Chapter Six
Kisses That Taste Like Trouble
Darren
There’s a special kind of torture reserved for men who make promises to go slow ... and then have to keep them. Like watching Olivia walk back toward the house, hips swaying unconsciously in those soft leggings, sunlight catching in her hair while my body stages a full-scale riot.
Patience, asshole. I said it. I meant it. I need to keep my damn word. I can’t be like every other asshole before that took and hurt. I need to be different.
I pick up the pads and gloves and busy my hands with cleaning up the backyard, pretending I’m not tracking every sound she makes inside. Pipes running. Bathroom door shutting. The low hum of Aunt Dee’s voice somewhere down the hall.
Then the shower starts. Hot water on bare skin is all my brain supplies and I drop a pad.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my face like that will erase the image of Olivia naked, steam curling around her curves, head tipped back, mouth parted...
Nope. Not helping. I go inside before I embarrass myself in full view of the tomato plants.
The living room is quiet. The kids are out with other neighbor kids.
Aunt Dee is on the phone in the kitchen talking in that hushed-but-not-really hush older women use when gossiping about people you’re going to see in church.
She gives me a look that says both “break her heart and die” and “I like this one” at the same time.
I retreat upstairs. Halfway down the hall, I stop.
Her door is cracked. Not wide. Not enough to be an invitation.
Just enough for me to hear the faint rustle of fabric and the soft, unguarded sound she makes when she stretches sore muscles.
The shower’s stopped. The house is wrapped in that strange cocoon of quiet that only happens right after chaos, like everything is holding its breath before it gets busy again.
I should keep walking. I don’t. I knock lightly with one knuckle.
“Yeah?” her voice calls, muffled.
“It’s me,” I say. “Can I come in?”
There’s a pause. “Sure.”
I push the door open and nearly forget how to function.
She’s standing by the bed in one of my old t-shirts and leggings, hair damp and curling around her shoulders, skin still flushed from the shower. No makeup. No armor.
Just Olivia. And she’s devastating.
Her eyes drag over me too, lingering at my chest before snapping back up like she’s scolding herself. We both pretend not to notice.
“How’re you feeling?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe because if I come any closer, my self-control is going to file a formal complaint.
“Sore,” she admits. “Empowered. Mildly homicidal. Is that normal?”
I grin. “Textbook.”
Her smile fades a little as she looks around the room—the neat spare bed, the small pile of donated clothes Aunt Dee has already started assembling, the bag with the few smoky remnants of her old life at the foot of the bed.
The loss hits her again. I see it in the way her shoulders dip, in the shadow that crosses her face. I step in and shut the door behind me, giving us a bubble of quiet away from everyone else.
“Talk to me,” I say gently.
She sits on the edge of the bed, fingers knotting in the hem of her shirt. “It’s stupid.”
“Nothing you feel is stupid.”
She huffs a humorless laugh. “I lost my house. I should be devastated about that. And I am. Kind of. But what keeps bothering me are the little things. My grandma’s teapot.
The ridiculous lamp I bought because it looked like a dragon.
The stack of letters from the kids I helped at the library. They’re just ... gone.”
Her voice cracks on the last word. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just broken in that honest, quiet way grief sneaks up on you. I move without thinking and drop onto the bed beside her, close enough that our thighs brush. I don’t say “at least you’re alive.” I don’t say “things can be replaced.”
She knows all that. It doesn’t help.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “That shit hurts the most.”
She glances up at me, surprised. “You lost stuff in fires?”
“Not a fire.” I swallow. “After my sister died, my mom got rid of a lot. She couldn’t stand to look at it and remember. I understood but I hated it anyway.”
Silence settles, heavy and comfortable at the same time.
“Will you tell me about her?” she asks softly.
I don’t talk about Rae much. Not because I don’t want to. Because once I start, it feels like ripping open a wound that never quite healed right. But Olivia asks like it’s a gift, not an interrogation. So I give her what I can.
“She was twenty,” I say. “Funny. Loud. And she sang off-key and didn’t care. She loved shitty horror movies and Hot Cheetos. And thought every stray animal was her destiny. But she dated a guy who made her feel small and called it love.”
Olivia’s breath catches.
“By the time we realized what he was, it was already too tangled up,” I continue.
