Chapter 15 Kick
KICK
Snapper drove into the parking lot, and I had the door open before the truck stopped moving.
“Go get her,” he said.
I didn’t look back. I crossed the gravel lot in four strides and pushed through the door of the bar, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
She was standing with her back to me, one hand resting on the worn wood.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders.
She wore the same clothes she’d had on at the Stonehouse, but seeing her now, all I could think was how much I wanted to strip them off her, lay her down on our bed, join our bodies together, and pound my love into her so hard it would fill her up and she’d never forget it.
The door swung shut behind me, and the bartender’s eyes flicked up, then back to the card in his hand. Isabel didn’t turn around.
But I saw her shoulders shift. Saw the slight tilt of her head, the way her hand stilled on the counter.
She knew I was there.
I crossed the room in silence, weaving past the empty tables and scattered patrons who didn’t look up from their drinks. When I reached her, I didn’t say anything. I just slid my arms around her waist from behind and she rested against my chest.
She fit there like she’d been made for it. Like all those months of circling each other, of pretending we didn’t feel this, had just been the long way home.
I pressed my mouth to her ear. “Goddamn, I love you, Isabel Van Orr.”
A sound escaped her—half laugh, half sob. She still didn’t turn around. She just relaxed into me, letting me take her weight, letting me hold her up.
“Take me home, Kick.”
I tightened my arms around her, pressed a kiss to her temple, and breathed her in.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
The bartender slid her card across the counter. I reached past her to grab it, tucking it into her purse without letting go of her waist. She turned in my arms then, finally facing me, and I saw the tear tracks on her cheeks and the redness around her eyes.
“I was coming to find you,” she said. “I was going to—”
I kissed her. Right there, in the middle of the bar, with the afternoon light slanting through the windows and the other patrons pretending not to watch.
I kissed her because I’d spent the time since I found out she’d run from the Stonehouse thinking I might not get to do it again, and because, now, she was here and in my arms.
When I stepped away, her hands fisted in my jacket.
“Home,” she said again.
I took her hand and led her outside.
We drove back to my house in silence, but it wasn’t the cold silence of the ride to the airport from two months ago. This was so different. Her hand rested on my thigh the whole way, her fingers curled against my jeans like she needed the contact to believe I was real.
I kept one hand on the wheel and covered hers with the other.
The house was dark when we arrived. I parked in the garage, cut the engine, and we sat there for a moment in the quiet.
“How did you know where I was?”
“The bartender called. He knows everyone in wine country. Recognized you, probably from your card. He called a buddy who called a buddy, and eventually, it got to someone who had my number.”
She laughed, quiet and tired. “Small towns.”
“Small towns.” I lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Come inside. We’re gonna talk, Isabel, but not right away. First, we’re gonna make love, and it may damn well take me all night to show you how much you fucking mean to me.”
She didn’t argue or deflect or do any of the things the old Isabel would have done. She just nodded, a look of hunger on her face that matched my own.
I led her inside, through the dark kitchen, and down the hallway to the bedroom. The house was cold, but I didn’t care, and neither did she. We’d make our own warmth.
I stopped at the foot of the bed and turned to face her. In the dim light filtering through the window, she looked fragile. Breakable. But I knew better. This woman had survived things that would have crushed someone weaker. She just didn’t know her own strength yet.
“I need you to hear something,” I said. It came out rougher than I intended. “Before we do this. Before anything else.”
She tilted her head, waiting.
“When I couldn’t find you—when I didn’t know where you were or if you were okay—I couldn’t breathe.
I tore through this county like a madman.
I went to your father’s house, Isabel. I confronted him.
Because the thought of losing you…” I shook my head.
“There is no version of my life that works without you in it. You understand? None.”
Her breath caught. “Rascon—”
“I’m not done.” I stepped closer and cupped her face in my hands.
“You can run a thousand times. You can push me away, shut me out, build walls so high I can’t see over them.
And I will still be here. I will still come find you.
I will still love you. That’s not a promise I’m making. That’s just the truth of who I am now.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and I caught it with my thumb.
