“You never heard from me? What about all of the phone calls? The e-mails?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I never heard from you, Heath. You abandoned me in the hospital and left me to question everything I knew to be true about us. It was horrible. I thought we had the lasting kind of love, and yet you moved away without a real goodbye. You broke my heart.”
She was right. I’d never given her the appropriate goodbye she was due, but that opportunity was never there. Mom and Dad didn’t leave their jobs on the best or most amicable of terms, so showing up at their former place of employment was off-limits. They’d decided that for me. I’d tried calling, knowing that a goodbye over the phone was just as pathetic as avoiding one altogether, but Mallory never picked up, never had the chance to hear my voice on the other end of the line or offer me an opportunity to speak my peace.
Now was my time.
“I called you every day for two weeks, Mallory. Every single day. At what point does sincerity turn into stalking?”
“Stalking?” She laughed the words. “That never stopped you. If I remember correctly, that’s how this whole thing started.”
I doubted she meant it, but hearing her refer to us as “this”—as something present and still ongoing—made my stomach drop. My mouth went dry, my face burning with heat. “I never would’ve left you if I’d had a choice in it, Mallory. I never stopped thinking about you. Wondering about you.” Loving you.
“That was twelve, long years ago.”
“Yet it feels like yesterday. At least to me, it does. Everything reminds me of how it used to be.”
Her gaze fell away, dropped to the floor. With my finger, I hooked her chin and angled it up slowly, bringing her eyes to mine. God, she was gorgeous, even in her frustration.
“Me too,” she whispered, and then my whole world shifted on its axis when she asked, “Will you remind me what it’s like to kiss you?”
Up was down and down was up and the earth spun just a few extra rotations. I couldn’t keep myself grounded in the moment. I floated, completely untethered.
Did she want me to describe it like I had back then? When we were pajama-clad teenagers all hot and bothered under the covers. Or did she want me to show her? To remind her lips what the pressure of mine felt like when they met.
“Kiss me?” Her voice was the sweetest sound.
But her mouth had always been the sweetest taste.
My throat caught with a swallow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Had there been an earthquake at that moment, I wouldn’t have felt it. My body pulsed. My stomach rolled. My breath wavered. It was all tremors of emotion, the need for her that built over a decade of time.
Mallory tilted her head a fraction and grinned. “What are you waiting for?”
And that was it. I was done waiting.
Mallory
Heath blinked slowly. And then he didn’t blink anymore.
One movement forward and his mouth touched mine, his lips light and cautious and feeling like nothing and still everything. Just the tip of his upper lip brushed my mouth and it was the feather that teased me into delirium.
My senses spun at the tinge of whiskey that lingered sweetly on his breath and the faint scent of leather and the spice of his cologne that melded and made up Heath. It was a drug to me, to smell him this close, to breathe him in and out and in and out, a high that I’d chased for so long.
Time had changed his body. Where he’d been lanky, he was now solid. Filled out from boyhood youth into a man that took up all of his space so completely with muscle and strength and a presence that weakened my legs, unbuckled my knees. He pressed in, possessively dropping both large hands to my waist.
“Mallory.” There was pain in his voice, in the strain of his brow pulled impossibly tight.
Then his mouth covered mine. From the back of my throat, a moan vibrated and it urged him closer. Brought his lips down harder. I grasped for his shoulders, yanking him to me. He’d grown after high school and I loved the new way his body bent over mine. His hands came up to close over my jaw, thumbs rubbing against my skin.
Then his lips started to move. It was one thing to have them pushed onto mine, connected but still hesitant, as though we’d break away before we even came together. It was something different to have them moving, tugging. We alternated between sucking on top lips and bottom lips and it was perfect and warm and reminiscent of another life. Of a time when we’d been madly in love, the future a promise afforded only to us. It didn’t feel much different than now.
When his tongue licked into my mouth, that groan from earlier gritted out and Heath took that as his cue to keep going, to keep making me senseless with his mouth, his hands.
