32. Reid
“Stop following me. I need to be alone.”
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” She doesn’t answer. “Nova, get back here.”
She storms up the hill toward the cottage, her shoes in her hand and her hair a wild mess of curls flying around her in the wind. She makes no move to stop and something in me refuses to let her go.
This isn’t going to be how we end it. Not with her fucking hating me.
“Nova,” I bite, thankful I keep the panic in my chest well-masked behind the irritation coiling through me.
“I heard you say you couldn’t wait to get out of here,” she grits and my gut tightens.
“Nova, listen—”
“No!” She whirls on me, spinning to face me so fast she almost stumbles over. “You don’t get to pull me in and then push me back out. Like I mean nothing to you. Don’t pretend to care now.”
“Is that what you think? That I don’t care?”
“You’re so deadset on leaving, right?” she counters, eyes shining in the moonlight above. “Why would you?”
When I don’t say anything, she nods, like she’s got it all figured out.
She thinks this is hurting her?
It’s fucking gutting me.
“I told Manto I bet he was ready to get out of here.”
She pauses, but only for a split second.
“It doesn’t matter. We both knew this wasn’t going to end well.”
“Nova—”
“Maybe you should go now.” Her voice is so quiet, I can barely hear it over the waves crashing against the rocks below the cottage.
I don’t have anything to say to that. Not when she stares at me, waiting for me to argue and not when she shakes her head in defeat. She turns, though, and the threat that I may never get to see her again looms overhead and I just . . . snap.
“You want to know why I stayed on this fucking island?” I ground out, my chest feeling like it’s made of crumbling stone. “Why I can’t just walk away?”
Nova freezes, slowly turning to face me, her expression filled with tears and hurt.
“Four years ago, I pulled a girl out of the Mississippi, and I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.”
The silence between us is hazardous. Dangerous. Neither of us moves and I don’t think either of us forms a solid thought between the rush of the electricity flowing between us.
Fuck . . . I step closer and she presses herself back against the door of the cottage.
“I didn’t know, at first. Not until I put it together.” I can’t describe how hard it is to get those words out around the lump in my throat. How badly it feels like I’m clinging to the last breath of oxygen I have left and it rests in her hands.
She could take me out of this world with a blink of her eye. All she’d have to do is say the word.
“Stop,” she whispers, the tears gathering in her eyes silently slipping down her cheeks.
“Four fucking years, Nova, and I thought about you every fucking night. Then I find you here?”
“There’s no way,” she breathes, shaking her head and trying to turn back toward the house, but I place a hand on her waist and she stops. “That wasn’t you.”
“It was.” I hold up my palm, showcasing the scar I got from a broken piece of the car when I fished her out of the water. “Walked away with this and a hell of a fucking story.”
She shivers and I think she’s going to cuss me out. Tell me to fuck off and leave. Tell me she never wants to see me again.
Hell, maybe that would be better for both of us. A clean break.
But Nova and I aren’t clean. We’re jagged and broken, but we fit together better than any fucking puzzle I’ve ever seen.
“We crashed . . .” she stammers. “Jack got me out and I couldn’t reach the surface.”
“And someone pulled you up and got the water out of your lungs and that same fucking someone has been thinking about those pretty ocean eyes for four years,” I grit, my hands shaking like a fucking lunatic when I reach up, brushing that loose curl out of her face. My hand slips lower, capturing the tear on her cheek and she closes her eyes at my touch.
Fuck, I want to stay with her, just like this. Freeze time. Freeze myself from the inevitable when I know I’ll let her down. When I fuck this up, just like I’ve fucked up everything else in my life.
“I don’t know why I’m here, Nova, but I can’t seem to stop. Sometimes I wish we were different people, but we’re not. All we have is right now and I don’t want to spend my last hours here fighting with you.”
Another tear slips free, but she stares up at me like I hung the goddamned moon.
I definitely don’t deserve that look. Not after the selfish life I’ve lived. Not when I’m telling her I plan to leave in a single day.
“You pulled me from the water?” she breathes.
“I jumped in after you.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Because I couldn’t stay.”
“You . . . saved—”
“Don’t,” I cut her off. I can’t fucking hear that shit. I would have done it a thousand times over for anyone. Even Jack. “I’m not a hero, Nova. I’m just a man that was on his way across the states who stopped to see a goddamned fireworks show.” I step closer, pressing my lips to her forehead, my chest aching to pull her into me. “You, though . . . you have stayed burned in my brain for years.”
A shiver ghosts through her and I don’t move. Not a fucking inch because right now, what I want to do is pull her into me, bury myself in her where neither of us will have to face the light of day in the morning. I want to get lost with her, burn in her. Let her consume me until we forget who we are and the lives we live that will inevitably tear us apart.
That’s what I want to do, but I know I can’t.
“One day,” she says softly, and cement hardens in my chest.
“One day,” I repeat. Now that it’s been spoken into existence, I’m starting to wonder if I really want to go to Alaska or if I’m losing my fucking mind leaving this girl.
I’ve searched every face for hers in the last four years. Wondering what happened to her. Who she was. I wanted to know her story. I wanted to know what made her laugh, made her sad. Those curiosities plagued my mind every fucking night and now that she’s here, in my hands, I’m giving it all away.
Maybe I could stay. Maybe we could make this work.
It’s the not knowing, without a doubt, that I can make her happy, that stops me.
“Better make the most of it.”
We both pause, her hand on my chest where I’m sure she can feel my heart beating the inside of my ribcage. I don’t move. I wait. I wait for her to come to me because I need her to. Right now, in the dead of night on one of our last nights together, I need to her to crave me as desperately as I crave her.
