Ravenous

by HELEN HARDT

  She dropped her mouth open, and I gripped her shoulders and swept into her with a kiss.

  Her lips were already parted, and I thrust my tongue into her mouth. She resisted at first, pushing against me, but I was determined. Determined that, if she insisted on leaving, she’d know what she was leaving behind.

  No more thoughts about how I couldn’t be with her. Only this kiss. This woman and this kiss.

  She still felt resistant against me, but soon she melted, softly sighing into my mouth.

  I kissed her and I kissed her and I kissed her, tasting her unique sweetness, letting it float on my tongue and infuse everything in me. If we had only this one last kiss, I’d make it count.

  Oh, yes, she was responding. She was kissing me ba—

  She pushed hard against my chest, breaking the kiss. “No! Damn it, Bryce.”

  All rational thoughts fled, and only feeling remained. Feeling, so much feeling coiled within me, building up pressure and ready to break.

  “You’re not leaving,” I said calmly. “I can’t lose everything. Henry, my mother, and now you.”

  “What? What’s wrong with Henry?”

  “Nothing. He’s leaving. He and my mother. I’m sending them away.”

  “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I need them to be—”

  Shit. I stopped. Here I was, standing in front of my best friend’s home, and I was about to violate his trust.

  “You need them to be what?”

  I thought quickly. “My mom needs to get away, and I can’t care for Henry with the new job starting tomorrow, so she’s taking him with her.”

  “Oh.”

  Good. She seemed to buy it.

  “You could get a nanny for Henry.”

  “My mom won’t hear of it.”

  She nodded.

  “Please. You can’t leave too.”

  “I’m leaving. It was a hard decision, but I have to do it. I have to think of my future.”

  “Your future?”

  “Yeah. I have a future. One without you, as you’ve made clear so many times.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Marjorie

  Fire laced his eyes. They burned the hot blue of a gas flame.

  No. He wasn’t kidding.

  Didn’t matter. I wasn’t staying around for more of this. When he wanted me, he kissed me, touched me, made love to me. When he didn’t want me? He tortured me with his poisonous words.

  “None of this matters, Bryce. I can’t stay here. It’s too…”

  “Too what?”

  “Painful, damn it. Painful. You’re breaking me, Bryce, and I don’t deserve that. I thought I was strong enough to deal with everything, but I’m not. I need to get away, and I need to do it soon.”

  He gripped me again, his gaze burning into mine. “Please. Don’t leave.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t. I can’t promise you anything, Marj. You know that. But you… You’re the heart of this place. What would Steel Acres be without you?”

  “Steel Acres functions just fine without me. I’m a silent partner, remember?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean? Because honestly, you’re not making a single bit of sen—”

  His lips came down on mine once more.

  Despite myself, I opened to the kiss. Here. Outside my oldest brother’s home. Joe and Mel only a wall away.

  I opened.

  And I poured all my love for Bryce Simpson into this kiss—our last.

  It was hard. It was wet. It was perfect.

  The perfect kiss.

  The perfect goodbye.

  Finally, when I was no longer convinced I’d be able to hold back tears, I pushed him away, letting our mouths part.

  “Goodbye, Bryce.”

  I walked to my car, not looking ba—

  His arm yanked me back to him, and I let out an oof as I hit his hard chest. “No. I can’t let you go.”

  “You have no say—”

  Another kiss, this one even harder and more passionate than the last.

  This was not a kiss goodbye.

  This was a kiss of pent-up desire, pent-up passion, pent-up raw need for another person.

  And this would not end with a kiss.

  He broke the kiss quickly and pushed me into the passenger seat of his car.

  “My car… Joe will wonder—”

  “I don’t fucking care.” Bryce looked straight ahead as he started the engine and drove off.

  “Where are we going?” We couldn’t go to his place. His mother and Henry were there. His old place in town? No furniture.

  He said nothing.

  I cleared my throat, frantically searching for words that didn’t materialize in my brain. There was a hotel in town, but whoever was manning the front desk would know us, and then the gossip would start.

  Not that I cared about gossip. But my brothers didn’t know about Bryce and me. We were adults, but still, there would be fallout.

  Nuclear fallout.

  I widened my eyes when Bryce turned off onto a different road than the one leading into Snow Creek. Where was he going?

  Within a half hour, he pulled into a nearly invisible driveway where a small cabin stood.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  “Where is here?”

  “This cabin. Joe and I stayed here as kids with”—he paused a moment—“my father.”

  “Oh. Whose is it?”

  “It’s mine now, I guess. It belonged to my father, and my mother wasn’t on the deed. My father left it to me in the will.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “I wasn’t sure I wanted it. I mean, this is where…”

  “Where what?”

  “Sometimes Joe and I stayed here with him during our camping trips. Other times we slept in tents.”

  “So you have memories,” I said.

  He nodded. “The thing is, the memories I have are mostly good.”

  “Then cherish them, Bryce.”

