Chapter 10 #2
Before my brain could process the shift from verbal onslaught to physical collapse, her frame was leaning heavily against my chest, her face buried in the rough cotton of my shirt. Her shoulders hitched with a final, shuddering sob.
Acting on an instinct that bypassed every wall I owned, my arms came up.
They hovered uncertainly. Then, as another ragged tremor ran through her, they settled around her, pulling her loosely against me.
It was an awkward embrace, foreign territory.
I found myself patting her back in a clumsy, repetitive motion.
“All right, now.” My voice was gruff, the words ridiculously inadequate in the face of her raw anguish. I could feel the dampness of her tears soaking into my shirt, the heat of her body, the fine trembling that still wracked her. “All right, Iris. Just breathe. It’s okay.”
She didn’t pull away. If anything, she seemed to melt further into my arms, her hands gripping my shirtfront as if I were the only solid thing in a world that had just spun into space.
The scent of her—dust, sunshine, and that faint, lingering sweetness of baked goods—filled my senses in an unexpectedly potent combination.
For a long moment, we just stood there, me holding this bewildering, sobbing woman, her ragged breathing slowly beginning to even out.
The anger, the sharp edges of her earlier fury, dissipated, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep weariness.
I could feel it in the sag of her shoulders, the heavy way her head rested against me.
Against everything screaming at me to maintain distance, I pressed my cheek against the top of her head, against the surprisingly soft silk of her blonde hair.
It was an unconscious gesture of comfort, maybe.
Or just presence. I wasn't good at words, not the kind she needed right now.
But I could offer this. This private, unyielding solidity.
A temporary harbor. So I just let her be.
Safe, for a moment, in the circle of my arms.
The tremors gradually subsided. Her breathing became deeper, the tension easing. Then, slowly, she stirred. She didn’t pull away entirely but tilted her head back to look up at me.
Her face was a mess. Tear tracks carved paths through the grime on her cheeks.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, her lips trembling slightly.
But beneath the devastation, there was something else in those cornflower-blue eyes now.
A raw vulnerability, a flicker of trust. And a spark of the determination I was beginning to recognize.
And then, before I could process it, she moved. One slight, surprisingly steady hand snaked up, her cool fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of my neck. Her gaze held mine, intense, unwavering. Then she pulled my head down. Her lips, soft and salty from her tears, crashed into mine.
My brain just… stopped.
Ceased all function.
Complete system shock.
All thought, all resistance, all carefully constructed defenses I’d spent over a decade perfecting vanished in an instant. Obliterated. There was only the feel of her, the unexpected, desperate heat of her mouth, the taste of her. Salt and dust and sunshine and something uniquely, undeniably Iris.
For a bare second, I was frozen, every muscle locked. Then something inside me, something primal and long-dormant, roared to life.
I kissed her back.
Hard.
My hands, acting with a will of their own, slid from her shoulders to her waist, pulling her closer, crushing the air from my lungs, eliminating the last vestiges of space between us.
The kiss deepened, shifted to something shared, something hungry, that spoke of pent-up tension and a loneliness I hadn’t realized I carried until this very moment.
It was messy, a collision of frustration and surprise and an undeniable spark that had been simmering beneath the surface of our awkward, pastry-fueled interactions.
There was only the surprising softness of her lips under the initial force, the way she tasted, the feel of her body, slight and trembling but fiercely present, molding against mine as if she belonged there. The thought was a jolt, as shocking as the kiss itself.
Raw, unthinking instinct took over. I parted my lips in both a silent question and a demand.
She answered, a soft sigh escaping her as she welcomed my tongue.
The kiss transformed into a hot, wet, searching exploration, a raw claiming.
No finesse, no practiced seduction, just a desperate, mutual need.
I slanted my mouth over hers, finding a better angle, a groan tearing from my throat. She met me stroke for stroke, her initial desperation fanned into answering heat. Both of her small hands were now tangled in my hair, her fingers tightening, pulling me impossibly closer.
I pressed myself against her, backing her up a step until her spine met the rough clapboard of the house.
Fierce arousal, a white-hot flame I hadn’t experienced in longer than I cared to admit, flared to life, coiling tight and low in my gut, hardening me against her.
There was no thought, no room for the usual litany of warnings that usually governed my interactions.
Only the surprising, explosive rightness of her mouth on mine.
I couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.
All the irritation, the annoyance, the walls I’d constructed since the accident, brick by painful brick—they were just gone. Incinerated in this unexpected, bewildering, overwhelming clash of mouths.
Just as suddenly as it began, as the fire threatened to rage out of control, it ended.
We broke apart, or perhaps stumbled back from each other, breathless, chests heaving.
I stared down at her, my hands still loosely on her waist. A fine tremor ran through her, or maybe it was me who was shaking.
Her eyes were wide, dazed, her lips swollen and damp from my kiss, a vulnerable pink against the tear-streaked grime on her face.
The remnants of her earlier despair were still there, but now mingled with a look of shell-shocked surprise that surely mirrored my own.
This was a mistake. A colossal, Category Five, no-good-can-come-of-this, what-in-the-hell-am-I-doing mistake.
Because for one breathless moment, holding her, tasting her, I had felt something other than the dull ache of the past. That feeling sent a bolt of pure, cold terror through me.
It was a taste of something I could lose.
A sensation like a target painted on my back, just waiting for the universe to take its shot. Again.
The sounds of Dove Key rushed back in—the distant drone of a boat engine out on the Gulf, the insistent cry of a gull circling overhead, the gentle, indifferent rustle of palm fronds in the breeze. The heat of the sun was oppressive again, pressing down on us.
What. The. Hell. Just. Happened?
I couldn’t form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. I just stared at her, this bewildering, infuriating, undeniably passionate woman. She stared back, the air between us charged with the frightening, electrifying weight of what we’d just done.