Chapter 27 – Davis
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
DAVIS
“What?” His body went rigid in her arms. “What did you just say?”
When he tried to pull away, she squeezed him more tightly, holding him still. “Wait,” she said, closing her eyes, slowing her breathing, doing everything she could to stop crying. “Please. I need to get a few things out too.”
Softening, sliding one hand along her low back, the other around her neck to cup her head, holding her closer, so close she felt his heart beating inside his chest, he said, “Okay.”
Pulling herself together was next to impossible. His story, his life, the last twenty minutes of his unrelenting honesty, had cored her out so deeply that she knew some part of her would remain hollow and aching if she didn’t do this right. So even though it was impossible, she had to try. She had to stop crying, stop hurting for him. For them. At least long enough to say what she needed to say.
“Thank you for trusting me with your story,” she said, wishing more than anything that she could go back in time and find him in his house, surround him with her arms like she was now, make him feel safe again, let him know he was loved. “I know it probably won’t help, but I am so sorry all of that happened to you. None of it was your fault. You were just a kid. You were just doing what you had to do to survive.”
His cheek dropped to rest gently on her head.
“Thank you for telling me about that night too. The night in my car.” Shame tried to dig its sharp claws into her, but she pushed it back. That was the point, wasn’t it? To no longer be embarrassed? No longer be ashamed? If he could do it, she could do it too. “I think I knew that was the night everything fell apart too. I felt it. Only, I thought it was me. This whole time, I thought it was all my fault.”
“Why?” he asked, incredulous. “Why would it have been your fault?”
“Because of what I said to you. Because of how selfish I’d been.”
“You weren’t selfish. You didn’t say anything wrong.” He pressed his lips into her hair, the sweetness of it giving her the courage to pull away, to raise her chin, to look at him.
“I did, though,” she said, while he cupped her face, drying her tears with soft swipes of his thumbs. “I wanted to be with you too. I wanted you so badly I could barely see straight. And when you said no to me, when you pushed me off your lap, it felt like rejection. Like you didn’t want me. I was so embarrassed. I was hurt and confused and so frustrated about the entire situation that I lashed out. When I got out of the car and slammed the door on you, when I shouted at you to fuck the rules, I was ashamed too, Kev. I was so ashamed of myself. I’m still ashamed. Because I didn’t support you. I put my own selfish needs over your recovery. I got pissed at you because you were trying to do the right thing. Who does that?”
“Davis.” A hint of a smile curled his lips. “When did you ever tell me to fuck the rules?”
Pulling up short, she said, “What do you mean? I said it that night. I shouted it.”
His huffed laughter brushed across her cheeks. “You must have only thought it. Because I think I would have remembered if you’d told me that. All I remember is I said no. You said okay. You walked back to the lodge while I walked back to my cabin. And that was that.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s not how it happened.” Shock was, quite frankly, not a strong enough word for her current emotional state. “You said we had to stop. I got pissed. I flew out of the car, slammed the door, told you to fuck your rules. And then I ran away like a spoiled child. Nothing was the same between us after that.”
Snaking an arm around her waist, urging her close again, he said, “Total coincidence.” He was trying to calm her, absolve her. After all he’d just told her, he was still more worried about her than himself. “If you did tell me to fuck the rules, either I was too messed up to hear it, or you said it while the car door was closing. Either way, I can guarantee you, one hundred percent, that my relapse had nothing to do with you or your actions that night. It was all me. Now can we please get back to the part where you said you’re not leaving? Because I am freaking the fuck out.”
Just then, River nickered. Davis had never heard a horse laugh before, but that’s definitely what it was.
While it was true that he’d just shifted her entire worldview on its axis, tipped it on its head, punted it off a cliff, she didn’t want him to freak the fuck out. So she rose up onto her toes, her lips a breath away from his, and repeated, “I’m not leaving.”
“Davis.” It was a plea. A prayer against her lips. So she answered it, kissing him as sweetly as she could.
Pulling away, she explained, “No matter how hard I tried over the last month, I couldn’t make a single decision about school, about my future. I’ve had this feeling, these thoughts pulling me in a different direction for a while. And then I started getting more involved with the men, helping them with their education, with their futures, and it felt so good. Being helpful felt good to me. And then you and I made up. We started talking. We started…more than talking. And even though I was already leaning away from going back to the U, and even when I started leaning toward you, I knew I had to fi nd something for me. A reason to stay beyond just us, beyond my mom and grandma, beyond Bluebird. I had to find my own path.”
While he watched her, still listening, still waiting, she asked, “Do you remember when you got back from rehab, and I told you that you couldn’t fix us?” He nodded, and she said, “I told you that because I believed it. I believed we were so broken that we couldn’t possibly find our way back to each other. But I’ve been here, watching you piece your life back together, watching the men support you, watching Madigan and Jen support you. And I realized that I was wrong. I realized that maybe, with enough time and support and love, nothing is ever so broken it can’t be fixed. Because you’ve pieced my life back together too. You’ve pieced us back together. And maybe I can do the same thing for others. Maybe I can help other people piece their lives back together after they’ve been broken.”
“You’d be really good at that.” Brushing his knuckles over her cheek, he said, “You put me back together every time I see you.”
