And for fuck’s sake, I wanted her to.
When I slid my hand up her thigh, she arched against me, her breath catching. “Kingston…”
“Tell me what you need…”
“You. Just you.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as I kissed the curve of her neck.
My hands moved over her like a prayer, re-memorizing the places I’d only seen in my dreams. She wasn’t the same girl I’d left behind.
She was stronger and fiercer. But the way she responded to me…
every sigh, every moan, every shiver… was familiar in a way that gutted me.
I took my time. I wasn’t rushing this. Not with her.
When we finally came together, it wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t even just love. It was everything I’d never let myself hope for… a combination of redemption, forgiveness, and something that felt a hell of a lot like coming home.
Scarlett wrapped her legs around me and held me like I was the only solid thing she could count on. I buried my face in the crook of her neck and breathed in the scent of cinnamon and vanilla and promised myself I’d never let her go.
She whispered my name like a secret, like she’d never stopped saying it even after all this time. When she shattered under me and I followed her over the edge, I swear something broke loose inside my chest. Something cold and hard and buried deep. It was hope. Real, terrifying, impossible hope.
I didn’t know what would happen in the morning. I didn’t know if she’d still look at me the same once the sun rose and the storm passed and the real world came crashing in. But for one night Scarlett Monroe was mine again. And I wasn’t letting go.
After, she laid next to me, her cheek on my chest, her breath warm and steady as it ghosted across my skin. My arm wrapped around her, my fingers splayed across her bare back, holding her like I didn’t know how to let go. Because I didn’t.
I’d pictured this moment in my mind for so long, I’d worn the edges smooth from turning it over and over again.
But nothing I’d imagined had prepared me for how it felt to have her in my arms again and the way her body fit against mine.
Our hearts even beat in time together, like we still moved in the same rhythm after all these years.
“I never stopped,” I said as I brushed my lips over her temple.
She didn’t move. Didn’t have to ask me what I meant.
“I tried to forget you,” I continued. “Tried to tell myself you’d be better off with someone who hadn’t done time. Someone who hadn’t been beaten until he saw stars. Someone who didn’t walk around with ghosts for company. But it never worked.”
Her fingers trailed lightly across my chest. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”
I let out a soft laugh that hurt more than it should’ve. “That’s what you said the last time I saw you, right before my mom moved us to Chicago.”
“It was true then. Still is now.”
I stared at the ceiling and let the quiet stretch between us.
She wasn’t going to make this easy for me.
Maybe that’s exactly what I needed… someone who saw the cracks and didn’t pretend they weren’t there.
The storm still howled outside, but it felt far away now.
Like the worst of it had passed and all that was left was this thick blanket of white that I wanted to burrow under and never leave.
“You should have sent the letter,” she said, her voice calm but tired. “Even if it didn’t change anything. I deserved to know the truth.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard. “I thought I’d let you go, Scarlett… but I was keeping myself in limbo.”
She tilted her face up toward mine. “What happens now?”
I didn’t have an answer, and maybe that was the most honest thing I could admit. “I don’t know. I want to say this changes everything, but we’re not the same people we were.”
Her expression didn’t soften. “You’re right. We’re not. I’m not that girl who would have followed you anywhere.”
“I know,” I said again. “But I’m still the man who’d die to keep you safe.”
Scarlett reached up and brushed her thumb over the scar that ran from the corner of my eye to my jaw. “You don’t have to protect me from you, Kingston.”
“I’m not sure I know how to stop.”
“Then we start slow.” Her voice was quiet, but sure. “We start honest.”
I nodded, a strange mix of fear and relief coursing through me. “Okay,” I said. “Honest.”
She rested her head against my chest again, her fingers curling lightly around mine. For the first time in years, I let myself believe that maybe I hadn’t lost her forever after all.
Scarlett
I should’ve been afraid. Not because I didn’t want him, but because I’d spent years building walls he could never scale, stitching myself together with spite and silence and the lies I told myself about being over him.
But lying next to him with nothing between us but the afterglow of having him inside me, I wasn’t afraid. I was home.
His arms tightened around me like he could feel the shift. Like his heart knew mine had cracked open in surrender.
“You okay?” he whispered, his lips brushing my hairline.
I nodded. “Are you?”
He hesitated. “Not even a little.”
I smiled against his chest. He was being honest. That meant something.
I rolled toward him, draping my leg over his hip as I shifted to face him.
The light from the lantern on the nightstand flickered across his face, softening the scar he’d tried to hide.
He looked at me like I was the most precious thing he’d ever touched. Like I was breakable.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like I might disappear.”
His hand came up to brush a curl from my cheek. “You’ve been gone for a long time.”
I swallowed, heat pooling low in my belly. “So have you.”
The words hung between us a moment, heavy with everything we hadn’t said. Then I kissed him. This time, there was no hesitation. No space for anger or regret. Only skin and want and the deep, aching need to remember each other again.
Kingston groaned low in his throat, flipping us gently until I was under him.
His body settled over mine like he’d been carved to fit me, and the second our mouths met again, I was lost. His hands skimmed my waist, my ribs, the curve of my hip.
Everywhere he touched, fire followed. I arched into him, desperate for more.
“I missed you,” I gasped between kisses, my voice rough with need. “So much it broke me.”
“I know,” he whispered, his mouth trailing down my throat. “I broke too.”
I pulled him closer. “Then let’s stop breaking and start putting each other back together again.”
“Starting now,” he said.
What happened next wasn’t slow and reverent.
It was desperate and wild and full of years we couldn’t get back.
We kissed like we were trying to rewrite time.
Ran our hands over each other like we were trying to memorize everything we’d lost. And we came together like we might not ever get the chance again.
When he drove inside me, the years disappeared.
He filled me completely, our bodies fitting back together like we’d never been apart.
His mouth found mine again, swallowing every sound I made.
I clung to him, my fingers digging into his back, my legs locked around his hips, holding him close while he moved with the kind of reverence that shattered me all over again.
This wasn’t sex. It was a reclamation. A resurrection of what we’d had before and what we could have again.
And when I came apart in his arms, it wasn’t just my body that gave in.
It was every part of me that had ever loved him. Every part that still did.