Even though Paul had held her back from seeing the actual grisly scene, she couldn’t help but imagine it, her damn imagination dreaming up scenarios from his warnings. She still felt sick that she’d ever let someone who preyed on teen girls touch her—even though she’d been a teenager herself at the time—and questions about Ryan and Cass still whirled in her head. Paul had shown her the Clay family bible, where Ryan had memorialized his and Cass’s baby. It made her stomach hurt, thinking of Cass so alone and so scared as she died in that orchard.
Unable to stop the disturbing thoughts, Abby found herself grabbing a flashlight and heading out into the night, to walk the rows of trees, hoping that if she tired herself out, she could get some sleep.
As she reached the end of the fifth row, she saw movement across the meadow. For a moment, she almost ran, residual fear from what had happened earlier rushing through her body.
But then the clouds over the moon shifted, and she saw it was Paul.
A new kind of tension filled her as she stood there, at the border of the meadow and the orchard, on the edge of . . . something.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked when he was just a foot away from her. His flannel shirt was buttoned crookedly, like he’d done it in the dark, or too fast. It made her want to smile. Such a small, charming, clumsy little thing. It made her want to reach out, to slip the buttons free, and push the shirt off his shoulders.
He shook his head.
“Abby,” he said.
Just her name. But it made her heart flutter. It made her want to sway into him. To take comfort in him.
To love him the way he deserved.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he said. “I . . .” He reached out, and his palm was cupping her cheek and his eyes were on hers, lit with a fire she’d seen before, that she’d run from before.
This time, she wasn’t running.
“I’m done,” he declared fiercely. “I am done feeling guilty. And I’m done denying things. I’ve followed the rules,” he said, and she felt caught in his gaze, like a moth lured to a light, unable to look or move away. “It’s who I am. But you . . .” He stroked the back of his fingers down her cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered closed at the touch, and when they opened, his own were raw with honesty. “You make me want to break all the rules,” he whispered.
He kissed her then. It wasn’t the first kiss or their second or even their third. It wasn’t the kiss of clumsy six-year-olds, bashful and laughing. It wasn’t the kiss of hurt teenagers, unable to deal with their grief any way but together. And it wasn’t the kiss of adults, angry and lashing out and finally, finally getting what they both wanted, even though it was the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong way.
He kissed her like he knew her, because he did. He kissed her like it was the start of something new, because it was.
He kissed her because it had been long enough, denying what they both wanted, what they needed:
Each other.
Chapter 26
Kissing Abby—really, truly, kissing her, like he’d wanted to do for so long—was like discovering the two of them all over again. The boy he was. The girl she had been. The man he’d become. The woman she was now.
She was all curves and freckles in the moonlight, leading him through rows of trees like a siren. He wanted to chase her, to pound up the stairs of that old farmhouse and make that rickety old bed squeak until the morning hours.
But they didn’t even get upstairs. They barely got up off the porch before he was kissing her again, unable to resist, unable to go any longer without touching her, without having her wrapped in his arms.
He wanted to trace every freckle on her skin, to press his lips to each sweet mark. And when he licked over the spattering of dots along her collarbone, she gasped, her fingers twisting in his hair, pulling just slightly, sending a shock of heat right to his cock.
He’d never wanted anyone like this. It was roaring to life in him—denied for so damn long—that it had complete control of him as she whipped his shirt off over his head. He felt out of control and utterly focused at the same time as he pressed her against the wall, greedy, consuming kisses filling the long moments between their gasping breaths.
His hands slid underneath her simple gray t-shirt, the soft skin of her stomach and rib cage—and the sound she made—a Goddamn revelation as he slipped her shirt off. Her skin was like milk sprinkled with specks of saffron and his mouth skated down the lush curves of her breasts, down her stomach, and then he was on his knees and his hands were on the button of her jeans and he was looking up at her, a question in his eyes.
He’d spent so long denying this that now that he wasn’t ignoring it or her or this—this intense, alive energy between them that had always been there—he didn’t know where he wanted to start. He wanted to rise to his feet and kiss her again. He wanted to stay on his knees and worship her.
He wanted to do everything and anything she ever wanted or dreamed.
She stepped out of her jeans, and then she was standing there, pressed up against the wall of her hallway, dark blue lace and smooth skin and all his. He couldn’t quite believe it.
She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, staring at him, just a hint of challenge in her face, and when he made no move toward her she made a little impatient noise.
Her palms, searing hot, cupped his face and she pulled him to her, kissing him. Her teeth nipped along his bottom lip like a dare, her tongue darted out to soothe the spot like an apology. His fingers tightened around her hips as she hitched herself up against him, her thighs—those strong, glorious, freckled thighs of hers—wrapped around his hips.
“Fuck, Abby,” he groaned. He could feel the heat of her against the ridge of his cock, pressing painfully against the fly of his jeans. He kissed her, sweeping her hair off her neck and dragging kisses up it as she unbuckled his belt.
Keeping his hand on the delicious curve of her ass, he kicked his pants away and staggered over to the couch, tilting backward onto it. She let out a laughing little shriek, falling on top of him, her legs falling to each side of his hips and with a wicked smile, she moved her hips against him in an agonizingly slow circle.
He choked out her name, the friction making his eyes roll as she reached back and unhooked her bra.
He was the luckiest fucking man alive, he thought, as he cupped one of her breasts, tilting up to kiss her.
She made a little teasing, tutting sound, and then she was lifting off him. The loss of the heat of her body, the lushness of her weight against him, was enough to make him clench his fists. But then she tugged down those blue panties she was wearing and he was clenching his fists for another reason.
“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he groaned, rearing up and grabbing her, tumbling her into his lap, gloriously, beautifully naked and his.
Mine, he thought, as her fingers wrapped around his cock, guiding it to the core of her. She was so slick, so wet, so fucking hot as he slid into her. He was almost overcome by it, the heat, the way her muscles flexed around him and her head tilted back, like she was savoring how full she felt.
He thrust into her, his hands going to her hips. He could feel her getting wetter around him as she ground down on his cock in quick little bursts, her lip caught between her teeth, her eyes fluttering closed as the pleasure—the sensation—built.
He wanted her to come. Wanted to see how her cheeks flushed, how she moaned, how she would tighten around him. He wanted every moan and shudder as she writhed on his cock, lost in the feeling.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he gritted out, rearing up to kiss her, his hand dropping between their bodies, his knuckles brushing just barely over her clit.
Her nails dug into his shoulders and she shattered, rippling around him. The sight of it, so erotic, so beautiful, so her, was all it took. Two more thrusts into her pulsing heat and he was coming, his forehead dropping to her shoulder, his arms tightening around her as pleasure like he’d never known rushed through him.
For a long time, after, they remained clinging to each other, panting, the aftershocks and intimacy almost too much.
Paul didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what she wanted to hear. So he just stayed silent, stroking her hair, savoring the feel of her in his arms.
He knew how he felt. He’d known for two years now. Ever since that night he’d kissed her and then ran.