  “How can I? How can I when so many others have horrible memories related to my father? Talon? Colin? My cousin Luke?” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think Luke was the lucky one. He doesn’t have those horrible memories.”

  “He’s dead, Bryce.”

  “Maybe that’s a gift in itself.”

  “Are you kidding me? Talon is alive, and he found love and he’s got two kids and one on the way. Do you really think he’d be better off dead?”

  “Well…no.”

  “And Colin? This is new for Colin, but he’s my age. He has his whole life ahead of him. He’ll get the help he needs, and he’ll have a life. I’m so sorry about Luke. I truly am. But neither Talon nor Colin would be better off dead.”

  “What about Ruby’s friends? Juliet and Lisa? And Shayna?”

  “First of all, Shayna escaped. She was traumatized, but she was never physically abused. She’s doing well. And Ruby told me that Juliet and Lisa are in therapy. It’s a struggle, yes, but they’re both younger than Colin. They will be okay. According to Ruby, they’re both happy to be alive.”

  He stared straight ahead, his headlights still on and focused on the small cabin.

  “And Bryce,” I said, “you’re alive too. Don’t ever forget that. Don’t let the guilt eat you. It’s not your fault that you weren’t abused by your father.”

  He turned to me. “I know. Joe and I have talked about it.”

  “Have you talked to a professional?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway. Melanie offered, but she’s Joe’s wife. It feels…weird.”

  “If it helps, I’ve talked to Melanie professionally. She’s amazing.”

  “You?”

  “Of course me. Do you think you’re the only one who came out of this mess
scathed?”

  “I certainly don’t think that. You know I don’t think that. But you… You always seem so together. So whole.”

  I couldn’t help a sarcastic laugh. The wound on my thigh was still healing. “Don’t belittle what any one of us has gone through.”

  “I’m not. It’s just—”

  “It’s just you feeling sorry for yourself, Bryce. That’s all it is.”

  “You don’t know everything, Marjorie.”

  “I never said I did. But we’re all fighting our own battles, and none of them can be compared.”

  “Damn it!” He punched the steering wheel.

  “Hey.” I touched his forearm in an attempt to soothe him. “Let it go.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “None of this is easy for me to say. You know that. There comes a time, though, when you have to grow up and tell yourself that this isn’t going to color the rest of your life. You have to decide what you want in life and go after it.”

  “And that’s what you’re doing? Leaving your family for Paris?”

  I nodded past the lump in my throat. “Yes. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “I call bullshit, Marj.”

  I said nothing for a few seconds, just digested his words.

  I call bullshit.

  “It’s not bullshit,” I finally said. “It’s what I want.”

  That wasn’t a lie. I did want cooking school. I did want Paris. I wanted all of those things. Just because I wanted other things as well didn’t negate them.

  “You’re running away.”

  “No. There’s a difference between running away from something and running toward something. You know my dream is to study cooking.”

  “There are culinary schools here, Marj.”

  “Paris is the food capital of the world. Julia Child studied there.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you halfway. You’re running toward something. But you’re also running away. There’s no reason why you can’t wait to go to Paris. Say, until after Jade has her baby.”

  I swallowed down the lump. Nope, it was still there. He was right.

  He was right.

  “What do you think I’m running away from, then?” I asked, trying to sound light.

  “This.” He gripped my shoulders and pulled me in for a kiss.

  As much as our previous kisses had been hard and passionate, this one was different. It reeked of desperation.

  He was desperate for something.

  But what?

  I stopped thinking after a few seconds and melted into it, becoming one with it and sinking into all that was Bryce. His crisp masculine scent, the hardness of his muscles beneath my fingertips. The roughness of his light-brown stubble against my cheeks. The desperate sounds of his moans vibrating into me.

  When he broke the kiss and inhaled a desperate breath, I let myself go. I kissed his rough cheeks, his sweaty neck, inhaling more and more of him as I went. I nibbled the lobe of his ear and traced the shell. Then I thrust my tongue inside.

  “My God.” His voice was a low rasp.

  His lips clamped on to my neck, and he sucked. Hard. He’d probably leave a mark, but I didn’t care.

  I wanted to be marked. Wanted to be branded.

  Wanted to be his.

  Breathless moans escaped my throat as my hunger increased.

  Ravenous. I was ravenous.

  Ravenous for this man I loved. Ravenous for his body inside mine.

  Ravenous for everything Bryce Simpson.

  He broke away, panting. “Inside. Now.”

  I could argue. This would make everything harder. I knew that.

  But I didn’t have it in me. I needed this. Needed him. Needed all of it.

  I opened the passenger door of his car and exited.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bryce

  I’d vowed never to return to this cabin.

  I hadn’t been here in ages, not since college, at least. Once I became an adult, the camping and fishing adventures with my father had stopped. He’d told me I could use the cabin, but I never had.

  Now, looking back, I wondered why. This place had been full of happy memories—memories that had only recently become tainted.

  I jostled my keys until I found the right one. A key I’d had for a long time but hadn’t used until now.

  What would I find inside?

  All these thoughts jumbled in my head, but one thing overshadowed them.

