Never With You (The Never Series Book 6)

by Anie Michaels

  And I was angry.

  Infuriated, even.

  I’d cleaned my whole house in an angry rage, scrubbing and swearing, cursing myself for even allowing feelings for him to take root.

  By the time I lay in bed, I was stuck somewhere between angry, sad, numb, and disappointed. Disappointed in him for not being who and what he said he was, but also disappointed in myself for even entertaining the idea of a relationship with him.

  Who the hell did he think he was? He was asking me to change everything for him, to make room for him in my life, to change for him, and then he went back to his ex-wife after one week? One week? Suddenly, the rage was back, but I knew stomping around my house and cleaning it again wouldn’t satiate it. I needed to yell at him. There was an enormous need to yell every single thought I had at his face. I knew he probably didn’t care what I thought or said, but I needed to tell him all the terrible things I was thinking about him.

  I picked up my phone and was one second away from calling him, but I realized yelling at a phone wouldn’t be nearly as therapeutic. Plus, there was a juvenile need to make a scene. And yelling at him in front of Cecily, explaining what had happened between us, well, there was some sort of beautiful redemption in that.

  So, I slid my feet into my flip-flops, pulled on a hoodie, grabbed my purse, and opened my front door. Before the door had even closed behind me I was running into a thick, hard, wall of a person.

  “Ooofff,” I groaned as my hands reached out to balance myself. Arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me up, and I was pulled into a familiar embrace. My body betrayed me for a moment, smelling him, enjoying the feeling of his arms around me, but then my heart stopped, only to thump back to life with anger.

  “Steady,” he said, his voice familiar and caressing my skin as though he were actually touching me. As soon as I was steady, I pushed myself back from him. He stumbled backward, which gave me a tiny bit of satisfaction, but I kept my steel expression.

  “What are you doing here?” I practically spat the words at him.

  “I needed to talk to you.” He looked exhausted. Terrible, even. Well, good. He deserved to be tired and miserable. “Where are you headed at eleven at night?” His eyes roamed over my body from head to toe, then back up to meet my eyes. “And in your pajamas?”

  “Actually,” I said, cocking my hip out to the side and crossing my arms over my chest, “I was on my way to see you. I was going to give you a piece of my mind, but seems you saved me the drive.” I looked past him at his truck. Everything was bathed in darkness, not even the moon offering a lot of light, but I could tell the truck was empty. “Where’s Cecily? I had a list of things I wanted to tell her too. Did you leave her back at the beach house? Is she enjoying the new kitchen?”

  “Talia,” he said softly, his voice full of pain. He took a step toward me, but I retreated equally.

  “No,” I snapped, holding up my hand. “You don’t get to come close to me or say my name.” The anger that had been coursing through me just moments ago was melting away and I could feel the sadness coming back. Damn him. “How could you?” I whispered, the tears making their return. “You could only wait six days? Seven was too many? What the hell, Briggs?”

  “It wasn’t what you think. Let me explain.”

  “Explain what? Go ahead, tell me what your ex-wife was doing in your house. Tell me why, when I called to tell you that I missed you and wanted to make our relationship work, she was there asking you to come back to bed?”

  My words seemed to affect him, but it wasn’t anger or hurt I saw in his eyes, it was regret.

  “She wasn’t asking me to come back to bed. She wanted me to go out to the garage with her. She was never upstairs or anywhere near the bedroom. I swear. Please.” He stepped toward me again, but when I stepped back I was pressed up against the door. I had nowhere else to go. “Weeks ago, she’d called and asked if she could stop by to get a storage container she’d accidentally left in the garage. I didn’t want any of her shit, didn’t even know it was out there, but I wasn’t going to keep her from it. She said she was going away for a bit, on her honeymoon, and that she’d stop by when she was back in the States. I told her fine, and I hadn’t spoken to her since. She showed up just before you called, without warning, and I just wanted her to get her shit and be gone.”

  He took another step toward me, closing the distance between us, and my breath caught in my throat. He looked so sad and upset, and there was something deep inside me that was screaming at me, reminding me how much he despised Cecily. Even I had a hard time believing he’d take her back.

  “I would’ve waited forever, Talia,” he whispered, stepping even closer, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. I didn’t have the strength to stop him. The opposite, actually. I craved his touch, even if half of me was still fighting it. “I didn’t invite her in, I didn’t ask her to come back to me, and I don’t want her. I want you.”

  My eyes closed at his words, tears streaking down my cheeks.

  “Just when I thought I could open up and let you in, I called and heard her voice. It almost killed me, Briggs. I was going to drive to your house and yell at you until, I don’t know, you both spontaneously combusted.” It wasn’t funny, but I laughed a little anyway. Laughed, then cried again.

  He stepped closer, closing the rest of the space between us, and I had to look up to meet his gaze. His other hand came up to my other cheek and he used both his thumbs to wipe away my tears.

  “I’m so glad you called, but I’m not glad you heard what you did. I’m sorry.”