“Is this okay?” he asked. His words accompanied each step toward the sofa, our bodies moving together, his forward, mine backward, a dance with Heath in the lead.
“Mmm, hmm.”
He pushed me down on the couch. His hand cradled my head as he lowered me onto the cushion, control something he fought to maintain. Heath’s strong legs slid between mine. His chest dropped onto me, his hands twisted in my hair. I turned my head, exposing my neck to his lips and he trailed kisses down the tender slope of it, running his nose along my skin. His breath panted into my ear, hot and erratic, uneven and without rhythm.
“Mallory.” My name became a growl from his lips. I shimmied under his weight, laced my legs around his. “I’ve missed you so damn much.”
While his breathing was rhythmless, our bodies were not. We moved together, against one another, with each other. It was all motion and friction and lips and moans and I lost myself in it. In Heath. His mouth was at my neck, the swell of my chest, my chin, my cheek, my eyelids. Anywhere Heath could find to put his lips, he placed them there.
We were teenagers in our eagerness, but adults in our need.
Kissing warped time, did something to the clock that only it could do. It twisted the hands round and round until it could’ve convinced me that time didn’t even exist at all. It might’ve been hours, might’ve been minutes. It was hurried up and slowed down, the blur of our mouths and emotions smudging out the ability to decipher anything other than the here and now.
He gave me answers with his lips, not his words. The way he touched them to me, letting me know that it wasn’t over in his mind, was all I needed. We were never over. We’d picked back up where we left off, if even a lifetime existed in between.
“Incredible.” He breathed against my jaw as his hand palmed my chest. “Absolutely incredible.”
My hands were just as eager, searching for their own satisfaction. I pulled up the hem of his shirt. Crawled my fingers up the hard ridges of his stomach. His abs clenched, then released with the air that hissed through his lips. I crashed my mouth to his and took everything Heath was willing to offer.
It was only out of loss of breath that we pulled away. Heath dropped his forehead to mine, his eyes searching. Then, with the sweetest grin, he left a kiss on my nose before flipping onto his side.
“Scooch on over.” He nudged me deeper into the back of the couch and he spread his long body across the edge.
The boat.
With two arms around me, Heath drew me solidly to his chest, his leg thrown over my hip. To be wrapped up in him was the safest place, now as it had always been. It wasn’t easy to look at him, being this close, but I arched my neck and kissed him directly on his dimpled cheek.
“You are powerless when it comes to the dimples,” he teased. “They have you completely under their spell.”
“Something like that.”
“By the way,” he continued, all the while raking a hand through my hair, tingling my scalp at the roots. “Did you know that manmade dimples are an actual thing?”
“Get out.” I swatted him on his shoulder. “They are not.”
“No joke. I’m dead serious. People get them all the time now. I think it’s like second only to breast implants or something.”
<
br /> Trying to keep from erupting with laughter, I buried my head in his chest.
“Okay, I might be making up that statistic, but it is a real thing. You can Google it. You were very prophetic with that back in the day.”
“Hardly. I wouldn’t say I’m all too great at telling the future.”
“I’m quite good at it.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
Heath’s heart raced against my ear. There was a speed to it that didn’t match the cadence of his voice, like he’d managed control over one part, but not the other. His heart ticked wildly. “Here’s my future: another date, with you.”
I laughed. “A date? That’s it?”
“Hey, I didn’t specify how far into the future I can tell. I’m really only good at predicting like a day or so ahead.”
“What about even shorter term?”
“Like how short?”
My mouth smothered Heath’s before he had another opportunity to speak. I worked my lips against his, my tongue finding its way into his mouth with rough assertion. It was bold and wet and made my pulse press through my veins so thickly that I could feel it beating in my wrist, pounding against my neck. Heath bit my lip and I matched his intensity when I climbed up onto him, my knees pinned on either side of his hips, digging into the cushions underneath. In one motion, I crossed my arms over my waist, gripped the hem of my t-shirt, took a breath of confidence, and lifted the fabric from my body.
