Under The Same Sky (Horseshoe Bay Book 1)

by Tamsyn Bester

Chapter Seventeen

  Reese

  “After what just happened, I don’t believe there’s anything for us to talk about,” I tell Thorin, a quiver in my voice. My body is still trembling, and my mind is a war zone, a battle of wills between keeping the past at bay, and allowing it to enter my mind. I did my time, spent months in out-patient therapy, and learned to live a normal life. A life I was happy with, and before losing Ryan and Melissa, one I wouldn’t have changed for anything. But that’s the thing about triggers. They still exist, and have the power to uproot years of progress in a single evening. Or in my case, a matter of minutes. And of course, my one and only trigger will be wondering around my house, looking through what’s mine while I’m not here, and then presume to think I want a family the way I got one.

  So, no, I don’t want to talk to Thorin right now, and I don’t care why he left New York, I just want him out of my house.

  “I think you should leave,” I whisper.

  “Not until we’ve talked.” Thorin’s stubbornness ignites my anger.

  “We have nothing to talk about!” I scream. My chest heaves with every breath, and every inhalation feels like I’m breathing in shards of glass.

  “Yes, Goddamnit, we do!” Thorin yells back. He closes the space between us in seconds, and hovers over me. I meet his glare with one of my own, refusing to show weakness or trepidation. My trigger might not be here anymore, but now I’m left with the aftermath of what seeing her is doing to me, what it’s making me feel.

  “Either you two leave, or I take Mya and Eli up to the main house.”

  Mine and Thorin’s heads whip around to Fletch. He straightens, just as tall as Thorin, but his expression holds a warning. “You two want to have at it? By all means, but not with Eli around, yeah?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I tell Fletch. “You and Thorin can go.”

  “Not happening,” Thorin snaps. “Fletch, take Mya and Eli to the main house, please. He has everything he needs there for the night. Reese and I have some shit to sort out.”

  I clench my jaw, grind my molars. “We do not.”

  Mya comes around the corner, a more subdued Eli in her arms. “I’m with Reese on this one, no way am I leaving her alone with you.” She glowers at Thorin, and then Fletch is whispering something in her ear. He gives her a look—since when do they even have a look?—and she nibbles on the inside of her cheek. “Fine,” she mumbles at him. “You have a point.”

  “What’s going on here?” I ask Mya. “You’re leaving?”

  “Well, Caveman here,” she flings her hand in Thorns direction, “wants to talk to you, and doesn’t seem like he’s willing to take ‘no’ for an answer. So, we’ll get out of your hair, and when you’re done, I’ll come back. But right now, this little boy needs to go to bed, and he can’t do that with the two of you yelling at each other.” She gives me a look of disappointment, but behind that is also understanding. Perhaps her and Fletch are better equipped to take care of Eli for tonight. The volatility between me and Thorin is too high, and with that comes the shame of my first failure as a guardian. To keep myself in check when Eli is with me, regardless of the situation. He’s had enough turbulence since his birth without me contributing to it. I rub my hands down my face, feeling more exhausted than when we arrived. Mya gives me a side hug, and stomps past Thorin without looking back, Fletch right behind her. He shuts the door, and the ‘click’ echoes around us, punctuated by a heavy silence. Great. I spin on my heel, but Thorin takes my arm before I can go anywhere. “Not so fast.”

  OH.MY.HOLY.SHIT! This man and his demands!

  I snatch my arm away, and glower so hard, my damn forehead starts to hurt. “What? Say what you want to damn well say, Thorin!”

  “Calm down, damnit! And stop yelling!”

  Oh, the frecking nerve! I clench my fists, and try to recall the breathing exercises I practiced during therapy, but DAMNIT! I’m just too mad! I can practically feel the fumes coming out of my ears, followed by a burning sensation in my eyes. I staved off the unwelcome tears when Jessica was here, but now it’s so much harder to fight. I swallow, and swallow, and blink, blink, blink. Nope, not helping. The first tear trips over my eyelid and slides down my cheek.

  “Shit,” Thorin reaches for me but I slap his hand away. “Reese, please don’t cry. I know tonight was a shitshow—”

  “Ya think, Einstein?”

