She found the strength to move her head, pushing her lips up against his ear. “My body will always be yours, Vaughn. Always.”
With a broken sound, Vaughn moved down River’s body, slipping his sweaty forehead between her breasts. “Need this heart back, too. This beautiful heart.” He turned his ear to her chest, listening for a moment to the rapid beat before nodding, pressing his lips to the fluttering flesh directly above the clenching organ. “I’m sorry to you most of all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Vaughn could barely keep his eyes on the road as he drove River home. God, with the amount of time he’d spent inside her body in his lifetime, one would think he’d have had an accurate memory of the sensation. The clenching, the sliding, the push and pull. In his mind, his groin, his stomach. Everywhere. They were fucking magic in bed together. There was no way around it. Before setting eyes on River that day in the school parking lot, he’d been with other girls. Not hundreds, but enough that he needed two hands to count. And yet something deep in the pit of his soul had compelled him to wait for River once they’d met eyes, swearing off all others. Thank God for that elusive something. Thank God.
A similar prayer had gone into tattooing her name across his chest. He’d been working a security job, escorting the family of a visiting businessman to and from their various activities while the guy worked. One afternoon, while waiting for the wife to emerge from a lunch meeting, he’d been standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, and swore he’d seen River walk by. He’d run. Without a thought, he’d been in a dead sprint toward the feather-light blonde hair floating on the wind. His lungs were burning, eyes gritty by the time he stopped, realizing he must have imagined her.
That night, he’d gone home and, using a prison yard technique, added her name to his flesh, ink and blood drying into the carved up skin. Maybe enjoying the pain meant he was sick, but he’d needed to divert the ache coming from deeper inside. And with the pain of being without River growing worse with each passing day, he’d known getting over her was a pipe dream. So he’d resigned himself to living with the agony and needed a representation of it. Something tangible.
Showing River tonight what he’d done had been the ultimate high, although he couldn’t account for why. He only knew watching her eyes run over the letters, hearing her breath catch, had healed something he’d thought never would be soothed, a raging that had been living under his bones for so long.
Unfortunately, she yet hadn’t vocalized whether she would allow the soothing balm she provided to spread over every part of him. She hadn’t put him out of his misery and taken him back. While he appreciated her need to be cautious and process everything through the eyes of adulthood, it was killing him. The silence, the fact that no part of them was touching…everything about waiting hurt.
Vaughn pulled his truck to a stop outside River’s house and cut the engine, neither of them making a move to alight. “Something tells me my house is a wreck.”
His mouth edged up. “Hire a cleaning service, and we’ll send Duke the bill.”
“Or we could just put him in a maid outfit and have him clean it himself.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Vaughn laughed. When the sound faded, he knew the elephant in the truck had to be addressed. “Look, Riv—”
“Yes,” she blurted.
His pulse skittered, hands clutching the steering wheel so hard they shook. “Yes to what?”
She turned shimmering blue eyes on him. “Maybe I’m crazy, but I want to try…us again. I’m thinking maybe it would be crazier if we didn’t.” Her laugh was watery and self-conscious. “Okay?”
“Okay?” He could barely speak around the relief pressing against the walls of his throat. “Yeah, Riv, that’s pretty fuckin’ okay.”
“Okay,” she breathed, blonde hair falling across her face when she ducked her head, probably to hide the flush creeping up her smooth cheeks. But when their gazes met again, he saw there was more, could feel purpose radiating from her. “Tonight at dinner…the way you talked to me. I need that all the time, Vaughn. No more keeping things to yourself. We can’t be a team otherwise.” She paused. “Please?”
“Yes.” The word ripped out of him, because what else could he do or say when life was bleeding back into his body? River. He was getting a second chance with River. “Yes.” They stared at one another across the console a moment, before she turned to exit the truck. But she paused. And then she was launching herself across the truck’s cab at Vaughn, who’d been halfway to diving after her if she’d actually managed to escape. “Where were you going, huh?” He growled against her mouth. “You were just going to sneak out after that, doll?”
“It’s silly. I know it’s silly. You just…we just…”