Or tried to, at least.
Just as my arms were about to slide from the armholes, Heath frantically reached up and tugged the shirt down. Rolled it over my stomach. Then, with the most solemn expression I’d ever seen him wear, he pulled me from my straddled position and righted himself on the couch.
“Mallory.” He crossed his legs up underneath his big body. We sat there, face to face.
Any confidence I’d gained over the course of the evening dissipated instantly, a vapor. I’d done such a good job shutting out that nagging voice all night, the one that reminded me this was not the same teenage body his mouth and hands had been familiar with. This was a body that had been stretched and shaped with the life that grew inside it, molding it, changing it. To me, it was exceptionally beautiful, but to a person who had no ties to the reason for its transformation, I could see how it would be a disappointing turn-off.
Heath’s reaction was what I’d expect from any man, but it hurt all the same.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not wanting to utter it, but feeling obligated to offer the excuse. “I know this is probably not what you’d hoped for.”
I could’ve slapped Heath across the face and I think it would have been better received. His eyes sprung open, mouth slack and dropped wide. “You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”
I didn’t know how to answer.
He pulled at my chin with his thumb and finger. Challenged me to meet his eye. “God, Mallory. Never, for one moment, think there is anything about you that you would ever need to apologize for. That is completely crazy.” I could feel the heat of embarrassment full on my face. He leaned closer and cupped my jaw in his hands. “If it were completely up to me, I’d be taking you to your bedroom this very second. Making love to you the way I’ve always dreamed about. Giving you every part of me that has belonged to you since the first time I saw you.”
I gulped back my nerves. “So why did you stop?”
Heath dragged a hand down his face. “Damn, this is hard.” He looked away before looking back. “Because you’re someone else’s wife.”
I bristled, caught off guard. “Someone’s wife?” My heart was in my throat and I felt the intense sting of tears prick the backs of my eyes. My chin trembled, my lips quivered. “To death do us part. That was my vow to Dylan. That was our end when he left this earth. Has it been hell? Absolutely. Do I think about him every single day? Of course, I do. Will that ever change? Honestly, probably not.” I took a breath, then continued. “But I’m not his wife anymore, Heath.” The hot tears spilled over. “He’s not mine, like your ex-wife isn’t yours.”
There was a hint of understanding in Heath’s eyes, but then he said, “There’s no love left between me and Kayla. That’s over.” His throat pulsed with a swallow. “But you will always love Dylan. And it feels like those vows are even stronger. I don’t want to be the one to break them for you.”
I bent at the waist, shuddering with a sob. Heath scooted across the couch swiftly and took me into his embrace, holding me steady, letting me cry.
“So what?” I sniffed. “I don’t get to move on?”
He shushed against my hair and rocked me back and forth in a way that no one had ever been able to comfort me. And I let him.
“Of course you do, Mallory. And I hope to God I’m the one you choose to move on with. But I want you to be the one to choose me, and not in the heat of the moment like this. I want your heart to choose me first,” he whispered against my temple and left his lips pressed against my skin as he said, “Because mine already has and always will choose you.”
Heath
For the past three years, my parents have held a graduation party at their property to celebrate my most recent batch of students heading off on their next grand adventure. I’m usually a big participant in the planning and orchestrating of the event, but this year I’ve had my mind on other things. I wouldn’t say I’ve developed as advanced a case of senioritis as many of my kids have, but I was getting close.
Every moment I wasn’t in the classroom or Mallory wasn’t at the florist, we were together. Grocery shopping. Doing yard work at her place. Taking Corbin to his baby music class at their church. It had been almost a month since we’d reunited. Our relationship was progressing in the way I’d always wanted, but there were still the things of our past that we kept to ourselves. I knew that, in order to ever take things to the next level, we’d have to empty our closets of our secrets. You could only go so far on the path of a new relationship without studying the roads in life that led you there.
