Chapter 9
NATALIE
I pushed through the throng of bodies, ignoring the high fives and teasing comments like I hadn’t just fled a karaoke stage like it was on fire.
My hand found the door to the alley, and I shoved it open, welcoming the slap of cold air like it was salvation.
It stung. Good. Maybe it would freeze the chaos boiling beneath my skin.
The night bit at my exposed arms, but I didn’t care. I leaned against the cold, unforgiving brick wall, gulping air like it might smother the ache in my chest. Like it might cool the flush in my cheeks or the memory of his voice crooning Christmas lyrics like he meant every word.
Would it always feel like this? Would there ever be a time when I could be near him without it cracking open every carefully sealed scar? When I could hear that voice… that name …without feeling like my heart was trying to claw its way out?
“You’re a badass bitch, Natalie,” I whispered to myself. “You don’t cry in alleys over boys. You cry in bathrooms like a lady .”
And then, because fate was clearly a drama queen, the door behind me creaked open. A gust of humid bar air rushed out, carrying the scent of beer and sugar cookies and the sound of my impending emotional doom.
My stomach dropped .
It was him.
“Natalie.”
Just my name. Three syllables, soft and gravelly and rough like it had gotten caught on something on the way out of his throat. I didn’t have to turn around to feel the heat of him, standing just a few feet away.
I didn’t move. “What do you want, Easton?”
My voice came out sharper than I intended, but maybe that was good. Maybe sharp would keep him at a distance. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, focused on the twinkling Christmas lights reflecting off a puddle like they might hold the answers to this cosmic disaster of a reunion.
“Why did you follow me?”
“I’d follow you anywhere.”
His words were a sucker punch—gentle but powerful, soft but devastating. They hit like a snowball to the chest. The good kind. The worst kind.
His boots crunched softly on the gravel as he took a step closer.
I blinked hard, the world swaying slightly.
“What did you just say?” I finally whispered hoarsely, more to the shadows than to him.
My fingers pinched my forearm, hard enough to leave a mark, because this had to be a dream.
A glitch in the simulation. A Christmas movie hallucination brought on by too much rum punch and sexual frustration.
When he didn’t answer, I turned toward him, unable to stop myself.
Easton was leaning against the wall a few feet away, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat, his jaw tight, and those stupid, breathtaking green eyes fixed on me like I was something he was afraid to blink and miss.
I couldn’t help it, I traced the stubble on his face, a brief thought flickering through my head, wondering how the man in front of me would compare with the boy he’d been.
How much more experience he had …
Don’t think about that , Natalie !
Easton looked out of place in the cold, grungy alley, like now he could only belong under stage lights or on a movie screen. Except those eyes? Those were mine. They always had been.
And they were burning me alive.
“Don’t say things like that,” I said, my voice cracking under the weight of it all. “You don’t mean them.”
His brow furrowed, that cocky grin nowhere in sight. He pushed off the wall and stepped toward me, each movement slow, deliberate—like I was a deer about to bolt and he didn’t want to spook me.
“What if I do?”
I instinctively stepped back, only to be stopped by the wall behind me. The cold seeped through my clothes, but I barely felt it. He was too close now. Not quite touching…but close enough that I could feel the tension crackling in the space between us like static before a lightning strike.
“We’re over, Easton,” I said, trying to sound firm. Like I believed it. “Remember? We agreed it was for the best. It’s been a long time. We don’t need to do this. We don’t need to rehash things just because of this wedding.”
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “ We agreed?”
The sarcasm hit hard, sharp as sleet.
“I don’t remember getting a say in it at all, actually.”
My breath caught, shame threading through me like smoke. I looked away, but that only made it worse…because now I could feel his gaze travel across my face, lingering at my mouth like he could still taste me there.
“Regardless, Easton. We’ve been over for a long time.”
The words came out stronger than I felt, because if I had one more second to breathe him in, I was going to forget how sentences worked.
“Then why do I feel like this?”
His voice was low now…rough, frayed around the edges like it had been rubbed raw by years of silence. He moved closer, sl ow and deliberate, like he was stalking a truth he didn’t want to admit.
“Why can’t I stop thinking about you? Tell me when this is supposed to leave my system, Natalie, because fuck knows I’ve tried.”
