Chapter 30
THE WRECKAGE OF US
Igave her time. Time to unwind. I think it was a mistake, because the more time I gave her, the more wound up I found myself.
She’s upset and grieving and lost. But so am I. Only, I grieved her and Tate long before Tate died. I never stopped grieving them. Not for a fucking minute.
My knuckle connects with her front door again. The key Mom gave me burns in my pocket on the ring with all the others. I could use it…
I should have returned it.
If Faye wanted me to have a key, she’d have given me one.
It’s the only thing that stops me from shoving it into the lock, and instead, knocking again.
I catch sight of her through the frosted glass and my already hot blood heats.
The locks click and the door opens and fuck me—the woman is beautiful.
She’s stripped of makeup and flushed from her bath. Her mass of warm brown hair is twisted into a knot on the top of her head, and she’s wearing nothing more than a flimsy white silk robe.
I don’t know whether I should be relieved she finally answered the door or pissed that she answered it like this. Vulnerable and delectable.
Irre-fucking-sistible.
“Holt,” my name shudders from her lungs on a breathless breath. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing answering the door like this?”
Her brows inch high. “I tried to ignore you. You wouldn’t stop knocking. I thought it was an emergency.”
“Christ,” I bite out. At my sides, my hands curl and uncurl.
I’m on the edge of something. My control, perhaps?
She drops her hands onto her hips. The motion stretches the thin material tight over her breasts, and I just—snap.
Shoving into her, I use my body to physically push her into the house. Then I kick the door closed. I think the house rattles with the force of it.
She gasps the sweetest sound. It’s the sound that’s haunted me for over a decade. The sound I hear in the dead of the night when the ghost of her would come to me. Taunt me.
The sound I engraved in my memory that first time I entered her, and all the times that followed.
Fuck.
“Holt…”
“You want to know what this is, Faye?” I don’t wait for her to reply.
“This is us, dammit. This is me and you. Messy and twisted and so fucking wrong we’re right.
” I step into her until her back connects with the wall.
Air tumbles from her lungs into the space between us, and I taste the sweetness of the wine I know I’ll find on her tongue.
I’ll find it, because I am going to kiss her.
I’m going to taste her.
I’m going to devour her.
“You never stopped being mine, Faye.” I slam my mouth to hers.
She doesn’t waste even a second to kiss me back.
To meet the violence in this connection.
The anger and desperation of the years that burn between us, the flame of it never dying even though it should have.
“You’ll always be mine, just as you’ll always be his. ”
“Holt.” The pain in my name isn’t something I can miss.
I just kiss her deeper until we’re a tangle of tongues and twisted emotions. There are so many emotions.
The sweet taste that is inherently her blends with the bold bitterness of her wine, and my head spins. I’m drunk off her. Hazy with need and heavy with desire even as I’m hot with frustration. With anger. There may be time between us, but there is no lack of feeling. No lack of emotion.
I kiss a burning path along her jaw to the tender skin behind her ear.
Her head rolls back against the wall even as I trap her there with my body.
She whimpers as my teeth skate across her skin.
She arches her back, pushing into me as though she can’t help herself.
Through the thin material of her robe, I can feel the heat of her skin.
It burns into my own, branding me yet again as hers.
I’ve always been hers. Always worn her brand, even if no one else could see it. I’ve always known it was there.
I growl a low sound that rumbles over her skin. Goosebumps scatter across her flesh and I pull my head back in time to see her pupils dilate with desire.
She’s beautiful. Flushed and raw. Uncovered like this, stripped of makeup and fancy clothes, she can’t hide the way she feels. The way her body responds to mine.
Under the stretch of her robe, her nipples are hard and swollen. I want to taste them.
Unable to deny myself, I bend to take one into my mouth, nipping her through the fabric. She moans a low and husky sound that drives a blade of need straight to my dick.
She shoves her hands into my hair, nails biting deliciously into my scalp, and my thoughts short circuit. I can’t think of anything beyond the woman before me. Can’t think of anything beyond this need I’ve carried for her for years.
“I need to see you,” I rasp, tugging the tie at her waist.
Her breath hitches softly as the silky fabric spills open to bare her to me. Fuuuck. She’s exquisite. Every dip and line and curve and mark. Every part of her.
“Holt.” She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth before she sinks her teeth into the kiss-bruised flesh.
I pull her lip from between her teeth with my thumb, taking her mouth in another hard kiss. I could kiss this woman for forever. I’ve loved her for forever.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur into the kiss. “So fucking beautiful, Faye.”
Her fingers twist into my hair as my hands circle her waist under the open fabric. Her skin is so hot. Burning hot. I want to be seared, sheathed in her heat.
When she lifts her leg to hook it around my hip, I’m fucking gone. My hand’s drop down the smooth softness of her skin to the swell of her ass. I grip her hard before I hike her up on the wall. She gasps into my kiss, and I devour a whimper as I grind my jean-covered erection into her.
“I want you, Faye.” She nods into my kiss.
“Yes.”
I growl a sound she swallows. “I never stopped wanting you.”
“Holt,” she cries out my name as I push my hand between us, rolling the pad of my thumb over her clit.
“Fuck, you’re wet for me, baby.”
“Yes.” Her forehead rolls against mine as her breaths fall in rough pants. I roll my thumb and watch as her expression tightens and falls with the sweetest spill of raw desire. “Oh, God.”