“He isolated her. He lied and manipulated. Broke things near her and then broke her, piece by piece. One night, it was bad. The cops came and reports were filed. Promises were made and she got a restraining order.” My jaw tightens until it hurts but I continue.
“Two months later, he waited outside her work.”
Olivia’s hand finds mine. She doesn’t squeeze. She just ... holds.
“I was seventeen,” I say quietly. “And I swore, swore, that if I ever had the chance to be in the way, I would be. That nobody was touching someone I cared about without going through me first.”
Her fingers tighten now.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “You shouldn’t have had to carry that.”
I shrug one shoulder, even though it feels like that shrug has knives in it. “We don’t get to choose which fires we walk through.”
Our hands remain joined on her thigh. Skin on skin. Warm and alive. Too much but also not enough. She stares down at them like she can’t decide if she wants to pull away or hold on tighter.
“Darren?” she says softly.
“Yeah?”
“Why me?”
My brows pull together. “What do you mean?”
She laughs a little, incredulous. “I’m thirty-five. Divorced. Full of trauma and bad coping mechanisms. I snore when I’m exhausted and I hoard books like a damn dragon. My body looks nothing like the women a man your age usually chase. And you’re...”
She gestures at me helplessly. Like I’m something impressive. Like she can’t see the cracks under the surface.
“I’m what?” I ask gently.
“Young,” she whispers. “Beautiful. Strong. Capable. You could have someone easy.”
There it is. The rot. The thing he planted.
I shift, turning enough so she has my full attention, our knees brushing, the air between us charged and thick with what could be.
“First of all,” I say, voice rough, “don’t ever insult yourself like that in front of me. I won’t take it. Second, easy is boring. I don’t want easy. I want real.”
Her eyes shine, confusion and hope battling.
“Third,” I continue, leaning in just enough that she has to feel every word, “you’re gorgeous.
And I don’t mean ‘for your age’ or ‘for your size’ or any of that backhanded bullshit.
I mean you are the kind of woman men write bad poetry about and lie awake thinking of.
You walk into a room, and my brain shuts down like Windows ‘95.”
A laugh bursts out of her, wet and startled. “That’s ... specific.”
“It’s also true.”
Silence hums. Electric. And she licks her lips.
Bad idea, sweetheart.
“You’re still too young,” she whispers, but it sounds weak now, like even she doesn’t believe it anymore.
“I’m old enough to know what I want,” I say simply. “And to know the difference between infatuation and ... this.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “This?”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “This.”
The space between us evaporates. I don’t lunge. I don’t trap. I just ... lean in, slow and inevitable, giving her every second in the world to pull back. But she doesn’t.
Her breath shudders out, lips parting. I hover a heartbeat away from her mouth, my entire body strung tight, every cell screaming kiss her while the last rational part of me whispers slow.
“Tell me to stop,” I rasp an inch away from her lips.
She closes the last inch and our mouths brush. It’s not even a real kiss, just contact. Soft but devastating. Her hand tightens in mine at the same time her other lifts, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt like she needs to hold on to something to keep from floating away.
I groan softly and pull away. I stare at her, looking for a sign that she doesn’t want this. When I see nothing but lust, I kiss her again, properly this time. It’s not fireworks. It’s not cinematic. It’s better. So much fucking better.
It’s heat and hunger and gratitude and promise, her lips moving against mine like she’s relearning a language and finding out she’s fluent. She tastes like coffee and courage. I keep it gentle even when my pulse rockets, even when every instinct begs me to deepen it, to take, to claim.
Not yet. Not like this.
When I finally pull back, it’s because I have to, not because I want to. Our foreheads rest together, breaths tangled, hearts slamming like they’re trying to synchronize.
“See?” I whisper. “Not too young.”
She laughs, breathless and stunned. “That’s your proof?”
“I’ve got more,” I murmur, then press a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the little scar by her eyebrow I hadn’t noticed before. “But we’ll pace ourselves.”
Emotion flickers across her face so raw it guts me.
“I’m scared,” she admits.
“Good,” I reply instantly.
Her brows shoot up. “Excuse me?”
“It means it matters,” I say. “It means you’re not sleepwalking through your life anymore.”
She stares at me for a moment before she pulls me back to her. Her mouth opens under mine like she’s been waiting years to exhale. This time, the kiss deepens fast.
