Chapter Twenty-Four
The door slammed. The sound echoed like a gunshot through the trees.
Ethan stood stock-still on the porch, fists clenched, blood surging hot through every vein.
Fuck.
He turned, pace brutal, grabbing the keys off the rail hook and storming toward the truck like that would solve it. Like distance could pull the fire out of his chest.
Stupid. You’re stupid. You always do this.
Push. Retreat. Burn the bridge and call it strategy.
He popped the tailgate, yanked open the gear box, and took inventory he didn’t need to take. Just moving. Just grinding his jaw while her words repeated in his skull.
Fuck.
He shoved the box closed and kicked it hard enough to jolt the springs.
Because she didn’t stand anywhere near where she deserved. Not with him. Not in the wreckage of what he was. And if this—this thing between them was going to keep combusting like this, if she was going to look at him like he was worth softness and time and maybe even a future—
Then it had to stop.
Now.
Ethan stalked back up the porch. Took one breath. Then opened the cabin door with more force than was necessary.
“Amara, listen—”
She spun toward him like a struck match.
She was standing beside the bed, mid-change.
Her jeans were off, slung over the chair.
One of his old black T-shirts was already on her, slung loose and low and worn soft by years of washing.
The hem hit just below her hips, slipping off one bare shoulder.
Her skin was still dewed from the lake, her dark hair damp at the ends, curled messily down her back.
Legs long and strong and shaking—not from cold.
From rage.
Her chest rose and fell like she’d run a mile to get away from him. Her fists were clenched at her sides, lips parted, jaw locked.
He hadn’t meant to startle her.
He hadn’t meant to make the situation worse.
And he definitely hadn’t meant to see her standing there, half-naked, in his fucking shirt, like it was the closest thing she was going to get to the real thing.
Like it didn’t matter how much she hated him, she’d always love him. But, deep down, he knew better. He knew the truth. He just never did the right thing with it.
Fuck the right thing.
And then something in him broke.
He crossed the floor in two strides. No hesitation.
She gasped as he hauled her up by the waist, her body slamming into his chest like gravity was helping. Her legs locked around his hips before he even reached the bed, the friction and heat between them striking like a fuse line catching flame.
“Ethan—” she breathed, angry and wanting and breathless all at once.
“Shut up,” he rasped, voice gutted, hands finding the backs of her thighs, gripping hard, anchoring her to him like she’d vanish if he didn’t hold tight enough.
She didn’t shut up. She kissed him.
Hard.
It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t slow. It was teeth and tongue and fury. It was every slammed door and fucked-up instinct, every cold mission and colder night that led to this, to her—hot and furious and real in his arms.
He pressed her into the wall beside the bed, dragging his mouth down her jaw, her throat, his teeth grazing skin like a man starving.
“You don’t get to run from me,” she said, voice shaking.
He pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes burned. Her fingers fisted in his shirt. His shirt—on her—falling up her thighs now, baring more than it covered.
“I’m not running,” he said, low. “I came back for you.”
And then he kissed her again.
She yanked at his jacket—fingers clawing under the collar, dragging it down his arms until it hit the floor. He didn’t stop her. Couldn’t. She was a wildfire in his arms, kissing him in punishment and prayer.
He gripped her thighs tighter as she squirmed against him, hips rolling, friction lighting him up like a live wire. Her mouth was everywhere—his jaw, his throat, his lips again. Her teeth scraped his bottom lip and he groaned, deep and guttural, grinding her harder into the wall.
“Shirt,” she gasped against his mouth, breathless. “Off.”
He tore it over his head, rough and fast, and tossed it somewhere behind him. She slid her palms over his chest, mapping the years she missed—slow, reverent, until she reached his belt and started pulling—not caring if it ripped.
“Fuck,” he muttered, teeth bared, pushing her higher, letting her slide down the wall just enough to land on her feet. Her legs were shaking, bare skin brushing his as they stood chest-to-chest, her in nothing but that goddamn T-shirt and panties, him half-undressed, half-derailed.
“The rest,” she whispered. It was a demand, not a request. “Off.”
“You first,” he shot back, even as his fingers found the hem of her shirt. “This is mine.”
He peeled it off, slow now—aching to see her. Skin flushed from the lake, hair tangled from his hands, lips kiss-bitten. His.
He reached for her breasts, cupping, massaging, rolling her nipples until she moaned, never breaking his kiss.
Then she was pulling at his jeans, pushing them down until he kicked them off and stood bare with her, nothing between, not even air. The moment suspended, taut and trembling. His cock pulsed, fully erect, pressed up against her stomach as he held her close.
Their eyes met for a brief moment.
He claimed her mouth again and she was already meeting him—tongue, lips, body. Skin on skin. Heat against heat. Years of silence and self-denial collapsing into this single, breathless yes.
She didn’t just touch him—she took him. Like he was something owed, something stolen and finally returned.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, fingers digging deep like she was afraid he’d vanish if she let up even a little.
He hitched her thigh up higher on his waist as she pumped his cock and angled his length to her melting heat.
He felt her sweeping his cockhead against her pussy, testing the girth of him against her opening.
“Give it to me,” she whispered against his lips. “Deep. All the way.”
“You sure you can handle it?” he said, his tongue matching hers.
“I don’t care,” she moaned. “Just let me have it.” She caught his jaw in her palms and kissed him again—open, hungry, angry—and he felt the crack inside him widen.
He growled and pressed her back on the bed, breathing hard, hands on her hips, the flex of her thighs around his waist, the weight of his cock settling between her legs. He traced a line down her clit to her pussy, fingering her with two then three to test his entry. Hot. Moaning. Ready.
She arched against him with a gasp that sounded like grief. Like relief. Like don’t you dare stop.
And he didn’t. He kept thrusting his fingers inside her, watching her twist underneath him, making demands.
