Chapter 41 GABE
GABE
Noah’s lips are warm against mine, his tongue moving in passionate strokes as he holds me close, pushed up against the glass panel of the store door for everyone in Willowrun to see. I couldn’t care who sees when he feels this good against me.
He pulls back to press a kiss against my cheek, then the other. His mouth finds a path down my throat as a needy sound escapes me. He drags a wet kiss across my Adam’s apple and groans, “Why do I have to go again?”
I laugh. “Work.”
He makes an irritated noise. “Fuck work. I want to stay right here and worship your body all day.”
He sucks lightly on my throat, making me shiver. My head feels foggy, and his idea definitely has merit, so much merit, but I come to my senses long enough to whisper, “Tonight.”
When he pulls back, his eyes find mine, and all I see is warmth and love.
Neither of us has said it, but it’s in his eyes, in his touch.
I want to tell him, I’m planning to tonight.
I’ve waited long enough, worried something will go wrong, that Noah will tire of me.
But I don’t see that happening. He’s all in.
He’s proven it over and over, in every whispered conversation and every gentle touch.
I think the only reason he hasn’t said it is because he’s worried he’d scare me off, or maybe he thinks I don’t feel the same. I hope that’s not the case.
It’s been a couple of weeks since we made love.
I can’t call it fucking because it was more than that.
We’ve had sex a few times since then, and every time, it’s the same.
I feel such an intense connection with him that only grows.
This rightness inside me, like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I’ll never find this kind of connection with another soul.
Noah Richards owns my heart, and I know it’s safe with him.
He’ll treasure it and guard it—treat it more kindly than anyone else ever could.
I thought I knew love before, but I know now, that was never love. Noah has taught me the beauty of being cherished, every day, in a thousand small ways.
I brush my hands along his sides, running my thumbs over his ribs. I kiss his cheek, then the other, like he’d done to me. The smile he gives me feels like sunshine on my face, warm rays breaking through every dark day I’ve had.
“Tonight,” he agrees, and I have to fight the urge to squirm when thoughts of what we might do tonight come to mind. Then he brings his lips back to my neck, leaving another trail of open-mouth kisses, making me grin.
“Noah,” I chide playfully.
He pulls away, groaning like he's in pain. “Fuck, you’re too tempting, but yeah, I better go, I told Aiden I’d grab us coffees on the way.”
I wrinkle my nose at the thought of coffee. Noah chuckles, kissing me again while muttering, “Tea snob.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and squeeze him to me, breathing him in before letting go. “I was thinking we could do something this weekend, maybe have everyone over for dinner?”
He pulls back and kisses the tip of my nose. “Sounds perfect.”
Perfect.
It really does sound perfect.
“Bye, Blue.”
“See you later, baby.”
I watch him as he walks down the road toward Anchor Strength, glancing back at me every few steps until he turns a corner.
There’s a smile on my face while I flip the sign to Open and head back to the counter. My cheeks hurt from how happy he makes me.
Since I published the online store, I’ve gotten a constant stream of orders, and I’ll need to head to the post office today.
The thought makes me feel shaky, but I need to do it.
I pick up the first book to get it wrapped up.
I need to come up with an idea for tonight.
I want to make it romantic when I tell Noah I love him.
I want it to be special for him. I’m thinking I could do three little Post-its lined down the hall.
Or one on the apartment door, one on my bedroom door, and I could wait in the room with the last one.
I nibble on the edge of my thumb, chuckling, thinking about it.
It’s cheesy and dorky, but I think he’d love it.
I could find an eighties song to play. Maybe “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” I’m grinning like an idiot now.
The door opens, and when I glance up, the sight is so unexpected I drop the book in my hand.
For a second, my mind goes blank. My thumb drags from the corner of my mouth, my smile obliterated. The light through the front windows feels too bright. My stomach flips so violently, I have to grab the counter to keep upright.
No. This isn’t happening.
He can't be here. He doesn’t belong here. Not in my shop I’m working hard to build into something more, not in the air that still smells like cedarwood, not in my safe place. His presence makes the walls tilt, like the whole store is crumbling on top of me.
Kyle.
