“Nine hours,” Vance murmured.
“I thought I was the only one keeping track.” I leaned back, rising up on my toes as he bent to take my mouth.
His tongue swept across my lower lip, but before we could deepen the kiss, footsteps descending the stairs broke us apart.
Vera walked into the kitchen with damp hair and sad eyes. “I think I’m going to go to bed. Will I see you in the morning?”
“Probably not.” Tomorrow, I was heading to the shop at four to catch up on baking before we opened. Vance and Vera were planning to leave Quincy around six.
Her chin quivered. “Thank you for everything, Lyla.”
“You’re welcome.” I walked over and pulled her into a hug, then whispered in her ear, “Take care of him.”
She nodded. “I will.”
“Take care of yourself too.”
Vera nodded, hugging me so tight it took me off guard. It was almost like she didn’t realize her own strength. But damn, she was brave. Some might think that living off the grid, hiding in the Montana mountains would be a hard life. I think what she was doing now was the real challenge.
She could do it. Vance wouldn’t let her fall.
I let her go and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Good night.”
Goodbye. Would I see her again?
“Night, kiddo.” Vance took my place, giving her a hug.
“Night.” She sagged against him for a long moment, then with a wave, she retreated upstairs.
He waited until she was gone, then faced me. In our time together, I’d never seen him look so miserable. I’d never seen those stormy eyes so full of regret. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Other than planning Vera’s reemergence, we hadn’t talked about what would happen after tomorrow. We hadn’t talked about us.
I didn’t want to talk about us. I didn’t want him to say he’d call, only to forget if he got busy. I didn’t want him to say he’d make a visit, only for it to fall through.
“No promises.” I wanted no promises that he might break.
“Lyla—”
“Please. Please don’t make me any promises.”
I loved him. I loved him so much it hurt in every cell of my being to know he’d be gone soon.
If he broke those promises, I’d resent him. My love would turn to hate.
I just wanted to love him.
He hung his head and nodded. “Okay, Blue.”
“Thank you.”
Vance snagged my hand and turned, tugging me behind him as he walked through the house, flipping off lights as we made our way toward the bedroom. “We have nine hours. We’re not spending them in the kitchen.”
It was thrilling. It was misery. This would be our last night unless—
No, Lyla. That was a road I wouldn’t wander. If I let myself give in to the hope that Vance might come back, my entire life would stop. I’d wait and wait and wait for this man.
And in that waiting, I’d wither away, day by day. Dying just a little if he didn’t return.
So this had to be our goodbye.
We reached the bedroom and Vance spun, slamming his mouth on mine as soon as we crossed the threshold.
The ache in my heart was brushed aside for now by the sweep of his tongue against the seam of my lips.
I opened for him, soaking in every moment of that kiss. The softness of his lips. The taste of his tongue. The heat from his delicious mouth. The scrape of that beard.
If this was the last night, then I wanted it to be a night neither of us would ever forget, so I gave him everything I had. My palms flattened on the iron plane of his chest, his heart thrumming beneath his shirt.
One of his hands stretched behind my back, shoving the door closed. Then he bent, swooped me up beneath my ass and carried me to the bed.
We crashed, a mess of tangled limbs and frantic kisses as we worked to strip away our clothes.
Heat radiated off his body, hot and liquifying against my bare skin. I melted into the mattress as he settled his weight on me, almost crushing and so powerful. God, I loved to be trapped beneath this man.
His tongue flicked against mine, sending a shiver down my spine. Then he broke away, trailing his wet mouth along my jaw to my ear. “Fuck, but I want you, Lyla.”
“Then take me,” I breathed, wrapping my legs around his hips.
He reached between us, fisting his cock as he dragged it through my drenched center. “This isn’t going to be sweet or slow.”
“Yes,” I hissed.
“You’ll feel me for days.”
Days after he was gone.
I arched into him, my nipples hard and pebbled, zinging as they rubbed against the coarse hair on his chest.
He filled me with a single thrust.
