5. Dean #2
"No." I close the distance between us in two steps, and she doesn't retreat.
My hands come up to her face, tilting it toward me, thumbs catching the tears.
"You are the first person who made me want to stop running.
The only reason I didn't call is because I knew if I heard your voice, I'd never be able to walk away. And I thought you'd be better off."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
"I know that now, too."
She's looking up at me, tears on her cheeks, and I'm holding her face in my scarred, shaking hands, and the space between us is measured in breaths.
“We’ve both got issues,” she says, and her voice is rough and wet.
"Yeah.” I smile. “But maybe we can work on them…together?”
She blinks, and suddenly she kisses me.
The sound we make coming together is like a dam when it finally gives. There’s a rush, a collapse, and everything held back floods forward at once. She grabs my shirt and pulls me into her, and I fold around her as if I'm trying to hold every broken thing in place by sheer force of need.
My back hits the cabin wall and she follows, pressing her body against mine, and the kiss deepens—weeks of anger and wanting and grief and hope all tangled together.
Right now, all that matters is her mouth and her hands and the fact that she's here, she's still here. She didn't walk away from me after I told her the truth.
"Not here," she breathes, pulling back just enough to look at me. Her eyes are dilated and dark. "Someone could walk in."
“How about my cabin?” I say, leaning in to nip her lip.
“Perfect,” she says, with a wicked grin.
I grab her hand and we slip through the trees behind the cabin row, avoiding the fire pit where Ewan's fiddle is reaching for something achingly beautiful. Her fingers thread through mine like they've always belonged there.
When we enter my cabin, it’s dark, but I don’t have much to get in our way. One bed, one chair, a nightstand with a lamp. Obviously, I wasn’t sure how long my time would be here at Timber Run.
I turn on the lamp. She's standing by the door, her hair falling loose from her ponytail, and I think—no more running from the wanting. I’m staying to fight for what I want.
I cross the room to her slowly. There’s no anger or desperation here. Only the two of us and the truth and whatever comes next.
My hand comes up to her face, and she turns into it, pressing her cheek against my palm. Her eyes close and I trace the line of her jaw with my thumb, then the swell of her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “You’re okay with…my past? With…me?” I ask.
She smiles and nods. “I know you’re a good man. That’s what drew me to you in the first place.” She takes a breath. “Whatever you did in the past, is in the past. It’s who you are today that matters. That’s the man who swept me off my feet at the Rustic Ridge.”
With that I lean in and kiss her, slowly this time. As if she's someone I'm allowed to have, and I'm learning exactly what that feels like.
Her hands find the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head, and she runs her palms across my chest. She traces each muscle and scar as if she's reading a story, and I let her, standing still under her hands, barely breathing.
Then I undress her in the lamplight, piece by piece—her polo, her bra, her jeans. I kneel to slide them and her panties past her ankles, pressing my lips to the inside of her knee, her thigh, the soft curve of her hip. She shivers, fingers threading into my hair.
We move to the bed, skin against skin, and everything slows to the pace of breath and touch and the quiet sounds she makes when I find the places that undo her.
I take my time…kissing each freckle across her nose and cheeks the way I wanted to that first night, then down to the the hollow of her throat.
"Dean," she whispers, and hearing my real name in her voice, in this bed, in this room—rewires something in my soul.
I find a condom in my wallet and roll the latex over myself before sliding inside her wet, hot pussy. I watch her sweet face. She's not hiding anything anymore…as if my truth has freed us both.
And I could come just from that alone.
We move together, slowly and deeply. Her hands cradle my face and she holds me there, foreheads touching, breathing the same air, and I've never—
I've never had this. Not once. Not in all the years of women whose names I didn't keep and towns I didn't stay in.
This isn't just sex. This is only the second time I've been truly present for it. The first being that night with her in my truck.
With only a few more deep, heavy thrusts, she’s comes…like something blooming—moaning and trembling and unraveling against me—and when I follow, it's with her name on my lips, and my face buried in her neck.
Afterward, we lie together in the narrow bed. Her head is on my chest and my arm is around her and our legs are knotted up. Even though we aren’t talking, the night is full of everything we said and did and the terrifying fact that I just gave this woman every ugly truth I have.
And she's still here, breathing against my skin.
"Do you want me to stay?" she asks.
I pull her tightly against me. "I want nothing more."
She presses her lips to my chest, right over my heart, and I hold her even tighter. I close my eyes and listen to the distant fiddle through the cabin walls and the crickets serenading us.
Only the truth is between us now, and nothing else.