My heart thudded so hard I was sure he could hear it. Maybe the whole damn town could.
The rawness in his voice knocked the breath from my lungs, scraping away every wall I’d spent the last two years trying to build. His gaze locked on mine, searing and desperate, and so heartbreakingly real it felt like a punch straight to the soul.
He was too close now. His scent, pure temptation, wrapped around me like a cloak, dragging old memories out of their shallow graves.
“We’ve both moved on,” I forced out, but the words sounded tinny. Weak. Like I was trying to convince the wrong audience. Namely, myself.
“You have a whole other life now.”
“A life that feels like nothing when you’re not in it,” he said, stepping even closer, his voice like fire wrapped in silk. “Guess what, Trouble? I was right. None of it matters if you’re not there.”
I blinked up at him, my pulse hammering. An alarm screamed in my brain. Danger, Natalie, Danger . But my body wasn’t listening. It had gone rogue the second he’d said my name.
He was everywhere. His heat, his breath, the brush of his coat against my shirt, the way his eyes didn’t look at me, but into me. I felt stripped down to my most vulnerable layer.
“You don’t mean that,” I whispered, even as my voice trembled. Because I wanted so badly to believe he did. That this wasn’t just a heat-of-the-moment confession or some whiskey-laced nostalgia.
He reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek, and I felt it all the way to my knees. I shivered…not from the cold, but from the soft reverence in his touch.
And then I leaned into it. Just a little. Just enough.
I shouldn’t have.
An image flashed in my mind. Him on the red carpet beside his first costar, Raylyn Lareux.
Her perfect hair, her even more perfect collarbone, his arm slung casually around her like he belonged there.
I’d stared at that photo for an hour, trying not to crumble.
Then I’d gone out and let some faceless guy kiss me, trying to drown out what I’d seen.
Just in case you were wondering…I’d still felt everything.
“We’ll get it out of our systems,” I blurted, the idea crashing into me like a drunk wedding guest. Desperate, messy, maybe genius.
Easton blinked. “What?”
“There’s clearly…something. Lingering tension. Leftover feelings. Ghosts of orgasms past. Whatever . But it’s obvious that this—us—it could never work again.”
He scoffed, and I immediately pressed a finger to his lips.
“Don’t.” I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t say anything romantic or sweet or funny. We are being logical .”
His lips twitched under my finger, and he kissed it. Kissed it .
Like he was trying to destroy me with that mouth alone.
I snatched my hand away like he’d burned me. “You’ve officially lost your mind.”
“And yet,” he murmured, inching even closer, “you’re still here.”
I realized, suddenly, that his hand had found its way to my waist. His fingers had slipped beneath the hem of my dress, where they now brushed slow, hypnotic circles against my skin. My stomach fluttered like it had swallowed an entire flock of nervous pigeons.
“I don’t know, Nat,” he said, voice low and frayed like something unraveling. His hand tightened on my waist, fingers digging in just enough to make my pulse stutter. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to play at pretending this is casual.”
I froze.
He leaned in, his breath brushing the shell of my ear, his body a whisper away from mine.
“When I’ve already gone years starving for…”
My mouth went dry. “Starving for what?”
He leaned in more, his chest brushing against mine, the contact so light it felt like a promise. His eyes, those devastating green eyes, pinned me in place.
“A taste,” he said, his voice like a caress. “Of you.”
His words settled into my skin like heat, like a threat, like a promise.
And then his hand slid up, cupping my jaw, his thumb brushing just beneath my cheekbone with the kind of gentleness that made something inside me break.
His fingers pressed into my skin—not roughly, but firmly, like he was holding something precious, like if he let go, I’d disappear into the cold night air.
I’d been missing that. The one-night stands I’d collected like sad trophies to try to forget him…
the football player who had cheated on me without a thought.
None of them had touched me like this. Like they couldn’t believe I was real.
No one had ever kissed me like they were both worshiping me and punishing themselves at the same time.
Easton’s lips touched mine…and the world stopped.
I forgot the cold. I forgot the party. I forgot the past and the future and the part where I was supposed to have moved on. All I knew was him . The soft press of his mouth against mine. The heat of his breath. The way he tasted like mint, whiskey, and something unreasonably addictive.
It wasn’t just a kiss.
It was a slow, soul-level detonation.