He looks different. Smaller somehow, though his frame is the same. His shoulders are rounded, his clothes rumpled, his skin ashen. The confidence I remember—the cruel smirk, the calculating look in his eyes—is gone. He stands inside the door, twisting his hands together.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he says finally, his voice wobbling. “But I needed to talk to you.”
He takes a step forward, and I take a step back, knocking the chair behind me over with a clatter, making me jump, the panic rising further.
“Gabe.”
Every fiber of my being is screaming run, run, run.
I think he’s saying my name again, but I can’t hear it over the blood rushing in my ears.
“I needed to tell you I’m sorry.”
The words feel like a slap. Sorry. My chest locks up, breath shallow. For years, I thought about hearing them, always expected them to come after each broken moment. They never did, and now they sound wrong, like they don’t belong in my ears.
I swallow, and my tongue feels thick. “Sorry?” The word falls out on a trembling sound, full of fear.
He lifts his gaze, and I see the shine in his eyes, the damp red rims around those ice-blue eyes looking like such a contrast to the Kyle I remember. He swallows with an audible click before continuing.
“For everything. For the way I treated you. For every cruel thing I said, every time I—” His voice fractures. He looks away, jaw tight, throat bobbing with the effort to get words out. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I hate what I did to you.”
Silence fills the shop, thick and oppressive. It’s pressing down on me, filling me with sick dread. Is this really happening? Is he really here?
The clock on the wall ticks, each second like a drumbeat. I stare at a row of books behind him, perfectly even spines, and fixate on them because I can’t bear to look at him. My sweaty hands slip on the counter, nails leaving biting marks on the wood.
“Why?” The word rips out of me.
He takes a step closer, hand moving upward as if he intends to touch me. I recoil and shout louder, “Why?” causing him to take a step back. My chest heaves.
“Why did you do it?” I roar. “I said no! I said stop!”
His whole body jerks like I struck him. He stands frozen as the blood in my veins boils, mouth opening and closing, like he doesn’t know how to form an answer. His hand scrubs over his face, dragging down until it trembles at his jaw.
“Why?” I boom again. I don’t feel like myself at all; this voice isn’t mine.
I don’t shout, I don’t demand. But seeing him has it all coming back.
How he’d pin me down, force himself on me, tell me to shut up and stop being so fucking difficult.
All the horrible things he called me, how much he took from me.
Finally, in a voice that sounds like he swallowed glass, he says, “Because I was weak and angry and terrified. I hated so much about myself, and you were so good, Gabe. Too good for me, I couldn’t stand it.
I thought if I tore you down, I wouldn’t have to see how small I was.
” He exhales heavily. “It was never you. You never did a single thing to deserve any of it.”
My throat burns. For so long, I believed I was the problem.
That if I’d been easier, less myself, he wouldn’t have…
My mind cuts off, memories black as night trying to take hold of me again and pull me under.
The scar on my cheek stings like the wound is fresh, hot blood running down my face, mixing with tears.
Kyle’s voice comes again, urgent, almost frantic.
“I got sober after you left. It was hard, but I did it. Ten months now, and I’m still sober.
Meetings, therapy, all of it.” His hands tremble at his sides, fists clenching and unclenching.
“I know there’s no excuse for what I did but…
I regret it all. Every word, every awful thing I did to you.
I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. That’s mine to carry. I know that.”
I stare at him, my whole body cold even as sweat trickles down my back.
I should feel free. Vindicated. Instead, I feel sick.
My sanctuary feels cracked wide open, polluted by his presence.
It’s like there’s an oily pool of darkness flowing through my bloodstream, infecting every part of me.
The apology doesn’t give me anything. The reason doesn’t give me anything. It just hollows me out.
My lips part, but nothing comes. When I finally manage, my voice is barely more than a whisper. “You shouldn’t be here.”
His face crumples, shame bending him in on himself. He nods jerkily. His hand drags across his cheek, wiping at the wetness there. “I know,” he says hoarsely. “I just—I had to tell you. Do you think… you could ever forgive me?”
“Forgive?” I whisper disbelievingly. All he ever did was take and take and take from me. He stole my voice, my body, my choices. And now he wants more from me.
His brow furrows as he watches me, his gaze sliding over my face makes me feel disgusting. “I need to know why you did it…” I say weakly.
“Gabe, I already told you,” he replies sadly.