  He scratches at his stubble, and lets out a sigh. “I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be—”

  “Upset?” I cry, throwing my arms to the side. “I’m fucking pissed, and you,” I poke at his hard chest, “are not helping. What part of ‘there’s nothing to talk about’ is so hard to understand? I want to be left alone, Thorin. I don’t care if you’re mad that I didn’t call you all day, or let you know about my plans, and I sure as hell don’t care why you left when you did. You left, end of discussion.”

  I turn my back, but his next words stop me cold. “Senior prom. I left because of senior prom.”

  Well, that makes perfect sense. Leaving in a huff because of senior prom, which by the way, happened nine years ago.

  “It’s not because I see you as just the woman I’m being forced to raise a baby with. In fact, I don’t see you that way at all, but yesterday, I realized the Reese I see is no longer there.”

  I face him, the tears on my cheeks flowing unchecked. “Of course I’m not her anymore, Thorin. I’ve changed since then, and I’ve worked my ass off to become this version of me. A version who isn’t scared, who doesn’t apologize for who and what she is. And for your information, I happen to like who I’ve become, so if that’s the problem, if you don’t like—”

  “I love this version of you.”

  I snap my mouth shut. Come again?

  “I left because I love a you that I don’t know, and that scares me. Hell, Reese, I’ve loved you since we were teenagers, okay? And maybe the timing of this is off, or maybe losing Ryan and Mel has something to do with it, I don’t know, but when I realized I don’t know you anymore, the guilt and the remorse I’ve kept buried so damn deep it took Ryan and Mel’s death to find it, came rushing back, and I have no idea how to deal with it.” Gone is Thorin’s stoney facade, and in its place, I find the teenage boy who saved my life. I see him there, behind the man Thorin has become, but if it’s pity he wants, he won’t find it with me.

  “I don’t understand,” comes out my mouth, but deep down, I think I do.

  “I blamed myself for what you did for months, maybe even years,” he says, “but then we went on our first tour, and I kind of blocked it all out. I promised myself, and you, that I wouldn’t try and find you, I wouldn’t look for you or ask Ryan and my parents about you.” He licks his lips, and wipes at something under his eye. Is he… “But, after spending time with you, I realized that I only did those things so that I wouldn’t feel the need to ask you why you did it. I never understood, Reese, and I blamed myself.”

  Slowly, sluggishly, my mind starts piecing the puzzle together. Thorin never got closure after he saved me. I made sure he was never allowed to see me at the hospital, and after graduation, he went on his first tour, and I went to college. Sure, he came up in a lot of my therapy sessions, but when I was done, I left him in the past, never so much as looked him up. I may have kept his first guitar, and our lyric book, but those things were—are— reminders that I could, and would, find happiness within myself. In reality, this is something I should have considered talking to him about, under our current circumstances, but part of me was wondering if he’d let it go like I had. Apparently, I thought wrong, because the man in front of me is hurting, he carries a world of blame on his broad shoulders, and takes responsibility for a decision that was never his to make. It was mine, and I made it without thought of anyone else. I didn’t think twice, I just did it.

  “Why’d you do it?” He finally asks. “Was it because of me? Did I make you do it?”

  My heart lurches forward, reaching for
him. His eyes grow wet, and God, it’s killing me.

  “No,” I choke out, shaking my head. “It wasn’t because of you. I just couldn’t live with myself anymore, and I made a choice, a choice I learned to take responsibility for.”

  “But the things I let happen to you, that made things worse.”

  I want to look down, maybe side-step his statement, but there’s no way around it. I keep my eyes on him, and give him the truth. “Yes.”

  Thorin hangs his head, his shoulders shake. The last time I saw him tear up even a little was at Ryan and Mel’s service, but even then it wasn’t like this. This is years of repression, years of keeping his own feelings about what happened to me, and the part he thinks he played, in a box. Now, the lid has come loose, and there’s no stuffing what he feels back inside, or ignoring the desolation I see mirrored in his blue eyes. “But, Thorin, things were so much worse than what you saw.” I swallow, and wet my lips, trying to phrase what I need to say next. “You only saw what Jessica did at school, and maybe your mom or Ryan told you about one of the camps my mother sent me to, but that was only a fraction of what was really going on.”