Carefully, as if she might spook me, she raises on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine.
And everything fucking ignites.
Once she kisses me, she doesn’t stop, reaching up to fist the roots of my hair and pull me closer to her with a moan.
Fuck, I guess that’s all the signal I needed.
Lowering her back to her feet, I push her into the side of the house, kissing her the way I want to. As if I can brand myself on her, so she’ll think of me after I’m gone.
“Fuck, Nova,” I grit, when I break the kiss to nip the flesh below her jaw. She whimpers in response, reaching between us to palm me through my jeans. “Inside.”
I give her just enough room to slip around me and unlock the door before I’m hoisting her against me and dragging her into the dark living room.
I fall down to the couch and she doesn’t waste a second, straddling me, bringing her lips back to mine, and reaching down to stroke me. I grip her fingers, sliding them off before I come in my jeans and undo the button. Seconds later, when she wraps her hand around me, fisting me from root to tip, I bite back a growl.
“Put me inside you, Nova. I want you to ride me.”
Raising on her knees, she slips me back and forth through her folds moaning when she finally aligns me with her entrance and I push inside just an inch.
“Fuck,” I hiss, my hips shaking. I want inside her. I want to be buried in her so I don’t have to think about what’s coming—about this ending. “That’s it. Take me.”
She pushes down another inch, eyes screwed shut and the sexiest fucking look on her face and I swear, she’s a fucking angel hovering over me.
I slip my hands up the outside of her hips where goosebumps pebble the flesh and push her dress up so I can see her swallowing me.
“You’re so fucking wet, baby.” She breathes out a shaky sigh, raising back up to push back down. “Fucking dripping down my cock.”
“Reid,” she pants, one of her hands on my shoulder, the other resting over mine on her hip.
“Look at me, Nova.”
Those eyes meet mine and my heat builds at the base of my spine.
“Look at me while you ride me. Take all of me, little bird.”
She lowers herself until I’m fully seated in her and can’t do anything but fucking try not to come. Carefully, she raises up, working her hips to ride me and it’s the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
“Remember your safe word,” I command. Then I slap her ass hard.
Her back arches and she moans, my name coming out a garbled mix somewhere between a prayer and a curse. If it weren’t for the knowledge that this night is one of our last together, I would have come already, just from watching her.
Reaching up, I tug the straps of her dress down her arms, then lower until those perfect tits pop out, shining in the moonlight through the windows. Her skin glows like a fucking angel and I’m the lonely grim reaper, not worthy of her presence.
Reaching up, I fist the ends of her hair and force her back to arch, changing her angle so she can grind her pussy on me, chasing her orgasm.
“That’s it, Nova,” I coax, teeth clenching against my own orgasm. “Harder . . . Take it all.”
“Reid!” she cries, body spasming over me as she explodes, her movements becoming choppy.
I don’t give her time to adjust. Not tonight. I pull her off me, tossing her on the couch and dip between her legs, tasting her in one full sweep of my tongue.
I growl. She gasps, crying out from how sensitive she is.
I push my tongue inside, dragging it up until I find her clit. Circling the nub, I hold her hips still while she attempts to buck against me.
Her legs shake on either side of my head and she fists my hair, not sure if she wants to push me away or pull me closer.
“Fuck,” she gasps and under normal circumstances, I would chuckle at the dirty words pouring out of her mouth. Right now, though, I understand. I’m right there with her.
I don’t stop until she’s coming for me again, body shuddering underneath me with a light sheen of perspiration clinging to her skin.
This is what she does to me. I can’t think. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. If it’s not Nova, I don’t fucking want it.
The moment I’m pulling her back to me, aligning my cock at her entrance, all I can think is: This is going to hurt.
And I know I’m not talking about the sex.
I thrust inside her, bottoming out with a harsh grunt. I swallow her moan with my lips, slipping my tongue in her mouth hungrily.
“Reid, I don’t think I can come again,” she pants, desperately clinging on as I power into her from above. My hips meet hers and the sounds of our skin meeting fill the room like music.
“I know you can.”
Her mouth clamps shut and her eyes roll back at my words. I want to show her exactly what I’m feeling, even if I can’t decipher it myself. Even if it won’t matter in three days.
Even if I never see her again.
“Who’s pussy is this?”
I’m not sure why I’m asking, but some deep, primal part of me needs to hear it.
She’s so busy holding me as tight as she can, moaning and writhing underneath me, that she doesn’t register what I said, so I repeat it.
“Who’s pussy is this, Nova?”
“Yours,” she breathes, her eyes widening as if she can’t believe her own admission.
“Good girl.” I run my lips over her jaw, along the column of her neck then up to her ear, nipping at the lobe. She gasps, tight cunt clenching around my cock to the point of madness. I know she’ll be sore and aching tomorrow, but part of me wants it. I want to leave my imprint on her, I want my scent on her skin.
Her moans spur me to move faster, pushing into her deep. She comes again, gripping my hand on her hip and intertwining her fingers with mine. For some reason, this seems more intimate than me buried balls-deep inside her, but I don’t let go.
There’s a line being crossed, but I’m powerless to stop it.
I come, damn near losing my existence before I collapse, burying my face in the crook of her neck. My chest is pounding, but part of me knows it’s not entirely from the mind-numbing sex we just had.
This feeling . . . it’s strange. I don’t know if I want to feel it again or never let go of it.
“Jesus,” Nova pants, reaching up to brush the wet hair from my forehead. “That was intense.”
That was intense, but unfortunately, it only makes me want more.
Too bad that was the start of our goodbye.