“I don’t want to go back,” he replied.
I knew by the look in his eyes what he meant. We’d both changed. A lot can happen in five years. We weren’t the teenagers we’d once been, and yet we were. They were still there, buried deep.
“I want to show you something,” Heathcliff said. Walking to the bed, he kicked open the top of his suitcase and leaned over, his hand digging in a side pocket. When he stood, he cradled a book. Even with the cover torn, repaired with tape, and marred by the elements, I knew what it was.
“Wuthering Heights,” I breathed. “My book.”
He opened the cover, revealing a folded piece of paper. I knew without looking that it was the paper I’d written in high school.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did you keep them?”
“It’s funny,” he laughed, “but I kept them for the same you reason you run, the same reason you walk back when you’re done. When things seem to be moving too fast, I pull them out to remind me why I keep moving forward.”
Dropping the book, he stalked me, his body looming over mine, his palms against the wall flanking my head. His dog tags swung between us. “You grew up good, Hawthorne.”
I stared up at him, my chest heaving. “You’re still growing, Heathcliff.”
He laughed. “Yeah … I am.”
“This is going to end,” I said.
“No,” Heathcliff replied. “I don’t think it ever really will.”
Chapter 29
My gaze remained riveted to his. “What are you doing?”
One of his hands dropped to my hip, his fingers spanning it. “There was something you said about ‘dirty’ and ‘rode too hard’ earlier.”
“Heathcliff—”
His fingers ran up beneath my shirt, brushing my ribs before pausing near my bra. “It was always Max when we made love.”
“Max …” I began again.
His hand found the clasp to my bra and undid it. It opened beneath my tank top, and he stared at the way the straps fell down my arms. With one swift movement, he had the tank and the bra on the floor before I even had a chance to inhale.
Leaning forward, his lips found my ear. “We’ve done this before, Clare. Like a mind meld, remember? The other night in the yard, I told you I wished I’d never left. You want to know why? It wasn’t because of the things I’ve seen or the people I’ve lost. It’s because the thing that’s haunted me the most was not staying in touch with you.” He nibbled on my earlobe, his breath fanning my neck. “I’m not soft anymore.” His hand fell to the front of my shorts, his fingers popping open the button. “You can tell me to stop.”
His head lifted, and I gazed at his face, my heart a rapid thud in my chest. “And if I’m afraid to ask you to?”
He froze. “You don’t have to fear me.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “I’m not afraid of Heathcliff, but I’m terrified of Max.”
“That’s ironic, isn’t it?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “The irony isn’t that I’m afraid of one and not of the other. The irony is that I want them both.”
He exhaled, his fingers finishing what they’d started, my shorts pooling on the floor around my feet, my panties joining them.
As I stepped free of them, he pulled a money clip from his pocket, tugging a foil packet free before removing his jeans and boxers.
Weirdly, I was nervous, my stomach churning. Sex wasn’t something new for us, but the people who were facing each other now were five years wiser, harder, and in many ways, needier than the clumsy teenagers who’d fumbled on my bed and his hooch couch.
It felt different. This wasn’t sex. This wasn’t even about making love. We were standing in a room full of new demons, having left the old memories and ghosts behind in our hometown. Here, we were going to be making up for the five years we’d missed.
In many ways, I wasn’t prepared for the man who pushed me up against the wall, his arms lifting me into his embrace, his biceps bulging. I gripped him, letting his whisker-sharp jaw move down my neck to my chest. He suckled me, and I arched, my hands going to his hair.
He left my breasts, covering my gasping lips with his, capturing every exhaled breath as he pulled my legs around his waist, walking us to the bed.
Wrapping my hair around his hand, he pulled my head back, his troubled eyes meeting mine. “This might hurt,” he said.