  Marjorie Steel.

  My aching need for Marjorie Steel.

  Once the door was open, I grabbed her and pushed her inside. Darkness had already fallen, and the light switch didn’t work. Within a few minutes, my eyes had adjusted. The cabin had one great room with furniture, a small kitchen area, and two bedrooms. One bathroom for the whole place.

  There was a fireplace and matches and logs, but I couldn’t be bothered to start a fire. Not yet. Not when my need was this great.

  I dragged Marjorie to one of the bedrooms—the one Joe and I had used. Two twin beds still sat in the room, still covered in the same quilts I remembered. How old were those quilts? They might disintegrate if we so much as looked at them.

  I didn’t care. I pulled her to me and kissed her—deeply, passionately, emotionally. She tasted of sweetness and lust, of fresh berries and mint. Of Marjorie. Pure, sweet Marjorie.

  This place was certainly no Paris, but it was an escape nonetheless. For me, at least, and probably for both of us.

  I knew how much she wanted me. Loved me. Indeed, I’d heard her say the words. Even now, I wasn’t sure she was aware she’d said them. She’d been in the midst of multiple climaxes, and I knew well what went through my mind when I shared an orgasm with her.

  Many times I’d thought those three little words. Words so painless to utter yet so painful to deal with.

  For I couldn’t love anyone, not when I wasn’t whole.

  Marjorie deserved whole.

  She melted against me, and I walked backward, leading her to one of the beds. I could go in the other room where a queen bed sat, but no. I wouldn’t taint Marjorie with anything my father had touched.

  I wanted so much to go slowly, to take my time and savor everything about her, but my dick had other ideas. I quickly unsnapped and unzipped my jeans to free my aching cock. Then I pulled off Marj’s shoes, sweatpants, and underwear and shoved into her heat, her legs still hanging off the bed.

  Sweet, sweet home.

  “Bryce!” she cried out, her quivering walls encasing me with glorious suction.

  “God, Marj. God, yes.” I pumped into her again and again.

  I wanted her to come. I wanted her to have as much pleasure as she was giving me. I wanted to take the time and make sure she climaxed.

  But I was all about me at the moment. All about this place, about exorcising everything hellacious in my life.

  Somehow, in my warped mind, I felt that if I made love to Marjorie here, it would burn away the rancid ash my father had left.

  I pumped.

  And I pumped.

  And I pumped.

  “Gone,” I said through gritted teeth. “Gone. Be gone. Be gone.”

  If Marjorie was surprised by my words, she didn’t indicate it. I closed my eyes, continuing my devilish chant.

  Gone. Gone. Gone.

  Until I erupted inside her tight heat, emptying into her beautiful body that so willingly accepted me for all I was.

  And all I was not.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to prolong the intensity of the orgasm, holding on…

  Holding on…

  Holding on…

  Until finally she squirmed beneath me. I moved off her, turning over in the darkness, my arm across my eyes.

  I’d done it.

  I’d fucked her in this cabin.

  I’d wanted to, no doubt.

  But it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t exorcised anything from me or from this place. All I’d accomplished was an even more intense desire f
or her.

  Worse yet, she hadn’t come. I’d truly been self-absorbed.

  I needed her again, and I wanted her to come the way she had during our last time together—again and again, rolling from one orgasm into another.

  That was when she’d said, “I love you.”

  Perhaps she’d say it again.

  I longed to hear those three words in her soft voice. Even more, I longed to say them back. For I meant them. I meant them with every cell in my body, every beat of my heart, every tiny sliver of lightness and all the darkness in my soul.

  With everything. I meant them with everything.

  “You okay?” she finally said.

  I nodded. Sort of.

  “You sure? Because you kept saying ‘gone’ over and over again.”

  “It didn’t mean anything.”

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll play it your way for now. But you can talk to me, Bryce. Always.”

  If only I could. How could I show this beautiful woman my deepest weaknesses? How could I tell her the horrid things that haunted me?

  And how could I do this when, even as I was tormented, nothing had actually happened to me?

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe someday.”

  “Better make it soon. I leave next week.”

  Was she still determined to run away?

  “Fine,” I said. “Go. But not before I show you exactly what you’re leaving.” I rose from the bed and knelt before her, spreading her legs. God, she was perfect. Even in the darkness, the glistening of her pink pussy was visible. Her thighs shone from her juices. I trailed my fingers over her smooth flesh…until I came to the jagged scar.

  It was scabbed over, which meant it had recently bled.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  She tensed and tried to close her legs, but I was between them. She squeezed my shoulders with her thighs.

  “Marj?”

  “Nothing. I scratched myself.”

  “Over a scar?”

  She scooted backward on the bed, away from me. “Yes.”

  She was hiding something. Marjorie Steel, who I’d thought was an open book, had her own secrets. I couldn’t bear the thought of her being in any kind of pain, but if she was? Then we had something in common.

  Pain from something we had nothing to do with, through no fault of our own. Pain when neither of us had been abused as countless others had.