It’s not soft anymore. This time there is hunger behind it. Her hands fist in my shirt, tugging me closer, hauling me down like gravity works harder for her. I groan into her mouth when her curves press tight against me, every single fantasy I’ve been wrestling slamming into reality at once.
“Fuck, Olivia...” I murmur against her lips. “You taste dangerous.”
She makes a sound that damn near kills me.
My thumbs stroke along her jaw as I kiss her again, deeper, dirtier. Her tongue brushes mine like a question she already knows the answer to. She pulls me even closer, like the slightest space between us offends her and I go, willingly, happily.
Her hands slide beneath my hoodie, her small palms hot on my skin. My muscles jump and the last of my control frays.
“Tell me to slow down,” I rasp, voice shredded. “Because I’m losing my fucking mind here.”
She looks up at me, pupils blown, lips swollen. “Don’t slow down.”
Yeah, I’m done for.
I drag my mouth down her neck, kissing, sucking gently, listening for the sound that will replay in my head forever. She gasps when I find the spot just under her ear and tilts her head, offering more.
“Good girl,” I murmur against her skin without thinking.
Her breath stutters. Yeah, that does it for both of us.
My hands find her hips, fingers spreading over soft, perfect curves. She’s warm and real beneath my palms, not something to shrink or fix or apologize for.
“Do you know what you do to me?” I whisper. “You walk around looking like sin in a t-shirt and you expect me to think about anything else? Fuck, no.”
She laughs breathlessly and then gasps when I press my thigh between hers.
She moves. It’s instinctive, needy, and fucking beautiful.
I bite back a curse and hold her steady while she rubs her pussy against my thigh, small helpless sounds falling from her lips that make my vision blur. Heat floods through my veins until I’m shaking with it. My cock is a lead pipe, but this isn’t about me.
“That’s it,” I whisper, forehead against hers. “Use me. Take what you want. I’ve got you.”
Her fingers curl hard in my shirt while she rocks against my leg again, again, chasing friction. Her breath comes in sharp little bursts, eyes fluttering closed.
“Darren...” she whispers, half warning, half plea.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Say my name while you fall apart for me, sweetheart. Say it when you...”
The phone rings. Loud, ugly, and wrong, shattering the moment. She freezes and everything inside me snaps to attention.
Her body goes tense, breath shattering. The moment is gone. Immediately, I pull back just enough to cradle her face. No frustration. No pressure. Just anchoring.
The cheap temporary handset the hospital gave her rests on the nightstand, vibrating obnoxiously across the wood. The number flashing on the screen is unknown.
“Hey,” I murmur. “Look at me. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were perfect. Breathe.”
Her throat works. The phone keeps ringing. I kiss her forehead instead of her mouth because that feels like the right choice, even while my body is still buzzing and aching for her.
“Answer if you want,” I say. “Or don’t. It’s your choice.”
The heat doesn’t vanish, it just moves down deeper, into something steadier, more dangerous. This is want, not just lust.
Her hand shakes as she reaches for the phone.
The phone rings again. Not mine. Hers.
I see it before she says anything, the way her breathing shallows, the tremor in her hand as she reaches for the device. Trauma has a specific shape once you’ve seen enough of it.
“I don’t have to answer,” she whispers, more to herself than to me.
“Correct,” I say calmly, though every muscle in my body has gone coiled and ready. “Your phone. Your choice.”
The ringing stops and silence descends.
Then starts again. Same number. Her hand shakes harder.
I rest my palm on her thigh, grounding but not restraining.
“I’m here,” I murmur.
She swallows and swipes the screen to answer the call. “Hello?”
Even from inches away, I can hear the voice on the other end. Smug. Oily. Familiar in that particular way monsters become. “Miss me, Livvy?”
Her ex. My vision tunnels for a second. Every part of me that knows how to be civil goes very, very quiet while Olivia goes rigid.
“Don’t hang up,” he purrs. “We need to talk about what you did to my house.”
Ice slides down my spine. Her mouth opens, then closes.
I squeeze her thigh gently. I’m here, you’re not alone.
Her voice is barely a whisper. “What do you want?”
He laughs. Dark, ugly, and mean.
“I want what’s mine.”