“You going to ask her about him?” Mom threw down the last bale of straw from the rusted bed of my truck, then stepped back to analyze its positioning. We’d created a semicircle of bales in a seating arrangement with the logs for tonight’s bonfire stacked high in the center like a teepee of sticks. “I think it’s time you both opened up a bit more.”
“We’re open.” I slammed the tailgate shut and walked around to the front of the cab. My boots were caked with thick mud and it dusted along the hem of my blue jeans. Mom followed on the passenger side and climbed in. “We talk about stuff.”
“He needs to stop being a ghost in her past, Cliffy. It’s romantic to think there was just a temporary pause in your relationship, but the truth is, you both went separate ways. Had different lives. Sooner or later, that gap is going to catch up with you, or swallow you whole.”
I hated that she was right. Mom had an annoying habit of always being that: dead on when it came to relationship advice. I admired my parents’ marriage, though, how they fought to protect it, nurture it, and keep it fresh and alive. She could impart her wisdom with authority, and though it was easier to believe Mallory and I could coast along like this, when it came down to it, I knew my mother was speaking the truth. As always.
“Speak of the devil.” Mom smirked. Her eyes were cast up ahead, at the long bend in the red road that curved into their tree-lined property. “I have to admit, Cliffy, I’m a little nervous.”
“You’ve met her before, Mom.” I pulled my truck off the grass where we’d set up the bales and parked it in the dirt ruts that my tires settled into like a mold made for them. “She’s the same Mallory. Just even more incredible. More gorgeous. More motherly.”
“That’s the part I’m nervous about. It’s been so long since we’ve had a baby around here. What if I forget what to do? How to hold him?” Mom was stammering. “Or maybe I shouldn’t ask to hold him. That would be really presumptuous of me. Why would I expect her to trust me with her baby?”
>
“Mom, you were a pediatric nurse for over thirty years. She’s going to let you hold him.”
My mom’s hands came to her chest, clasped together. “Oh, I sure hope so.” Then she shoved me hard against my shoulder as she said, “Go get over there and help her out! I raised a gentleman, not a slouch.”
Smiling, I shrugged away from Mom, got out of the truck, and jogged down the drive. Mallory had her head ducked into the backseat, reaching into the infant carrier, and when I came up behind her, my arms wrapping around her slender waist, she let out the faintest gasp.
“Heath!” She spun around in my arms and smacked my chest. The women were sure handsy today. “You scared me!”
“I gotta sneak this in before my parents steal you from me.” I leaned over her, my fingers falling lightly on her spine, and I lowered my mouth to hers. Is was slow and sweet and only when Corbin let out a squawk from his car seat did we pull away. “To be continued.”
“You are insatiable, Heath.”
“You have no idea.” Reaching around her, I unhooked the buckle on Corbin’s carrier and scooped him into my arms. “By the way, my mom’s unreasonably nervous to meet you again. It’s sort of endearing, sort of obnoxious.”
“I don’t find that obnoxious at all. I have to admit, I’m in the same boat.” She lifted a hand into the air and popped up her fingers, one by one. “Nervous to meet your mom, your dad, your sister, and brother-in-law. Your students. Don’t get me started on your students.”
With my free hand, I slung the diaper bag over my shoulder and closed the car door. “My students are fantastic. They’ve learned all they know from me, so obviously they are amazing.”
“Do they share your humility, too?”
I loved to play like this, flirting under the guise of banter. But there was still a lot of work to be done. As soon as the three of us set foot on the porch, Mom and Dad swooped in with greetings and flailing arms that wrapped in hugs and pulled us into the house. It smelled of spicy marinades and sweet treats and all the fixings necessary for an event of this scale. The counters were layered high. You couldn’t see one centimeter of butcher block underneath the pilings of food.
Where We Left Off Page 16