  “Is she gone?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I mean, I assume she left. I ran out the door as soon as you hung up on me.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling a little. His hands moved down from my face and rested on either side of my neck. “I left her standing in the kitchen.”

  Suddenly it dawned on me that he was standing outside of my house. “How did you know where I lived?”

  “I went to your parents’ house first. Your mom says hi. I’ve got a bag of cookies in the truck.”

  Then I really did laugh. His eyes bore into me. They were intense and dark, and they still held a question. I brought my hands up to rest on his waist.

  “I want to believe you, Briggs. And I do, really. I should have let you explain and I shouldn’t have overreacted, but when I heard you say her name…”

  “Hey,” he said, tilting my head back up and bringing me so close our chests were touching. “I’m here, with you. It’s you I want. I can’t remember ever wanting anything more than I want you to be with me.”

  “I’m scared,” I admitted in a raspy whisper.

  “I know, but I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Aren’t you scared? Even a little? After everything?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, I’m not. I’m only afraid that you’re going to tell me to leave and that this will be over.”

  As soon as he said the words, I realized I was afraid of that too.

  “Do you want to come inside?”

  “More than you know,” he rumbled, his voice low and deep. His face dipped low, his lips lining up with mine, and I took in a sharp breath, bracing for his kiss. “Is this all right, firecracker?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, and then his lips were on mine. He kissed me slowly, but deeply. His tongue pushed through my lips and I moaned in the back of my throat, letting him take my mouth, loving the way it felt so damn familiar and safe. I could have stood there all night kissing him on my porch, but his words broke into my fuzzy reality.

  “Let me take you to bed,” he said, his mouth still against my lips.

  I pulled away and reached behind me, opening the door, then laced my fingers through his and led him to the bedroom.

  “I’ll give you the tour later,” I said just before his lips hit mine again. He walked me backward until my legs hit the bed, and then we w
ere both tumbling down. As soon as his weight was on me, my legs immediately wrapped around his waist, bringing him as close to me as possible. He groaned as his erection met my core, and I gasped along with him.

  He was unzipping my hoodie and pulling my shirt up and over my head in a flash. I kicked off my flip-flops and watched as he pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion. I shimmied my cotton shorts over my thighs, taking my panties with them. He stood up, unbuttoning his jeans and pushing them down, his eyes locked on mine the whole time. Perhaps it was the fact that five minutes earlier I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be with Briggs like that again, but I couldn’t get naked quick enough. Even though we both disrobed in record time—me throwing my bra onto the floor and him crawling over me with that sexy and determined look in his eyes—I still needed more.

  Without even as much as a word, I let my legs fall open and he closed the distance between us. He came to me and I opened my arms to him, wrapping my ankles around his back as he sank into me. He filled me and let out a groan while my breath shuddered in my chest.

  How could I have ever questioned it?

  “Fuck,” he whispered, his voice raspy and strained. “I missed you so fucking much, firecracker.”

  “I’m sorry I drove away. I didn’t trust myself.”

  “It’s okay, Talia,” he said as he pulled out and pushed back in, igniting every nerve in my body, sending shockwaves through my limbs. “Everything’s going to be all right, but right now, I need to feel you.” Then he silenced me with his mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Talia

  I registered the arms wrapping around my waist before I even knew I was awake. I thought it was a wonderful dream. Briggs’s arms holding me close, nothing but the day ahead of us; surely this wasn’t my reality. But when his lips kissed the sensitive area between my neck and shoulder, I started to realize my best dreams might have come true.

  “Morning,” he said against me.

  “Morning.” I stretched, my ass hitting his erection, making me smile and him groan simultaneously. I rolled to face him, threading my arms around his waist, curling into him, loving the warmth he offered. Empty beds were dumb. Waking up with Briggs was the best feeling in the world.

  “What are your plans for the day?” he asked, pushing my crazy red hair out of my face.

  I shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t have any plans. What about you? When do you have to leave?”

  “My schedule is pretty flexible.” He nudged his nose against my ear, breathing against it, making goosebumps flood the surface of my skin.

  “How flexible?” My body arched toward him, seeking contact.

  “It just so happens, all my work was in my truck when I left, so if you’ve got a few hours today to spend grabbing me some basics—a pair of jeans, a few shirts, toothbrush, stuff like that—I think I’d like to stick around and spend some time in Bend.”

  “You’re staying?” I pulled back to look him in the eyes.

  “If you’ll have me.” I let his words sink in, let my heart take them in. He was staying. “I’ll need to go home eventually, but I figure I could spend a few days here with you, maybe a week. Unless that’s a problem for you?”

  “No,” I said in a breathy voice. “That’s not a problem for me.” Then a thought occurred to me. “What about your house? What if Cecily didn’t lock it up, or lit it on fire or something?”

  He chuckled against my neck, which did wonderful things down below. “I’ll call Patrick in a little while and ask him to go check on the house. He’s got a key and he’s with Megan at the beach.” He ended the sentence with a kiss and a lick, dragging his scruffy face along my throat.

  “Okay,” I squeaked, grasping at him.

