Chapter 26 #2
He obliged with a second finger, and she whimpered at the delicious stretch.
He curled them inside her, finding that perfect spot that made her see stars.
His mouth never left her clit, sucking and licking while his fingers worked slowly in and out.
She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling him closer, grinding shamelessly against his face as everything in her tightened, wound impossibly further, and then snapped all at once.
The dual sensations—his hot mouth and those perfect, scarred fingers stroking her from the inside—sent her hurtling over the edge.
She came with his name on her lips, her inner walls clenching around his fingers as pleasure sizzled through her.
He didn’t relent, drawing out the orgasm until she was trembling and incoherent, oversensitive and utterly wrecked.
When she finally managed to focus, she found him looking up at her from between her thighs with something like wonder in his eyes.
His beard glistened with her arousal, his lips swollen and red.
Naked hunger shone in his eyes. The sight of him kneeling between her legs, looking utterly destroyed by wanting her, sent another aftershock rippling through her.
“Come here,” she whispered, pulling him up by his shoulders.
He rose slowly, his breathing ragged. She reached for his belt, wanting to get at that impressive bulge straining the front of his jeans, but he caught her wrists.
“Don’t touch me. I—” His voice broke as his hips jerked forward involuntarily. “Fuck.”
He gripped the workbench on either side of her, knuckles white, and squeezed his eyes shut as a violent shudder ran through his entire body. A groan tore from his throat.
He was coming, just from this, from eating her out.
Oh, that was hot.
A fresh surge of heat blasted through her veins.
His chest heaved as he slumped forward to rest his forehead on her shoulder. For several heartbeats, neither of them moved, and the only sound was their mingled ragged breathing and the occasional pop from the forge fire.
“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered against her skin, voice rough with embarrassment.
“Anson.” She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t you dare apologize for wanting me that much.”
His eyes skittered away from hers, color high on his cheekbones. “It’s been… a while.”
“Good.” She leaned forward to kiss him and tasted herself on his lips. “Because I want to be the only one who makes you feel like this.”
She slid her hands under his shirt, wanting to feel his skin, to touch the scars he’d been hiding, to show him they didn’t matter.
But his hand shot out, circling her wrist. “No.”
“You really don’t have to be embarrassed. I thought it was hot.”
“It’s not that.”
Confusion broke through her post-orgasmic haze. “I don’t understand.”
He stepped back, silently putting distance between them, and her frustration sparked. “Is this about the scars again? I already told you I don’t care about—”
“But I do.” He wouldn’t look at her now, eyes fixed on some point beyond her shoulder. “I care.”
She slid off the bench, suddenly aware of her nakedness from the waist down, while he remained fully clothed.
“You should go.” He turned away, bracing himself against the anvil again. “Please.”
She stared at his back, at an utter loss for words that might break through this wall he kept erecting between them.
This was it, wasn’t it? The only relationship she’d ever get from him. One step forward and two steps back, over and over until she lost her mind.
“You know what? Fine.” She snatched her shorts from the floor and yanked them on, then pulled the flannel closed over her breasts.
She wished she could leave it, but she wasn’t about to walk home in the snow without a shirt.
“Keep pushing me away. Keep hiding behind your scars like they’re some kind of shield. But I’m done playing this game.”
His shoulders bunched at her words, but he didn’t turn around.
“I love you, Anson. I’ve loved you through years of letters.
I’ve loved you through prison bars and distance.
I’ve loved every version of you I’ve ever known, and all the versions I haven’t.
” Her voice cracked, but she pushed on. “And I thought—I really thought—that you meant it when you wrote that you loved me too. But love isn’t this.
Love isn’t shoving someone away the moment they get close enough to see the real you. ”
She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her, rough and broken.
“I killed four people, Maggie.”
She turned slowly, heart in her throat. “What?”
“Not just Eddie Kowalski.” His knuckles whitened on the anvil. “He was just the one I was able to drag out, but three other people were inside.”
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft crackle of the forge fire.
“I don’t understand. In your letters—”
“I told you about my buddy Danny Ortiz dying because of faulty equipment. I told you I found out the military contractor that provided that equipment was cutting corners, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with petitioning to have them shut down.”
