“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He laughed. “He left the cloth for her. I don’t know why, maybe he got suspicious or she just needed to confess, but somehow she ended up telling him the truth. Did she think he would stay with her anyway? He got proof to my lawyer, and they overturned the sentence. In a way, it was too late for me. I was already so fucked up. So many fights…those nights in the ER…I didn’t want to be like this. I had to survive. I couldn’t…”
“I know. I understand. You couldn’t let them.”
“The craziest part of the whole thing was when I was released from prison. I got it into my head that he’d be there waiting for me. He would apologize, and I’d already forgiven him. I knew I could never go back to the priesthood, but at least I’d have a friend.”
I pulled myself up to face him. “You have a friend.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my head. “I don’t deserve one. You, least of all.”
“I know I’m pretty great,” I said blithely.
He grinned. “A saint.”
I rested my forehead against his the way I had in his truck. It brought me closer to him, like I could pull the pain from him and take it into my own body. He did the same for me, really, and we were both conduits for the pain, the currents between us grounding us together. He was the god of thunder, retreating from the world that had rejected him. I was the maiden he’d caught going over the edge, who he’d secreted away in his lair beneath the falls.
“Sometimes I think Norm was a bastard. A stupid, horrible person,” he continued, “and I curse him to Hell. Then other days…I knew my friend too well. He believed her. Maybe he was blindsided by her looks or interest in him. Or maybe he was too messed up by what he’d already seen. But either way, he truly believed it of me and that hurt the worst. He’s been out there, somewhere, feeling like shit, and I can’t stop it. I don’t even want to care about that, but I do.”
I knew the feeling exactly. My mother wasn’t the best, but she hadn’t wanted me hurt. She hadn’t realized what Allen was doing to me until it was too late. Like Hunter, too late.
And yet, here we both were. Two second chances. Almost a miracle.
“Forgive yourself. It’s the only way we can be together.”
His lip quirked. “Are you preaching to me, Evie?”
“You know what they say. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, preach.”
“Do they say that?”
“I have no idea. I’ve spoken to approximately five people my whole life.”
He grinned and kissed me, his lips curved as they pressed against mine.
It was the first time we had really kissed. His tongue met mine in a sensual meeting, a languid caress followed by another and another. He explored me there as thoroughly as he knew the rest of my body, learning each contour and sweetly sensitive shadow.
Though I felt the usual heat flaring between us, there was no urgency, no expectation that it would turn into more. It touched me that he would spare me sex now when he thought I was weak, but he still didn’t quite realize that sex with him strengthened me. It was the most intimate of embraces, a show of support and desire unequaled.
Anticipation warm in my belly, I began to kiss my way down his neck, his chest, and lower, lower, but he stopped me.
Glancing up, I asked, “No?”
He shook his head. “You don’t need the added salt intake when you’re already dehydrated.”
I snorted, then licked the curve of his abs. “You’re not that salty.”
“Not yet.”
My laugh was cut short by the shock of cool water on my belly. He had found that damned washcloth again and he used it to full advantage this time, rubbing it along my body and limbs, over my hardened nipples and down into the soft, damp valley below. He teased me through the rough cloth, dragging me higher to a sharp-sweet crescendo.
I shook in his arms, until he released me and moved downward.
His tongue replaced the cloth, a caress infused with the absolution we needed in the past, a prayer spoken against tender, swollen skin. He took me to heaven and then pulled me back down again with the sharp, swift thrust of him inside me.
It would always be this way, the ecstasy and the pain. They twined together in a path we would walk, unknowing and unseeing, each glad to have found a friend. All I wanted was to be with Hunter wherever his rig should take us. Across the country, around the world.
Like chasing rainbows and capturing each one in the smile it gave us.
THE END
Thank you!
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Yours,
Skye Warren
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