“Vance.” His name was a mewl as my body stretched around his. My nails dug into the corded muscles bracketing his spine.
I’d leave my mark too.
Leaning up, I latched on to his pulse as I kissed and sucked against his collarbone. I nipped at him, my teeth leaving enough of a bite that he groaned.
“You want it harder?” He rammed his hips forward, sending his cock impossibly deep.
“Oh, God,” I moaned. “Yes.”
“Fuck, you feel good.” He pulled out only to hammer inside again.
Stroke after stroke, he didn’t give me a chance to catch my breath. Every time he drove us together, the air rushed from my lungs.
He growled as a sheen of sweat covered his body. Then he bent and took my throat in his mouth, sucking so hard I knew exactly what I’d find when I looked in the mirror. Red marks, peppered along the column of my neck.
For the rest of my life, I wouldn’t see the invisible bruises from Cormac.
I’d see the hickeys Vance had given me instead.
I love you. I wouldn’t say those words, but they ran in my mind as he kissed me.
He was thorough. He was deliberate.
Vance marked me as his.
Not that he needed to. I’d been his for weeks.
“Too much.” My orgasm was racing toward me too fast, too hard. It would leave me in ruins. “It’s too much.”
“It’s not enough.” Vance didn’t stop. If anything, my whimper only spurred him on faster. The upholstered headboard knocked against the wall in a muted thump, thump, thump.
My toes curled. My back arched as pleasure flooded my veins. And then I was gone, shattering into the oblivion. Stars exploded behind my eyelids as my pussy clenched around Vance’s length.
He didn’t stop or slow, not until he planted deep and came on a roar into the crook of my neck.
Vance’s body shook with mine, his muscles taut and trembling. Then he collapsed on top of me, giving me his full weight for a few moments as our ragged breaths filled the room. With a quick flip, he shifted so I lay boneless on his chest.
My ear was pressed against his heart and I closed my eyes, memorizing that sound.
Vance’s hand trailed down my spine. It wasn’t an absent, mindless movement. There was too much pressure in his touch. He didn’t draw random patterns. He touched me with intent. To memorize?
His other hand came to my throat, touching the marks I knew were blooming. “You still got your scarves?”
“Yes.” A smile tugged on my lips.
“Good.”
He propped up on an elbow, glancing at the clock on my nightstand. A frown marred his handsome face. “Eight hours.”
Before my heart had a chance to sink, he rolled us again, once more trapping me as his hands found mine, clasping them while he gave me a tender, sweet kiss.
Eight hours.
We used them all. Every minute. Every second.
Too soon, I was sitting behind the wheel of my car, slowly backing out of the driveway.
Vance stood on the concrete, his hands tucked in his jeans pockets.
We hadn’t said goodbye. We’d climbed out of bed thirty minutes ago, and while I’d showered, he’d begun packing clothes in his suitcase.
Then he’d walked me to the garage, kissing me before I’d slid into the driver’s seat. And now he was following me down the driveway.
I reversed into the street.
Vance stopped at the edge of the pavement.
It was dark, but I saw him as clearly as if it were broad daylight. And this was how I’d remember him.
Disheveled hair. A hand on his jaw, rubbing his beard. That tall, broad frame cast in the shadows of twilight with the brightest stars fighting the dawn. Gray-blue eyes locked with mine.
He raised a hand in the air.
I pressed one against the glass.
Then I aimed my eyes on the road.
And as I drove away, I didn’t let myself look back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LYLA
“Lyla?” Talia’s voice rang through the kitchen at the coffee shop.
“One second,” I called from the walk-in refrigerator. My voice was scratchy. I’d come in here hoping the cool air would quell the burning in my throat.
It was inevitable that I’d have to tell my family Vance was gone, that he’d left this morning. But I’d hoped it would be Mateo or Knox or Griffin who’d come to the shop first. It would be easier to tell one of them to disseminate the news.
Unlike my sisters, my brothers wouldn’t want to talk about my feelings. I didn’t want to talk about my feelings. They were too raw.