“I know. I remember, but—”
He kept going as if she hadn’t spoken. “I told you I set the fire at Sentinel Defense’s warehouse.
That Eddie, the sole security guard there, died.
That I never meant for anyone to get hurt.
” The words tumbled out now, a confession held back too long.
“But I didn’t tell you the whole truth.” He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes haunted.
“Yes, Sentinel Defense Solutions was shipping faulty body armor to troops in Afghanistan. My unit. My friends. I knew what they were doing. Had proof. Went through proper channels.” His voice turned bitter.
“Nobody cared. Not the military. Not the media. Not the government. Meanwhile, soldiers were dying. My brothers.”
He began pacing, a caged animal trapped by memory.
“So, yeah, I broke into their warehouse. That much is true. Just wanted to find more evidence, expose them. But when I told you Eddie was asleep in the back office and I didn’t know, I lied.
” The pain in his voice was unbearable. “He was ex-military too, just doing his job. He caught me sneaking around, taking pictures. We fought. I knocked him out, then decided to set a small fire as a distraction while I escaped.”
“But it wasn’t small,” Maggie whispered.
“No.” His face twisted. “I didn’t know there were accelerants stored nearby.
Whole place went up like kindling. I went back for Eddie and carried him out.
” He sucked in a sharp breath. “It was the blow to his head that ultimately killed him, not the fire. I went back in for the other three guards, but I was too late. The fire was too hot, burning too fast. I barely got back out. Brett Holloway, Tom Becker, and David Park all burned alive.” His shoulders slumped.
“I didn’t just make a mistake. I didn’t just get caught up in a protest gone wrong.
I killed four men because I was afraid of getting caught. ”
Her stomach lurched. “Why didn’t you tell me any of that before?”
“I couldn’t. You’d have stopped writing. Anyone would.”
“You don’t know—”
“Yeah, I do. You’re not the first penpal I had through the program, but all the others stopped after a few letters. You kept writing. And I couldn’t risk losing that lifeline.”
Maggie stared at him for a long moment, her thoughts spinning like the wheel of a car stuck in mud. “Why are you telling me now?”
“Because you deserve the truth.” He finally turned to face her. His eyes were wet and red-rimmed. “Before you decide if I’m worth loving.”
She took a step backwards. She wasn’t even aware of doing it until she saw the devastation cross his face.
“Yeah, now you understand.” His voice cracked, and he turned away again. “I’m not the man you think I am.”
Words stalled in her throat.
Four men.
Not just one accident, but four deaths on his conscience. She couldn’t reconcile this revelation with the gentle soul who bottle-fed kittens and kept every pinecone or stick his dog brought him.
But murder was murder, wasn’t it?
Except...hadn’t she written to him knowing he’d killed someone? She’d accepted that from the beginning. The details were different, more devastating than she’d imagined, but the core truth remained the same: Anson had made a terrible mistake—one that haunted him every day of his life.
She forced herself to breathe. To think. “Is that why you won’t let me see your scars? They’re not just burn scars to you. They remind you of what you did.”
He nodded once, a jerky movement that looked like it cost him.
“So you wear them like a hair shirt,” she said softly. “As punishment. Keeping them hidden from everyone but yourself, where they can hurt only you.”
His silence was answer enough.
She moved to cross the distance between them, but he flinched away. “You should go.”
“Anson—”
“Please.”
It was a soft, fractured plea that she couldn’t ignore. Not with that look in his eyes—like a man being torn apart from the inside out.
She took a step back. “Fine. I’ll go. But not because I’m afraid of you or because I think you’re a monster.”
His face twisted with disbelief.
“I’m going because you need time,” she continued. “Time to decide if you’re brave enough to be loved. Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not your scars. Not even what happened that night. It’s about whether you believe you deserve forgiveness.”
Bramble rose from his bed, whining softly as he followed her to the door. At the threshold, he hesitated, looking back at Anson, torn between them.
“Stay with him.” She bent down to kiss the wolfhound’s big head. “He needs you more than I do right now.”
Bramble licked her nose, then plodded back to Anson’s side, settling at his feet with a heavy sigh.
The last thing she saw before closing the door was Anson still standing with his back to her, head bowed, knuckles white against the bench—a man drowning on dry land, too stubborn or too scared to reach for the lifeline she kept throwing him.