Chapter 25 - Callie
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Callie
It takes a second for the words to sink in, but once they do, all I can do is gape.
I’d been so furious when I marched over, heat surging through my body as I imagined a dozen different ways I could tell Jensen to go kick rocks.
But now—now, all I can feel is the icy chill of the rain on my skin and a deep ache in my chest for the man standing in front of me.
Jensen’s face is all hard lines, but it's his eyes that betray him, dark and as wild as the storm that rages around us, and swimming in agony so profound it extinguishes the fiery anger burning in my gut.
“Is that what happened?” I ask. “Is that why she left?” I’m not sure I have the right to ask, but I need to know. I need to understand. The wind steals my words almost as soon as they leave my lips, but I know he hears them from the way he flinches.
At first, I don’t think he’s going to answer, but then he lets out a ragged breath and nods. “She said there was no reason to stay, not when I couldn’t give her what she wanted.”
The words settle between us, heavy and unyielding.
Jensen lets out a low sigh, so full of resignation and pain it nearly breaks my heart in two.
I don’t know the whole story, but I can see it all over his face—the soul-crushing rejection.
It cloaks every feature and hangs over his head like a shadow.
I’ve known rejection, but not like this. This is agonizing loss. It’s earth-shattering betrayal. It’s utter devastation, the kind some people never come back from.
My brain, trying to process everything, spins and whirs and then clicks with a realization.
One of the comments from earlier, the ones I was reading out loud in the truck, mentioned something about us getting married and making pretty babies.
It hadn’t even registered with me then, but now it makes sense.
Right after reading all the comments, that was when Jensen’s behavior had changed.
“In the truck,” I whisper. “The comment about us getting married and having . . . ” I trail off, not even wanting to say the words so I don’t trigger him more. The tortured look on his face is all the confirmation I need .
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea, and if I’d known, I’d—”
“It’s me that should be sorry.”
I start to shake my head, but he holds up a hand.
“No, please. Let me apologize. I was a jerk today, and there isn’t an excuse for my behavior.
You deserve so much more than that. Which is exactly why we’re having this conversation right now.
I’m so sorry I let it go this far. I knew better, I really did, but I told myself that it was okay to let myself have a reprieve, even if it couldn’t last. I wanted that, the peace that you gave me, even if it was only temporary.
It was selfish of me. I know that now. I just got so swept up in .
. . in you, Callie. You made me feel whole.
You made me forget. And if you’ve thrown yourself off a cliff, then I’m free-falling right beside you, but we both know it’s not enough. ”
I realize then what he’s really saying. It’s the same thing I’ve been telling myself for years. The same, horrible mantra that feels like it’s tattooed on my skull.
I am less. I am unworthy. I am nothing. I am undeserving.
I am not enough .
A sob rises in my throat for the brokenness in front of me. For the same brokenness that I carried around for six years. Until recently, when a grumpy mechanic made me believe differently.
A feeling far more powerful than sadness or empathy surges through me.
I take a careful step closer to Jensen and another.
He tracks my movements, but he doesn’t pull away when I’m close enough to touch him.
I search for the words to tell him that he’s wrong, but I know he won’t believe me.
I need him to understand. So, I tell him the four words tattooed on my heart . “Fly with me, Jenson.”
His eyes widen at the words and he shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do. I know exactly what I’m saying, and you need to hear it. It’s enough, Jensen. You’re enough.” I step up on my tiptoes, pressing my palms into his chest and trail my mouth along his jaw. “Fly with me,” I whisper.
Jensen’s body tenses and his breathing is ragged, but slowly, he wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer. I lean back a little to peer into his face. He looks absolutely terrified, and the war raging in his eyes makes me ache.
“You know what Mrs. Dorothy told me? She said that sometimes you just have to jump. There’s no way to know whether you’ll fall or you’ll fly, you just have to have the courage to try.
But I’m starting to think it’s more than that.
I think it’s a choice. We get to choose.
Flying or falling. Falling or flying. It’s up to us to decide.
” I lift a hand to his cheek. “So, what do you say? Will you fly—”
Jensen crashes his lips to mine, stealing the rest of my sentence and my breath. This isn’t just a kiss. It’s an answer, fierce and unrelenting, as his hands tangle in my hair.
A thrill, sharp and electrifying, shoots through me as his mouth moves over mine, desperate and claiming. My fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt as I pull him closer, matching his urgency with my answering kiss. Just as hungry, just as untamed.
As his tongue sweeps over mine, I swear it’s as if the world tilts and the only thing keeping me anchored is the feel of his hands moving across my skin, sliding down my back to hold me against his chest. I step up on my tiptoes, deepening our kiss and chasing the taste of him in my mouth.
Heat surges through me as Jensen slowly walks us backward until my spine presses into the wall. My body molds to his, my hands sliding up over his broad shoulders as I wrap my arms around his neck, giving as much as I’m taking.
I thought I understood fire, thought I knew what it meant to burn for someone else, but the inferno inside my chest is searing. It’s feverish and incendiary.
Jensen pulls his mouth away from mine, leaving me gasping, as he trails his lips along my jaw and down the column of my throat, each press of his lips into my skin like a scorching brand.