  “Why did you—never mind, I know why you didn’t tell me, you didn’t trust me enough.” Thorin’s voice is so raw, so tormented. The only way to absolve him of his guilt is to tell him the truth, the whole truth.

  “I didn’t tell anyone. Your parents and your brother only knew of one time, and maybe if my mother hadn’t found out, I would have gone to them for help, but she just,” I inhale, “went crazy, I guess, and if anyone pushed me over the edge, it was her. And then I got the letter in my locker, supposedly from you, asking if I’ll go to prom with you and I thought you remembered the promise you made when I was fourteen—”

  “As long as we’re under the same sky, you’ll always have me,” he whispers, almost to himself. “And I let you down. I had no idea Jess slipped that letter into your locker back then, and if I had, I would have fixed it before you…”

  Tried to kill myself.

  This time, without hesitation, I step forward, and lift Thorin’s head, my palms at his cheeks. “What I did is not your fault, Thorin. You have to let it go. I did.”

  “Did you hate me?”

  “I thought I did,” I reply honestly. “But I could never hate you, I’ve loved you since I was fourteen, Thorin. Things just happened, and sometimes, we can’t control it, but what I did, the choice I made, I knew what I was doing, I was in control, and only I am responsible for that. Not you, or anyone else.”

  “I don’t regret saving you, Reese.”

  “And I’m so grateful you did, you gave me a second chance, and now I’m giving you yours. Forgive yourself, and let it go.”

  Thorin stares at me, and then his mouth is on mine, the force of it unyielding, bruising. I suck in a breath, and then he’s in my mouth, and I’m holding him to me, praying that he’ll never let go. His nimble hands slip my jacket off, lift my top over my head, and we separate just long enough for me to pull his shirt over his head. Then he’s kissing me again, unclasping my bra, sliding it down my arms. I pull at the drawstrings of his sweats, and push them to the floor, feeling his stomach tighten beneath my touch. He unsnaps my jeans, helps me take them off, and lifts me in his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist, signing deeply into his mouth when his erection gets caught between us. I’m still in my underwear, but they’re soaked, and when my nipples brush against his pecs, the sound he makes is guttural. He walks us down the passage, and I mumble, “last door at the end,” between wet, hungry kisses. He lowers me onto my king-size bed, and breaks away, breathing hard and fast. His chest, glorious in its build and masculinity, moves with every unsteady inhalation, but it’s his eyes that hold me captive. Bright blue, they swallow me whole, my entire being is reflected back at me and God if it doesn’t make my heart want to burst right out of my chest.

  “We don’t have to,” he says, tracing my collarbone with the tip of his index finger.

  “I want you.” Three words have never scared me more, but I trust Thorin. “Only you.”

  I hope he gets my meaning—I want him, body and soul, and bare. He gives me a chaste kiss before moving me further up the bed, and kneels, slowly sliding my panties down my legs, and spreading my thighs. He takes me in, all of me, his heated gaze leaving goosebumps all over my body.

  “Beautiful.” He says it so softly, I almost don’t hear him. “So fucking beautiful.” He places his hand on my chest above my heart. “This. I want this.”

  I swallow the emotions clogging my throat. “You have it.”

  He places my hand over his heart, and I feel the heavy, unsteady rhythm beneath my palm. “Yours.” One word, that’s all it takes. He cants his mouth over mine, and he rubs the blunt head of his cock over my clit. I shiver, and grip his biceps. With a gentleness I never thought he could possess, he pushes inside me, giving me a moment to adjust.

  “You’re so tight,” he breaths against my neck. “Are you…is this…”

  “No, I’m not a virgin, but I’ve only been with one other person.” Why my skin flushes is beyond me, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I lost my virginity in college for the sake of it, and that made for a terrible experience. Suddenly, nerves take flight in my belly, and I worry about how this will feel for Thorin, if he will find me lacking. My mind is racing, my thoughts tripping over each other in a haphazard disaster.

  “You’re thinking too much.” His voice heats my skin, and I’m feverish, and anxious. He lifts his head, and holds my gaze. “Relax, Reese. It’s just me.”

  He pushes in until his full seated, and good God, the man is hung. I feel so exquisitely full. It’s a beautiful rush of emotion that unfurls, stretching from my toes to the crown of my head.

