Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
I claw at his shoulders, dig my nails into his skin that’s slick with sweat.
He doesn’t stop.
His rhythm is merciless. It’s brutal and beautiful all at once. He drags me higher, higher, until lightning splits across the sky and I come apart beneath him.
The sound I make is primal, nothing like me, nothing I’ve ever heard from my own throat. His groan follows. It’s rough and broken, as if letting go is the hardest thing he’s ever allowed himself to do.
We collapse. The storm rages on, but inside we’re a tangle of limbs and harsh breaths, hearts pounding like we’ve just outrun something bigger than both of us.
I tell myself I won’t fall asleep in his arms.
I do anyway.
Morning comes and I rise, finding Henry’s shirt and wrapping it around me. I pad barefoot to the kitchen and heat water on the kettle for tea. Once it’s ready, I pour some into a mug and add a tea bag.
The silence is too loud. It’s different now. No longer charged by the storm.
Charged by something else entirely.
Henry moves behind me, and even without looking, I feel him. The scrape of his arm against mine as he passes is enough to light me up again. A graze of knuckles. That’s all it takes.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, voice rough from sleep. From last night.
“Don’t be,” I whisper back, but my throat is dry.
He pours himself water, adds a tea bag, the silence stretching like a rubber band about to snap. My chest feels tight. My body remembers everything.
Last night wasn’t the first time.
The night after the wedding. His mouth on mine, his body heavy over me, but different. Slower. Careful. I wanted more, craved the desperation I knew was buried under his control, but he didn’t give it. He made love like a man afraid he might break me.
Last night, there was no fear. Only fire.
I sip my tea, careful to avoid burning my tongue.
Then my phone buzzes.
The sound makes me flinch. It skitters against the counter, screen lighting up with words I don’t want to see.
Checking in again. Still up for coffee?
Lance.
My rescuer.
My stomach dips. I slam the phone face down, breath short. My pulse is too fast. I don’t reply. I can’t reply.
Henry sets his mug down harder than necessary. Tea sloshes. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to.
The silence between us is different now. Heavier.
I glance up.
He’s looking at my phone.
His jaw is a hard, tight line. His eyes are darker than they were last night, the blue storm still in them.
Heat curls low in my stomach, but it’s tangled up with guilt, fear, and something else I can’t name.
I want to say it’s nothing. I want to say Lance doesn’t matter. But I’ve already said these things, and even so, my voice won’t work, not with Henry looking at me like that.
The storm outside might be over.
Inside? I’m afraid it’s just beginning.
Twenty-Two
Henry
“It’s him, isn’t it?”
Tabitha doesn’t flinch. Not outwardly. She keeps her fingers around her mug like the heat’s a shield. “Yeah.”
I want to hate him.
But how can I? He saved her from what could have been something horrendous. Something she probably still hasn’t recovered from.
Still, I hate him. I hate him and am grateful to him at the same time.
How would I have reacted before Ralph? Before my mind got so fucked up? Would I have been this ridiculously jealous of someone who doesn’t mean anything to her?
But that’s also a lie. Of course he means something to her. He saved her.
Hell, if I were in her shoes, I’d probably choose him over me. What the hell have I ever done for her besides fuck her hard and fast after promising myself I wouldn’t and then breaking her heart in the same fucking breath?
I close my eyes, inhale deeply. It doesn’t help. The cabin has that after-storm hush, a kind of ringing quiet that deafens.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture kills me. Familiar and brand-new at the same time. I want to step forward and push the hair back myself, press my mouth to the soft spot under her jaw until she forgets every name but mine.
I don’t move.
“Henry,” she says, quiet. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
She frowns. “Circle the thing we’re both pretending isn’t in the room.”
I huff a laugh that doesn’t sound like one. “I’m not pretending anything.”
She cocks her head. “You’re jealous.”
“Yeah.” No point dressing it up. “I am.”
She parts her lips. In surprise or relief? I can’t tell. It only makes me want to kiss her.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because last night you said you didn’t want safe,” I say. “And that scares me a little because I haven’t wanted safe since we were in the barn together. Because I walked into my house under construction and decided I’d drive to Boulder and tell you that, and a beam tried to make sure I never said it.”