It feels so unbelievably good, I don’t want him to stop.
He presses a kiss to my bare shoulder, his fingers toying with the thin straps of my dress as he moves the fabric aside to kiss more of the skin there.
I shiver when he puts the strap back in place, his thumb moving back and forth in a soothing circle.
My fingers find his face and trail along his jaw.
He leans into my touch, his eyes finding mine.
“Callie,” he murmurs, his voice low and rough.
It’s a plea and an apology, and I can feel the way he’s holding himself together, holding himself back as if he’s afraid I’ll regret all of this later.
But I won’t. There’s not a single touch that I would trade, not an ounce of me that wants this moment to end.
For the first time in so long, I feel like that girl who used to paint with reckless abandon, who used to do what she wanted without a care in the world. I feel like the girl I used to be.
I feel alive in a way that I’ll never be able to paint because there are no hues in existence that can match the vibrancy of his touch.
No shade or tint that can mirror the way my body responds to him.
No spectrum of color that can truly capture the depth of what it feels like to be in his arms. I don’t want him to hold back from me.
I don’t want careful. I don’t want restraint. I want him .
I lean in, brushing my lips against his, slowly and deliberately. He shivers beneath my touch, and I kiss him again. I’m still burning, but I don’t want to rush, don’t want him to mistake the feverish flurry for something else.
Jensen’s hands slide down my sides and over the curve of my waist down to my thighs.
His fingers grip me tightly and then he lifts me into his arms, my legs wrapping around him and eliminating any remaining space between our bodies.
“Tell me to stop, Callie,” he pulls away to whisper roughly in my ear.
His lips skate across the skin of my jaw and down the crook of my neck, as he trails kisses across the curve of my shoulder, over my collarbones.
“You have to tell me to stop,” he murmurs between breaths.
“I can’t,” I breathe, the smell of pine and mint from his aftershave mixing with the dampened earth and the rain from the storm. “I don’t want you to.”
One of Jensen’s hands goes around me, gripping my waist while the other trails up my spine to cup the back of my neck, supporting me as he pulls us away from the wall. His mouth captures mine again and sweet magnolias, the way he kisses me should be criminal.
He doesn’t pull away as he carries me to the door, his lips never leaving mine as he pulls the screen open and brings us inside. In the living room, he gently puts me down, his hands holding on to me as I slide down the length of his body.
Jensen swears low in his throat, and I pull back to see him glancing down to where Peaches is standing up on her hind legs, her front paws pressed into his side.
Her tail wags and her tongue darts out of her mouth trying to lick whichever of us she can get to first. A snort bubbles up in my throat as he gives her a gentle shove.
“Down,” he growls, giving her a sign. “Go lay down.” He gives her another sign and points to the dog bed by the fireplace.
She gives us both a look that reminds me of an eye-roll, but she does what he says, trotting over to her bed and flopping down with a huff.
I laugh again and when Jensen looks at me, his mouth is quirked up in a grin so beautiful it feels like I might cry.
“I love hearing you laugh,” he tells me, leaning in to nip at my bottom lip. A whimper escapes me, every nerve cell in my body igniting. “And that,” he whispers against the skin of my neck. “I love the sounds you make when I touch you like this.” His fingers trail down my arms and I shiver.
“Please,” I murmur, my hands gripping his waist. “Don’t stop.” Everything inside me is electric, my body humming with the current as it courses through every inch of me.
Jensen’s eyes darken as he lifts me again, scooping my legs out from under me and holding me with one arm around my back and the other under my knees.
His stormy gaze makes my pulse race, and I kiss him with an urgency that scorches, his lips meeting mine step for step.
When we come up for air, he lifts his brows at me, as if to ask the question, “Are you sure?”
I stare into those wild eyes of his and nod, just once, but with all of the certainty of my soul.
He leads us into the hallway, the booming of my heart matching his footfalls against the smooth hardwood floor.
The bedroom is dark, save for the dim light filtering through the window.
Rain batters the roof, the rhythmic sound filling the small space as wind howls through the trees.
I’m usually afraid of storms, but not here, not when I’m wrapped in Jensen’s arms.
His hands are everywhere now, his fingertips roaming every inch of me, as if he can’t get enough.
My own hands lift, and I’m shaking as I reach for the hem of his shirt, pulling the wet fabric away from his body to slide my palms up against the hard plane of his stomach.
The heat of his skin beneath my fingertips is overwhelming and not enough.
As if he reads my mind, Jensen pulls the shirt up and over his head. The soaked material clings to his body, but he rips it away, tossing it on the floor at our feet.
His fingers find the zipper of my dress, his touch light as he tugs it down, the fabric slipping from my shoulders to pool at my feet. His eyes roam across my body as he tugs me closer.
My hands slide upward, tracing the lines of ink that swirl across his chest. He’s so beautiful, I can hardly stand it, and I step up on my toes to press a kiss to his chest, right over his heart.
His lips find mine again, and there’s nothing but the feel of his skin against mine, the sweet whisper of breath between us.
We’re on fire, he and I, but this isn’t the blazing inferno from before.
It’s slow ribbons of magma carving lines into stone, molten and transformative. Consuming. Re-shaping.
And together, we burn.