Chapter 24 Sedona #2
His hand is slightly cooler as he presses it to my forehead, a gesture so familiar, so caring, it makes my heart ache. He uses the edge of his shirt to wipe at my face, dabbing away the rainwater with a gentleness that belies his rough exterior.
His own hair is dark and wet, a few stray curls clinging to his forehead. I watch him, the way the light catches the scar on his arm, the way his throat works as he swallows. He’s so beautiful it hurts.
He clears his throat, breaking the spell. “There’s some chicken and fries,” he says, turning toward the refrigerator. “Would you want that?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice a little too eager.
I’m a little nervous as I watch him plate the food, his movements sure and practiced. He pops it into the microwave and turns to lean against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest.
“You’re brave,” he says, a teasing note in his voice. “Eating at the ranch again. When I’m halfway sure that’s how you got sick in the first place.”
I laugh, a real, genuine laugh this time. “I don’t think you’d poison me on purpose, Billy.”
He smiles, and it’s a real smile, not a smirk or a grimace. It reaches his eyes, crinkling the corners, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years.
Then a flash of lightning illuminates the room, and in that brief, brilliant moment, we watch each other from across the kitchen. The storm outside rages, but in here, in this small, warm space, there’s a fragile, tentative peace.
“I don’t think I would hurt you on purpose, Sedona.”
The way my name sounds on his lips is a physical blow. It’s not an accusation, just a simple, stated fact, but it unravels me.
I swallow hard, the sound loud in the quiet kitchen. I hurt him on purpose. The thought is a cold, hard stone in my gut.
I didn’t just leave. I took a wrecking ball to the life we were building because I was a coward.
I saw the future, saw the house and the kids and the forever, and I ran. I ran so far, and so fast, I convinced myself I was escaping him, when all along I was just running from myself.
“Billy…” I whisper.
I’m cut off by the shrill, insistent beep of the microwave. The sound is a jarring intrusion, a splash of cold reality on the heated moment.
He looks at me, and for a split second, his eyes are raw, an open wound of longing and pain. Then he blinks, and the shutters come down.
He turns away, using the sound as an excuse, a lifeline back to the safety of indifference. He opens the door, and the smell of fried chicken and warm potatoes fills the space, a comforting, domestic scent that feels at odds with the storm raging inside me.
I’m terrified. I saw that smile. A real smile. Not the smirk he uses to keep the world at bay, but the one that used to be just for me.
The one that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners.
And I can’t… I can’t breathe around the realization that he’s still in there. The man I loved is still here, and I broke him.
I’m the reason for the pain I just saw in his eyes.
My feet move before my brain can catch up, one step, then another, carrying me across the kitchen floor. I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame, knowing I’m about to get burned but unable to stop myself.
He turns just as I reach him, the hot plate in his hands trapping him between me and the counter. He looks down.
The kitchen light catches the water droplets in his eyelashes. There’s a single trickle of rainwater sliding down his jaw, and I have an insane urge to lean in and lick it off. He’s so handsome it’s a physical ache.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I whisper. The words feel inadequate, useless. How do you apologize for shattering someone’s soul?
“We don’t have to,” he says. His voice is strained, the words clipped. He’s not angry. He’s pleading. He’s begging me not to do this, not to open this door.
“I’m sorry, Billy.” I have to say it. I have to make him hear it. The guilt is a living thing inside me, a parasite that feeds on my silence.
“Don’t, Sedona.” The warning is clear, but I can’t stop. I’ve been silent for five years. I can’t be silent anymore.
“Billy, please…”
Something in him snaps. I see it in his eyes, a flash of white-hot heat. “Fuck it.”
The words are a curse, a surrender. He shoves the plate onto the counter. The clatter of ceramic on tile is a gunshot in the quiet room.
Then his hands are on me.
One hand cups the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my damp hair, holding me in place. The other arm bands around my waist, yanking me against him.
The impact is a shock. My body collides with his, all hard muscle and solid heat. I can smell him now, and it’s not just pine smoke and rain.
It’s the scent of his skin, a unique, masculine smell that I used to fall asleep to. It’s a scent I’ve tried to forget for five years.
Mine. The word is a pulse, a beat in my blood, a primal, undeniable claim. This is an Alpha. My Alpha.
“Don’t say my name like that, Sedona.” His voice is a raw, ragged thing, stripped of all pretense.
“Billy…” I whimper. My hands flatten against his chest, feeling the frantic, solid thump of his heart under my palms. It’s beating as fast as mine.
He traces my lower lip with his thumb. The callused pad is rough, a delicious friction that sends a jolt straight through me.
It’s a moment of hesitation, a final battle for control. Then his eyes darken, the last of his restraint crumbling to dust. He lowers his head and kisses me.
Five years of anger, of longing, of bitter regret are poured into this one kiss. His mouth crashes down on mine, demanding, punishing.
His lips part mine, his tongue sweeping in to claim every corner, to taste and to possess. It’s a kiss meant to erase, to overwrite, to remind me who I belong to.
His hand tightens in my hair, a delicious, controlling pull that tilts my head back. He breaks the kiss, trailing his lips down my throat.
My head is pounding, a frantic, painful drum solo, but all I can feel is the heat of his mouth, the scrape of his beard against my skin. My hands bury under his shirt, desperate for more contact.
My palms glide over the warm, smooth skin of his back, tracing the familiar landscape of his muscles. He feels harder than I remember, etched with a life I wasn’t there for.
“Holy shit,” he breathes against the skin of my neck. Then he’s lifting me.
My feet leave the floor in a rush, a gasp stolen from my lips. He hooks one of my legs around his waist, his hand cupping my ass, pulling me flush against him.
The new angle is electric. The hard, thick ridge of his erection presses directly against my core, a perfect, agonizing friction that makes me moan into his mouth.
This kiss. It’s a drug. It’s so good, so overwhelmingly right, that I can feel the pressure building low in my belly, a tightening coil of pleasure.
I think I could come just from this, from his mouth on mine and the hard press of his body against mine. He rocks into me, a grinding motion that makes my eyes roll back in my head.
His teeth scrape against the sensitive skin where my neck meets my shoulder, right over my scent gland. A jolt of pure, unadulterated need shoots through me.
“You taste so fucking good,” he growls, a vibration against my skin.
The possessiveness, the raw, primal hunger in his voice, is my undoing. It unlocks something inside me, something I’ve kept locked away for years.
“Fuck! You too, baby,” I gasp. The endearment slips out, a phantom from a past life, a time when this desperation was laced with love.
And just like that, the world stops.
He freezes. Every muscle in his body goes rigid. The hand on my hip drops away. He lets me down, my feet hitting the floor with a soft thud.
He takes a step back, putting a cold, empty foot of space between us. The sudden absence of his touch is a physical blow, a void where a moment ago there was fire.
“This was a mistake.” His voice is flat. Cold. All the heat, all the passion, is gone, extinguished as if it never existed.
“Billy…” I gasp. My body is still lit up from the inside out, aching for a release he’s just denied. My lips feel swollen, my neck is sensitized, my core is a clenching, needy knot.
But he doesn’t look at me. He turns his back, takes two long strides to the kitchen door, yanks it open, and disappears into the storm, leaving me alone.
The plate of chicken and fries sits on the counter, getting cold. And I’m left standing in the wreckage of a moment that was never supposed to happen, my broken heart shattered into a million more pieces.