“Now,” I said, lowering my mouth toward hers. “Let me show you.”
The kiss started soft. Tender. A question and an answer all at once. But it didn’t stay that way. Her hands fisted in my shirt and her gentleness gave way to raw hunger. Something that had been building since the moment I’d walked into that bar and seen her standing there.
I lifted her and rested her body on the mattress. She sat, then scooted back, making room for me. I followed her down, covering her body with mine, bracing my weight on my forearms so I wouldn’t crush our daughter between us.
Our daughter. The thought hit me like it did every time—this impossible, miraculous reality that we’d made a life together. That she was carrying a piece of both of us inside her.
I kissed her deeper, my tongue sliding against hers, and she moaned into my mouth.
Her hands found the hem of my shirt and tugged.
I broke the kiss long enough to yank it over my head, then helped her with her sweater and her bra until she was bare from the waist up and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“I love you,” I said against her stomach. “Both of you.”
Isabel’s fingers threaded through my hair. “Rascon. Please.”
I knew what she needed. The same thing as me—to feel connected, to be as close as two people could get, to replace the fear of the last few hours with something solid and real.
I unzipped her jeans and worked them down her hips, taking her underwear with them. She lay beneath me, naked and trembling, her chest rising and falling with quickened breaths. I stripped the rest of my clothes off and settled between her thighs.
“Look at me,” I said.
Her eyes met mine. Dark. Wanting. Trusting.
I put my hands between her legs and felt her wet heat, then slid into her slowly, watching her face and the way her lips parted and her lashes fluttered. She was so warm, so tight, so fucking perfect that I had to stop and breathe, or it would be over before it started.
“You feel that?” I pressed in again, deeper. “This is where I belong. Right here. With you.”
She wrapped her legs around my waist, drawing me closer. “Then, stay.”
“Always.”
I set a rhythm—slow at first, savoring every stroke, every sound she made. Her nails raked down my back, and her hips rose to meet mine. We moved together like we’d been doing this for years instead of months, like our bodies had memorized each other.
I buried my face in her neck, breathing her in and kissing the hollow of her throat, the curve of her shoulder, and the spot behind her ear that made her gasp.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured against her skin. “I’ve got you, baby. Let go.”
She shattered beneath me, her whole body arching off the mattress, my name on her lips. I followed her over the edge, spilling into her with a groan that came from somewhere deep in my chest.
I stayed inside her, our bodies still joined, our hearts pounding in tandem, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my back.
“I love you,” she whispered. There was no hesitation this time, particularly when she repeated it. “I love you, Rascon.”
I kissed her forehead. Her nose. Her lips. “I know. I love you too.”
We lay together afterward, her head on my chest, my hand stroking up and down her spine. The room had warmed from our bodies, from the heat we’d generated, but I covered us with the blanket anyway.
“Tell me what happened,” I said. “At the lunch.”
She was quiet, then took a deep breath, and told me—about the things my mother said to her, about feeling like she was drowning in kindness she didn’t know how to accept.
She didn’t belabor it. Didn’t explain every thought that had run through her head.
She just gave me the shape of it, and I filled in the rest.
“Your mother offered me something I’ve wanted my whole life,” she said. “And I didn’t know how to take it. So I ran.”
“And then you stopped.”
“And then I stopped.” She lifted her head to look at me. “I went to that bar because it’s where we started. I figured…if you were going to find me, you’d look there.”
“I would have looked everywhere.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But I’m glad you made it easy.”
A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Where did you look? Before the bartender called?”
“As I said, I went to your father’s place. I thought maybe that was where you’d gone. You hadn’t, thank God, but he was there, and we had words.”
“What do you mean?”
“I made it clear he doesn’t get to have opinions about us. About our family. About how we raise our daughter.”
She studied my face. I wondered what she was looking for—anger, maybe, or regret. She wouldn’t find either.
“Our daughter?”
“He knows about the pregnancy, Isabel. Are you surprised?”
She shook her head. “What did he say?”