  Suddenly, much to my dismay, he pulled his face from me and put some distance between us. “Before we get carried away, I want to talk. There wasn’t much talking last night after we came inside.”

  I blushed at his words. “All right. What are we talking about?” I smoothed my hands up his bare chest, hoping to distract him.

  “Well, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

  “Which page are you on?” I smiled, knowing I was being a brat.

  “I’m on the page where this”—he paused and pointed a finger between the two of us—“is serious and exclusive. Where you’re mine and I’m yours and we work at it, all the time.”

  “You want a long-distance relationship?” I would do anything to be with him, but long distance was hard, and I needed to hear him say he was up for it.

  “I want us to be together. There’s nothing tying me to the beach house except time. I figure we spend as much time together as we can, get to know each other, start building a life with each other in it, and then when the time comes to sell my house, well, we can decide where to go from there together.”

  “That sounds serious,” I murmured, moving close to him again, feeling as though I was done talking.

  “I am serious, firecracker. It could never be casual, never with you. Besides,” he said, running his hand into the hair at my nape, “I’m ready for serious. I know you think it’s too soon for both of us, but you wanna know what I say to that?”

  “What?” I asked, a smile blooming on my face, knowing I was going to like what he had to say.

  “I say fuck all that. We get to be happy too.”

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  Briggs

  “These kiddos are about ready for bed,” Angela said, brushing her hand over Beckett’s hair.

  “This one’s already gone,” Brody said, Raina fast asleep in his lap.

  “Aw, I’m kind of sad this is their last campfire here,” Talia said, the light from the fire casting an orange glow over her freckled skin. Her crazy hair was pulled up into a messy bun and she looked absolutely beautiful—like always.

  “There’ll be more campfires, babe.”

  “Not here, though. This was the place they had a lot of firsts.”

  It was true. Talia’s family had spent a lot of time at my beach house over the last year. Sometimes all of them would come down for a weekend, or just a few of them, but Talia was here the most. When it was cold out we’d stay in the house and light a fire in the living room and watch movies curled up on the couch. In the spring, she helped me clean the house from top to bottom and then made decisions about drapes and area rugs, helping me stage the house for the market. During the last month I’d taken her surfing a few times, but we both enjoyed just lazing around on the sand, especially when she wore that red bikini. In June I officially put the house on the market and it only took a few weeks to find a buyer, and now I had exactly one month to find a new place to live.

  Talia was excited about the sale, knowing it was what I’d wanted all along, but I could tell the change worried her. As our relationship sailed along we’d hit important milestone just like any other normal relationship: she’d met my parents, we’d gone away for a weekend, we’d had our first big fight, we’d made up more than once, we exchanged keys, and we’d talked about our future together in vague and sometimes not so vague terms.

  I knew, from listening to what she’d said and also listening to things she hadn’t said, that she wanted to live together. She was hoping that the sale of my house meant we’d move in together and start the next phase of our relationship. I wanted that too, but I also wanted much more.

  “Let’s get the babies to bed,” Angela said.

  George and Lillian had headed back to the house an hour before, so when Angela and Brody took the babies back, it left just Talia and me sitting in the sand. I had one knee up and she was sitting in the space between my legs, snuggled in with her head leaning back against me.

  “I’m gonna miss this,” she said with a sigh.

  “The beach isn’t going anywhere.”

  “No, but I’m still going to miss this beach and this house. I know you don’t love it like I do, but there’ve been a lot of good memories at
this house.”

  She was right. I’d told her I loved her for the first time on this beach, sitting around a campfire just like the one we sat around then. It had been a few months after we met and we’d just ended a particularly long spell between visits. Absence had definitely made the heart grow fonder in our case, and being without her only made me realize what I’d already known on some level—that I loved her. She’d cried when I said the words, then kissed me, whispering the words against my lips, making me incredibly happy.

  I ran my hand up her arm, trying to soothe her a little. “I know. And you’re right. But we can make more memories at other houses.”

  She titled her head a little to the side and back, her eyes meeting mine. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I was sort of hoping I could move all my stuff to Bend and then maybe we can look for a house. A new one, where we can get a clean slate and get a fresh start.” I watched as her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open a bit.

  “Wait,” she said, sounding a little breathless. “Are you saying you want to live together?”

  Laughing, I replied, “Yeah, firecracker. What did you think was going to happen when I sold this place?”

  “I don’t know,” she said as she turned around on her knees and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I wanted this so badly, but I didn’t know if you were ready or if you even wanted that.” She squeezed her arms around me and my hands ran up her back, holding her to me.

  “Of course I want it. I want everything with you,” I said softly against her ear. I felt her tremble and I knew she was close to tears. That was pretty typical for Talia. Any time I did something sweet she cried about it. And I loved that about her. She never took my affection for her for granted. She was always soaking up the love I gave her, and she returned it tenfold. “So, you’re cool with me coming to Bend?”

  “Yeah,” she squeaked, her head trying to nod against my shoulder, making me laugh.

  “Okay, good. ’Cause I was doing it whether you liked it or not.”