“Please— I need you.”
Because he knew this wasn’t just about wanting. It was about time lost. About silence too long. About ten years of aching in all the wrong ways.
Then he positioned his cock just right, holding her hips up to him. He watched her, never breaking eye contact, as he thrust his way inside, slow at first, enjoying how her head fell back and eyes grew wild as he buried his cock deeper, and deeper.
And then he was at the hilt, and she was gasping.
“I forgot—” she started, her grip tensing on his forearms. “I forgot how big you are.”
He grinned, and fucked her like he was starved, because he was. For her mouth, her body, her goddamn voice. That soft Southern twang whispering his name like prayer and curse all in one.
“Ethan—”
“Baby—”
“Harder.”
He swallowed the sound and breathed it in. Moved with her like he’d memorized every angle of her, even if he’d only ever held her once before. Too long ago. Too fast. Too young.
But now?
Now, she met him. Gave as good as she got.
He pumped his buried cock in and out of her pussy, his breath ragged, groaning her name like it was the only thing that had ever steadied him.
Her back arched beneath him, all fire and defiance, and he stole her breath with each thrust—hungry, brutal, worshipful.
Her nails left trails down his arms, her thighs clamped tight around his waist, and she moaned, “Don’t you dare leave me again.”
It shattered something in him.
He pulled her hips up higher, giving him the perfect angle, fucked her faster, deeper, like he could apologize with every inch. Her moans were coming quicker now, and her body twisted underneath him. He knew she was getting there.
“I won’t,” he choked out, voice breaking on the vow.
But she didn’t believe him.
He could feel it in the way she ground against his cock harder—prove it, it said. Make it real.
And he tried—God, he tried—to keep a hold on himself. To not come before he got her to. To prove she mattered more.
To stay measured. Controlled. But every breath she stole from him pulled a thread loose. Every sound she made—his name, gasped like sin, whispered like salvation—set fire to the part of him that still believed he could come out of this untouched.
He lifted her right leg up, resting it on his shoulder, so he could hit her G-spot even harder. Fast and deep enough to get her screaming his name. And he did. He took her apart.
“Amara,” he growled, low and wrecked, as if saying her name was the only thing keeping him tethered. She answered with a gasp, a grind of hips, a challenge.
She was heat and fury, all hips and mouth and hands—driving him to the edge with every move. And he took it. Matched her. Met her. Gave it back.
The pine bed creaked in protest, but they didn’t stop. Couldn’t. He mapped every inch of her skin like he was trying to memorize her in case the world ended tomorrow. Her nails dug harder, anchoring herself to him—and he welcomed the pain, wanted more of it. Hoped she drew blood.
“Ethan, Ethan!” she screamed.
He found a faster pace, harder, and found a way to work her clit at the same time, his cock aching from watching her lose it underneath him. She was everything he’d ever run from—need, want, love—and now she was under him, around him, pulling him into heaven like gravity.
He felt it before she started to break. He fucked her steady through the climax, dropped her leg, leaned over and kissed her.
He swallowed her cry, held her tight as she trembled and gave herself over to an intense orgasm pulsing through her body.
She writhed in his arms, meeting his tongue with hers, but he didn’t stop fucking her.
He was almost there, too. He’d been desperately holding on as he watched her fall over the edge.
And when heaven took him—when it slammed into him so hard it nearly blinded—he buried his face in her shoulder and broke against her like a wave on stone.
He didn’t move for a long time.
Just lay there. Still inside her. Breathing hard against her skin. His face tucked into the curve of her shoulder, hiding there from all the noise in his head.
Her fingers dragged lazily up his back, tracing along the muscle like she didn’t know what else to do with her hands. Her legs were still around him, loose now, but unwilling to let go. He could feel her heartbeat—racing still, slowing now—right under his mouth where her neck pulsed.
He shifted, just enough to ease some of his weight off her, but not enough to let her go. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
When he finally lifted his head, her face was right there—flushed, soft, hair a mess across the pillow, lips swollen from kissing him like she meant it. Her pupils still wide. That storm-blue gaze dazed, shining, fixed on him.
He didn’t say anything.
Neither did she.
Not right away.
Because what the hell could they say?
The silence was thick with it—what just happened, what does this mean, how do we come back from that? And still, neither of them moved.
Her hand slid up, fingers brushing through the hair at the back of his neck, slow and reverent, like she was trying to memorize the texture of him.
“You good?” he rasped finally, his voice shredded and lower than it had any right to be.
She nodded, blinking once, then again slower. “Yeah.”
“Too much?”
“No.” Her voice was soft, raw. “Just…too good.”
He dropped his forehead to hers and exhaled. “Yeah. That.”
He stayed inside her another beat, just breathing her in. The scent of sweat, lake water, her skin. She felt like fire and balm. Like a place he could stay if he wasn’t so goddamn afraid of wanting to.
Slowly, reluctantly, he eased out of her and rolled to the side—but only far enough to pull her against his chest. She curled there like she’d been doing it all her life.
One thigh draped over his. Her arm folded against his ribs.
Her cheek against his shoulder. Her breath soft against his collarbone.
He closed his eyes, squeezed her tighter, then opened them again. Because sleep was the most dangerous thing of all.
Still, he couldn’t stop looking at her. The way she looked in his shirt earlier. The curve of her lips now. The way she’d clung to him like he was hers to take.
Maybe he was.
Maybe he’d been hers since the first time he sat at her family’s dinner table.
“Ethan?” she murmured, half-asleep.
“Mm?”
“Are we…?”
He cracked a smile. “Yeah. We are.”
“Okay.” She snuggled closer, warm and sleepy. “I just needed to hear it out loud.”
He stared at the ceiling, jaw tight, heart thudding a traitor’s rhythm.