“Holt, baby. Say my name.” I nip her jaw when her head falls back to the wall. Her lips part as hooded eyes land on mine. I roll my thumb faster, watching as her breasts rise and fall in quick tempo with her breaths.
Her hands grip my shoulders as she pushes into me. Her cheeks are beautifully flushed, and her eyes are glassy with want. I’ve imagined her like this so many times over the last decade. Too many times.
She’s a fantasy come alive.
Taking her mouth again, I shove two fingers deep as I continue stroking her clit. She sucks me in, so wet and hot as I pump. I’m on the edge. My dick aches, jealous of my fingers.
“Come on my hand, baby,” I demand.
“I want—” she cuts off. “I need—Holt—you.”
“You’ve got me, baby.” I curl my fingers to stroke that sweet spot inside her I’ve never forgotten about as I suck at the skin of her neck. She cries out, her body tightening in pulsing clenches as she falls apart in my arms.
I pull my fingers from inside her, wasting no time working at the buckle of my belt.
I pop the button of my jeans and shove at the zipper.
I briefly—very briefly think of a condom.
And then my tip connects with her warm heat, and all thought just vanishes.
She’s the only one I’ve ever been bare with, and it was so long ago.
I forgot what it feels like. The intensity.
She pushes her hips into me as I shove my length inside her. I’m rooted in one swift motion. But it doesn’t stop the wild whirl of desperate need. If anything, it’s heightened.
Maybe it’s the sound of her sharp cry. Maybe it’s the bite of her nails in my shoulders. Maybe it’s the clench of her gripping me like she never wants to let me go…
Whatever it is, there’s no stopping it. No fighting the wild that takes over as I pull out and slam inside her. I do it again and again until we’re wet with sweat and I’m grunting into the flesh of her neck as she cries into the side of my head for more. Deeper. Harder.
I think we’re both trying to convince ourselves that this is real. It’s happening. After all this time and all the life that stands between. We’re finally back to this—where we belong.
I fuck her harder, hotter, wilder. Her hands are in my hair now and she’s moaning my name. She’s given up meeting my thrusts and is taking every stroke instead.
“You feel so good,” I grunt out the words as my lips search for hers. I kiss her hard, fucking her mouth just as I fuck her body. “Like home.”
“Oh, God, Holt—I’m going to come.”
“Let go, baby,” I urge, my tempo quickening. “Come for me, Faye.”
She tightens around me as a sound of pleasure and pain crawls from the depths of her. It’s my new favorite sound. Part sigh, part cry, part moan. And then she comes apart. Fucking perfection.
The feel of her coming on my dick sets me off.
My pace becomes choppy, my thrusts wilder than before.
Her ass slaps against the wall as our mouths war, tongues and teeth clashing in a kiss that feasts on the years between us until nothing exists but the wreckage of us and the future I’m confident we’ll have to rebuild all that we’ve always been meant to be.
I swallow the sound of her sharp cry as I root myself deep inside her to spill years of pent-up need, anger, resentment, and love. I let everything I’ve kept contained for over a decade pour inside her, kissing her through it all.
And then we both crash back down to reality. Hard.
She stares up at me with wide honey-brown eyes and kiss-swollen lips. We’re still connected. I’m still inside her. But it feels uncertain now. Like we’re standing on glass over a canyon and it’s cracking. Like at any moment it might shatter and we’ll be left to fall.
“Holt—” She croaks, swallows hard, and stutters, “I—we—”
Her hands press into my chest.
She’s trying to push me away.
I can’t let her, so I thrust my hips into hers, reminding her that I’m still inside her.
Her lips fall open on a sharp gasp. She’s trembling, but she doesn’t look away as I grip her face between my hands.
I peer into those warm eyes that have always been the color of home, and tell her firmly, “I never stopped loving you, Faye. I’ll never stop loving you.
And this, us—it’s real. We’re real, and I’m never walking away from it again. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes bounce between mine for so long, I’m about to repeat myself when she finally whispers, “Yes.”
“Good.” I brush my lips over hers, because I need just one more taste. “Do you need a minute?”
She nods, her eyes glassy. She’s trying hard to cling to composure.
The last thing I want to do is let her go. To let her think.
I want to smother her with me.
Against everything inside me that demands I stay rooted just where I am, I pull myself from her warmth. She slides down the wall, shaky hands knotting her robe even as she watches me tuck myself back into my pants.
Then she makes her escape. Halfway up the stairs, I call her name. She turns back to look at me, and I can see the emotion swimming in her eyes as she clutches her robe. She’s trying to contain all the pieces of her that threaten to drift away on the raging wave of her emotions.
I warn her, “A minute, Faye. I’m only giving you a minute, and then I’m coming for you.”
She nods but doesn’t speak. I watch as she hurries up the stairs. Duke follows.
Then I turn back to the hall where I just fucked my ex-girlfriend, and brother’s widow.
I think I knew from the minute I arrived back in Rubble Ridge that this is where I’d end up with Faye. Even when I denied it, I knew. When I told myself I hated her, I knew.
I just hoped that the first time I had her again after all this time might be a little less—well, less of a collision.
Sighing, I pull my phone from my pocket. I tap into my Mom’s contact and start to type.