  “Move,” I beg. “Please.”

  I need to feel him. Everywhere. I’m desperate to feel the sensation of him filling me again, and then again, and then again. And I do. With every slow, torturous thrust that turns hard, and fast, I feel him inside me, under my skin, in my head, in my soul. He’s so big, jesus, but the way my muscles stretch, and contract to pull him in and keep him there is a new experience. He shatters me, over and over again, and then kisses me back together. I come first, my back arching off the bed, eyes screwed shut, stars dancing behind my eyelids while my body bows until I feel—that’s it, until I feel. Every sensation, every breath, every ripple that tears through my body, I feel it all, and it brings tears to my eyes. Thorin thrusts once, twice, and then he grunts, his body shaking above mine. His muscles tighten, and I revel in his masculinity, the way his body dwarfs mine, the way he takes from me what he wants, and gives it back ten-fold. We lay there, wrapped in each other, skin slick with sweat, both trying to catch our breath.

  I’ve never felt more.

  Or more alive.

  Thorin rolls over, and pulls me to his chest.

  He stares.

  I stare back.

  “Are you okay?” I ask quietly. The noise in my head is no longer there.

  “Not yet, but I will be. You make it better.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thorin

  I test the water, and after throwing some vanilla bubble bath in, I close the faucet, and help Reese step into the giant, two-person clawfoot bathtub. It’s late, and we tired each other out, but she wanted a hot bath before we called it a night, and I wasn’t going to deny her. She’s not shy around me, like I expected her to be. She wears the skin of shamelessness like armor, her confidence a weapon forged from fire, I learned. It’s damn sexy to watch, really, and that she feels so comfortable around me in her nakedness is both surprising, and gratifying. Not that this is what I had planned when I said we needed to talk, but to say I’m not happy about it would be a lie.

  “Is there a reason you have this big ass tub for just you?” I tease. I climb in behind her and get comfortable, grateful that the tub itself is, in fact, large enough to fit us both, even if I have to bend my knees a little. She sighs, and r
ests her head against my chest. “It doubles as a hydrotherapy tub. I fill it with ice, and cold water on the days I do a lot of weight training. Helps with muscle recovery.”

  I start rubbing her shoulders, finding a knot, and massaging until it’s gone. “God,” she moans, “that feels good.”

  “You’re a little tense,” I kiss her neck. “Two orgasms didn’t do the trick, huh? Should I be trying harder?”

  “Two orgasms from you was…intense,” she snickers. “But I’m not opposed to you trying harder next time. I carry my tension in my shoulders, and my neck, that’s all.”

  “Okay, next time,” I nip at her skin, “I’ll try for three.”

  “Be my guest,” she cranes her neck to give me better access, “as long as I get to have you bare again.”

  “Speaking of,” I exhale. “We didn’t use a condom, so does that mean…”

  “I’m on the pill, Thorin. You don’t have to worry. And like I said, I’ve been with one person, and that was back in college.” I wait for her to ask me if I’m clean, or maybe enquire about when last I slept with someone, but she doesn’t. “I’m not quite ready for kids of my own,” she adds quietly. “Or if I’ll ever be ready, after what my mom did to me.”

  No kids? That just won’t do. I want to grow my family, with Reese. Eli’s ours, but I want at least three more kids, maybe four. I can already imagine her belly round, our baby growing inside her. But, as she told me, I only saw a fraction of what her mom was doing to her. I don’t know the extent of the real damage.

  It doesn’t stop me from asking, “Do you still speak to them? Your parents?” She hasn’t brought them up once since I came back to Horseshoe Bay, and after tonight, I’m more curious than ever. Do they feature in her life at all?

  “I haven’t spoken to them in almost nine years.” She trails her hand over my forearm, and links her fingers through mine, resting our joined hands on the rim of the tub. “They visited me once when I was in hospital, after senior prom, and my mom was so ashamed of what I’d done, so worried about what her friends in town would say, she said she no longer wanted anything to do with me. Said she’d failed as a parent, or something like that.” I feel her inhale deeply, and guilt over asking her about two of the people who’ve hurt her the most in this world—me being the third—prickles at my skin.