Her eyes stung, fresh tears rising to cloud her vision, fresh Kev lines meandering across her heart. “I met with Madigan the other day,” she said. “And I asked him to talk me through some things, help point me in the right direction. And then yesterday, after we”—she cleared her throat, the sense memory of his lips on her skin and his fingers closing around her hips threatening to derail her train of thought—“after… talking to you in the computer lab, I knew the path I was on was the right one. The path where I got to help people, but I also got to be with you. Because I’d spent so many nights while you were gone wishing you were here, and I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want either of us to spend one more second wishing we were together. So as soon as I got back to my room, I emailed my professor. I told him that I appreciated his offer, but that I was interested in something else now. I told him I’d applied to several online programs to get my master’s in social work—which I spent all night doing before you knocked on my window. I told him I was staying where I belonged. Because I am. Right here is where I belong.” She placed her hand over his heart, feeling it beat a steady, solid rhythm under her fingers, a rhythm that would count out their days, their years, their lifetime together. “With you is where I belong.”
He looked down at her with tears shining in his eyes. With pure love shining in them too. “You’re really staying?”
Smiling up at him, she said, “It wasn’t a mistake when I said that River was your other girlfriend.”
He made a sound that was half sob, half laugh, and when she reached up to cup his cheek, she asked, “How could I leave you, Kev? Your face is all I want to see when I wake up. Your voice is all I want to hear before I go to bed. You’re it for me too. The only man I’ll ever love. Because I love you. I love you. I am so in love with you. And I’m yours, completely. If you still want me, I’m yours.”
He didn’t answer her with words, only by pulling her close, lowering his lips to hers, and kissing her so deeply their tears mingled on her tongue. So passionately her body turned liquid in his arms. And for so long even the horse looked away.
It was dark by the time they got back to Bluebird, even darker with the steam building up on the truck’s windows. She was in his lap, his seat reclined, his hands on her ass while he kissed her and she kissed him back. Through her thin leggings, she felt everything. Every hard inch of him sliding against her, every firm press of his fingers. They’d parked at the far end of the lot, under the trees, far from the lights. Far from the world.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said against her neck, rocking her over his erection, driving her to the edge so fast her breath stuttered and her toes tingled. “So perfect.”
“So are you,” she whispered in his ear before sucking his lobe into her mouth, making him groan.
Slowly, his hand moved lower, his fingers sliding between her cheeks, under her. Until he found the need throbbing between her legs .
“ Fuck , baby,” he said, practically grunting it while sparks exploded behind her eyes. He pressed on her clit, circled once, making her bite her lip, bite back a moan. But it was when he paused and asked, “Is this okay?” that shit got real.
Was this okay? Was this how she wanted things to go? Some stolen, sweaty moments in the parking lot like high school? Like last time? But this wasn’t high school. This wasn’t last time. This was now. This was real life with real-life consequences. This was a rule break. If they got caught, he could get kicked out of Little Timber. If they got caught, he could lose his home. And he’d already lost enough.
While she’d been thinking, he’d been circling. Slow. So mind-meltingly slow. Her thoughts blanked, sensation pulling her down, dragging her under. But she fought back, kicking hard to the surface.
“Stop,” she gasped when he pressed down on her again. “We gotta stop.”
“We do?” His breath was hot against her skin, his tongue even hotter as he licked a searing trail up her neck.
“Yes,” she said. “The rules.”
“Fuck the rules.”
She barked a laugh.
Pulling his fingers away from her—but not before giving her one final, torturously slow swirl that made her eyes roll back in her head—he said, “But I don’t want to leave you like this. That would be twice I’ve left you so close.”
Still rocking against him, still chasing the climax she was intent on denying herself, she said, “I know. But we have to. I love you, Kev. I want to be with you. For real. Out loud. And I don’t care who knows it.”
Meeting her gaze, the hunger in his nearly making her change her mind, he said, “You know what that means, right?”
“Yes,” she said as resolutely as she could. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll tell Madigan that we need to talk to him. We’ll set it up. We’ll follow the rules. We’ll do this right. ”
“Are you sure?” That telltale crease sank between his brows. And now that she knew the life that had worn that groove into his skin, all she wanted to do was smooth it away. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable just so we can be together,” he said. “I can wait until I’m ready to leave Little Timber. Until we can be intimate without having to get permission.”
Leaning forward to kiss his forehead, right over his crease, feeling it melt under her lips, she said, “Maybe you can.” Then, to prove her point, she took his hand and placed it over her breast, over the hard tip of her nipple that could probably cut glass. “But I can’t. Besides, literally nothing could make me more uncomfortable than I am right now. Telling Madigan I want to be with you will be a walk in the park compared to— oh my god ,” she gasped when he pinched her nipple through her tank top, rolling it between his thumb and finger.
“Good point,” he said darkly. “There is no way in hell I’ll be getting any sleep tonight.”
“Same. But, fuck , if you keep touching me like that, we’ll never leave this truck.” She pushed his hand away before sliding hers over his shoulders. “We can wait, right? We can be good?”
His gaze was still pinned on her breast, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. And if he leaned forward, if he pressed his open mouth over her and sucked her nipple through her shirt, it would be game over. Luckily, while hers was frayed beyond recognition, his restraint was still intact.
“I can wait,” he said unconvincingly. “Just…not for very long.”