Chapter 2
JAX
The soft hazel eyes I’ve dreamed about staring into for years widen slightly, and Raelynn’s mouth opens and closes a few times before she swallows thickly. “What do you mean…unfinished business?”
I step closer, until my damp chest touches the swell of her breasts, and slide my hand around her lower back. Being this close to her again, seeing her after so long, has sent me spiraling back to that night as if it were just yesterday instead of over a decade ago. “That night at the bonfire…”
She trembles in my arms, hopefully for the same reason my body is vibrating.
“You walked right up to me and kissed me like you were trying to steal my breath, Rae, and then, you told me you’d always wanted to do that…and you walked the fuck away. Left the next day for college, and I’ve never heard from you again. I’d say we have some very serious unfinished business.”
Her hands come up and press against my slick skin, her nails scratching lightly across my abs, making my cock twitch. “You think so?”
Fuck, yes.
I pull back and lock my eyes with her, nodding. “I do. Unless your husband would object to us going somewhere more private to discuss it?”
The corners of her lips twitch. “No husband.”
“Your boyfriend, then?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t have one of those, either.”
Thank fuck.
If fate had dropped this woman back in my orbit only to yank her away because she’s already attached, I’m not sure I could handle it. It’s been hard enough not to throw her over my shoulder and take her back to my place since the moment I first laid eyes on her today.
“Good.” I grab her hand and tug it gently, leading her out of the tent and onto the festival grounds. “Come on.”
Her dark hair floats around her as we weave through the crowds. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Rae narrows her eyes on me suspiciously but allows me to lead her through the throngs of spectators waiting for the next event to set up. She motions toward it. “Don’t you need to be doing something with this?”
I wave a dismissive hand. “I’m actually not competing. I haven’t in years. I was only doing the chopping because one of the guys got hurt and had to bow out.” I grin over my shoulder at her. “Makes it more entertaining when there’s better competition.”
“Don’t you need to be monitoring things?”
Her concern brings me to a stop, and I tug her up against me. “You’ve been here for all of thirty minutes, and you’re already worried about how I operate my business…”
“Shit.” She winces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
I grip her chin and tilt it up. “I’m just messing with you. I appreciate the concern, but I have a really good staff who knows exactly what to do. They don’t need me looking over their shoulder all the time. I’d much rather get to that unfinished business we have.”
Her cheeks pinken even more than they already were from the July heat—and hopefully something else.
If seeing me affected her even half as much as me seeing her did today, it means all these years of wondering what could have been might have all been leading up to something other than nights spent with my cock in my hand, thinking about the one who got away.
I couldn’t help but catch her watching me, feel her eyes on me the moment she stepped up to the fence and started observing the competition. From the minute I heard she was back in town, I’d hoped she’d show up, but I wasn’t about to go chasing her.
It appears I didn’t have to.
And that brings a grin to my lips as I brush my thumb across hers, then step back before I do something publicly I definitely shouldn’t. Like kiss the ever-loving fuck out of her. “Come on.”
She lets me lead her away from the competition grounds and down the cobblestone path into the thick trees. “This was where the old bonfire pit was, right?”
“Yep.”
“That’s where we’re going?”
I grin at her. “You’ll see.”
The shade from the massive trees creating an arch over us helps shade the hot summer sun, but it can’t cool me off—not having my hand wrapped around this woman’s after so long.
We make it to the end of the path and step out into what used to be my little sanctuary growing up, where all the kids from high school would come to gather on Friday and Saturday nights for bonfires to hang out and drink and do things we absolutely should not have been.
But that is long gone.
Raelynn pulls to a stop, her eyes wide as she takes in what occupies the small clearing now. “Where did this come from?”
The log cabin sits directly in the middle, surrounded by towering firs and maples. A picturesque little postcard hidden in the woods. Smack dab on the spot Rae kissed me and broke my heart.
“I built it.”
She gapes at me. “You built it?”
I nod and offer a slight shrug. “After high school, I went to work for my grandfather’s lumber business. Learned some construction skills.”
“I’d say so.”
We approach the cabin, and I reach out with my free hand and twist the knob, swinging open the door to my own private refuge.
Her dark brows rise. “You don’t lock it?”
I chuckle. “You’ve been living in Milwaukee for too long. I don’t need to lock the door to my cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere.”
“Fair point.”
We step inside into the slightly cooled air, and she releases a sigh. “It feels good in here.”
“I put in air conditioning.”
She laughs. “Do you remember growing up how so many of us didn’t have it and how we’d all go hang out at Rocky’s house on those sweltering days because his parents did?”
I laugh as I close the door behind us and lean against it. “I do. And if we weren’t there, we were out here, enjoying those long summer nights…”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I watch her wander around the main living space of the cabin. She trails her fingers over the black leather couch placed in front of the fireplace, then makes her way over to the mantel to examine the photos lined up there.
She pauses in front of one and grabs it, bringing it closer to her face before she turns it toward me. “Was this from that night?”
That night.
Raelynn doesn’t need to get more specific. We both know exactly when she’s referring to. It’s haunted me, my failure that night, letting her walk away and disappear from my life.
I nod slowly. “Yep.”
And I have the photo memorized by heart—the eight of us. Best friends since kindergarten, all sitting around the bonfire the last night before she left, the first one of us to go off to college.
“Wow.” She flutters her fingers over it. “That was a long time ago.”
“It was and it wasn’t.”
She sets it back on the mantel, then turns toward me. “What do you mean?”
This would be a good time to keep my mouth shut, to lock away what has been buried safely for so long, but looking at that same mane of dark hair spilling over her shoulders, those hazel eyes almost the color of rich honey, it’s impossible for me to lie to her.
Even if it might save my heart.
“I’ve missed you.”
Her shoulders slump slightly, and she gives me a sad smile. “I’ve missed you, too.”
As much as I appreciate the words, the same pain in my chest that hits me each time I think about her comes right back. “You could’ve called, written, emailed, sent a carrier pigeon.”
Her perfect pink lips curl up slightly. “I could have. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
I stare down at my boots rather than at her when I say this because if she sees what a fucking sap I am, she’ll probably run the out fuck of here—again. “Why’d you kiss me and then leave?”
She releases a heavy sigh, and I look up as she wanders over to the couch and lowers herself onto it.
Her slender shoulders rise and fall. “Because I was a fool. Because I was seventeen, about to turn eighteen and start my new life in the big city, and I felt like if I didn’t do it then, I never would. ”
“You should’ve stayed a little longer at the party.”
Rae hesitates for a moment, her smile saddening. “You know what would’ve happened if I had.”
We both do.
It’s my turn to offer a shrug. “Would that have been so bad?”
Her bottom lip trembles slightly. “It would have because I might not have been able to leave if I had done what I wanted to that night.”