Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kate
With his head hanging low, Gus shuffles out of the barn while Vaughn takes his call. I follow to give Vaughn some privacy and to keep an eye on my charge.
He’s especially slow as we pass through the yard.
Each step he takes rivals that of a sloth’s, his movements slow and weary.
The man might as well be dragging cinder blocks behind him, the concrete weighed down with his past mistakes.
Yet it’s the way he wipes his face with a hanky after every other step that truly reveals how terribly he’s hurting.
My heart breaks for them—for all they’ve lost. It’s clear they’ve been suffering for years.
It makes their gruff exteriors even more understandable now.
And it’s not lost on me that I’m picking at their wounds simply by chasing the career that cost them so much.
These two erected walls around their tender hearts years ago.
“I’m headed to bed,” Gus announces as we pass through the kitchen.
I’m left worrying over him while I watch him go.
A part of me wishes he’d sit with me for a bit, but that’s more about my needing to take care of him, and with the way I’ve pushed tonight, I can’t blame him for needing some alone time.
Odds are, Vaughn will take his sweet time as well.
With that thought in mind, I hurry through a shower before he comes back in.
The house is still eerily quiet afterward.
I throw on some pajamas and hurry back downstairs, needing to check on them both.
To fix the hurt I made them relive. I draw up short when I spot Vaughn.
With his broad frame slouched into the couch and long legs stretched out before him, he looks like he flopped onto the furniture and is now staring off into nothing.
I should leave. Should go back upstairs. Should put this endless drive to nurture on the back burner and leave well enough alone. The floor creaks as I take a step back.
“Kate.” Vaughn’s voice is a scrape of gravel in the silent room.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” I wave a hand, unsure of what I really mean.
He scrubs a hand down his face and heaves a huge sigh.
But he’s not yelling or angry. And that incessant drive to take care of him pulls me to the couch.
Curling a leg under me, I lower to the couch, facing him, close enough that if I relax the slightest bit, my knee will fall into him. “Are you okay?”
One of his long fingers reaches out, tracing the flowers on my pajama pants. “I’m okay.”
Silence descends once again, though it seems he wants to say more.
I allow myself the moment to drink him in.
The way his T-shirt pulls across his chest. The way his tattoos highlight the curve of his arm.
The stubble that cups his jaw. The long eyelashes that frame his soulful eyes.
That one unruly curl that loves to fall forward, refusing to be tamed.
I can barely feel the tip of his finger as he outlines the pattern, but that simple touch sends a wave of heat over me. Tension builds the longer he works his way down my leg.
In my fantasies of this man, I imagined him being single minded and focused, undoubtedly talented in the bedroom, but more of a man on a mission.
The reality is that he’s gentle with his touch, fingertips lingering.
Even though thin fabric separates his skin from mine, the heat of his touch still scorches through me, setting my nerve endings alight.
“Thank you for telling me about your parents,” I whisper, needing a distraction. “I completely understand if you don’t want to go to the ceremony.”
“I’ll do whatever Gus wants to do. If we don’t go, you can represent us.”
I place a hand over my heart. “I’d be honored.”
A quietness falls between us again, and he keeps tracing the floral pattern. “Thank you for demanding that Gus and I act like grown-ups.” The corner of his mouth tips up. “We’ve come a long way in the few weeks I’ve been back. A lot of that is your doing.”
While he speaks, his fingers inch closer to the scallop-edged hem of my pants. He slips one under the material, allowing the back of his finger to graze my skin. It’s the most innocent of touches, and yet it makes my lips part and my core clench.
Chocolate eyes meet mine, smoldering as they drop from my gaze to my lips and back. “I want to kiss you again, Vixen.”
“So kiss me,” I breathe.
Anticipatory goosebumps flitter across my skin, doubling down when he circles my ankle and closes the distance between us. His lips meet mine with a soft brush at the corner of my mouth. A hesitant nip, asking if this is really okay, followed by a more demanding press.
I answer by leaning in, sliding my hand into his hair. A groan rumbles through him before he pulls my leg across his hips, the softest part of me lining up perfectly with his hardness.
He’s such a gentle giant, so deliberate in his touch. A part of me wants to see what happens if he loses that tight leash he keeps himself on.
With a shift of my hips, I press into the hard length beneath me, drawing a gasp from him.
One large hand skims up my leg to the juncture at my hip, where he grips me like he doesn’t want me to move.
The other dives into my hair as he yanks his mouth away, lips dropping to my ear to growl, “Fuck, I want to be inside you.”
I draw back, meeting his gaze. Sex with Vaughn… am I ready for that? My body says hell yes. My mind and heart, however? I don’t know. It was much easier to consider a fling with him when my feelings weren’t involved.
Now, though? Now if things go wrong, it will hurt. And I’m so tired of hurting.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, breaking through my internal war.
“I’m scared.” The truth comes out in a whispered rush.
His pretty eyes soften at the edges. “Of sex?” Then, before I can answer, his eyes grow dark, his expression morphing from tender and open into something dire. “Kate. Did someone hurt you?”
I smooth a palm over his chest. “No. Not in the way you’re thinking.” I close my eyes against the truth, but deep down, I know that, in the same way I pushed Gus and Vaughn to open up, I need to do the same. “I had a miscarriage.”
He stares at me, frozen in place. The only movement a shift of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. Then he stands, wrapping my legs around his waist, and moves to the stairs. He doesn’t stop until we reach his room, his bed, where he sits, my body still wrapped around him like some kind of clinger.
“Sorry. Wanted you to be free to speak without waking Gus.” His voice, still that raspy tone, skitters across my skin.
Do I want to relive all of my heartbreak?
No. But I share it anyway. Letting him see the soft side of me that felt lost and alone when the person who should’ve been there for me abandoned me.
By the time I’m done, Vaughn has rearranged us in his bed, lying face-to-face, legs intertwined, with one of his arms providing a pillow for my head.
A single tear trickles down my temple while his fingers trail through my hair.
“Does he know?” Vaughn asks once I’m finished with my emotional dump.
“Yes. After he left, and after the doctor confirmed… everything, I told Pollock.”
A low growl erupts from Vaughn, though his fingers remain gentle as they glide through my strands. “Fucking stupid name.”
“He can’t help his name, be nice. He still checks in from time to time, but I haven’t answered his messages or taken his calls.” I push a hand playfully against his chest, trying to quash the heavy emotions.
He grabs my wrist and pulls me in for a kiss, breaking it before it becomes too heated. “Are you okay?”
I snuggle into his warm body, tracing the hair on his chest and matching my breathing to his while I consider the entirety of his question. I fall into that suspended space at the edge of sleep, feel the security in the moment with him, feel the lightness in my chest that tilts my lips up.
“Yeah. I think I am.”