by Tessa Bailey
No, it didn’t make sense to him. Not exactly. Sage and love were synonymous, so he couldn’t imagine her parents not wanting to give her everything. To know her was to love her. That was a truth he understood, even if his experience with love meant something different. Restraint, sacrifice, bliss, pain, discipline. Loss.
“I wish I could go back and change everything.”
Her exasperation flooded the room. “Now you want to go back in time and fix the past, too? You can’t. The course was set before I even existed.” She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “My parents weren’t always sweethearts. They were friends from the time they were in diapers. And Augustine—the man who owns the mine—was their third wheel. They both loved my mama. My…mother.” She paused. “She chose my father when they were all in high school and Augie never let it go. He’s been taking it out on him ever since. My father isn’t strong enough to handle that kind of pressure.”
“I am, Sage.” God, if he could just hold her, he would squeeze until she felt how unmovable he was. “I’ll show you.”
“No,” she whispered. “You’re not required to show me anything. Leave this town, Belmont. Please. I’m begging you. I’m telling you this is what I want.”
His skull constricted at the reminder that she’d left him and chosen to face her problems alone. That during their time together, he hadn’t given her enough faith. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll leave when it’s over.”
God, could he even promise that? Her pale expression told Belmont she was wondering the same thing. Fearing he wouldn’t be able to do it? Or fearful that he would? The uncertainty sent him pivoting for the door, but her voice halted him on a dime. “Wait.”
Chapter Eight
Sage had never been sure about the existence of heaven or hell. She’d been brought up surrounded by small-town religion, although her parents never brought her to church on Sundays, like the rest of Sibley. She could still remember hearing the peal of bells from her porch, the feel of a tree branch in her hand as she traced the edge of the steps. Behind her, the house would be silent, save the snores coming from her father where he’d passed out on the couch. Those quiet mornings had served as their own kind of savior. She’d had time to contemplate things that usually seemed outside her control.
If heaven and hell were real, she’d wondered, how will I know which one I deserve? She wasn’t being taught the Scripture, so she was already at a disadvantage. Being good was the only way to be sure. There was a copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall inside the local library, so she’d copied them down and done her best to follow them, starting with, “Honor thy father and mother,” hard as it had been sometimes.
She’d broken that commandment by fleeing to California and leaving her parents exposed. And just now, with Belmont turning to leave her alone in the tiny slice of darkness, Sage wondered if maybe she’d been cut out to be a sinner, instead of a good girl. Because she lusted for this man’s touch as much as she lusted for the way he could surround her with arms, words, breath, pulling her in. Taking her without taking her.
Since being caught in the mine for hours on end, she’d been shaky. Seeing Belmont again had done nothing to settle her. Lord no. Every cell in her body was running ragged, wondering why she was resisting his arms, when they could soothe her like aloe on a sunburn. Outside, he’d handed her his heart, in the form of a clock. Its tick matched her pulse for long moments, and then it didn’t because hers started to race, the longer he stood in front of her.
She wouldn’t fall back down the rabbit hole of depending on him—or allow him to do the same with her—but maybe it wouldn’t set her back too much just to absorb his nearness? Surely she could allow herself that much after the hell of today. Come Monday, she would be going back into the mine, and taking a little of his power along with her might be the difference that pulled her through.
“You don’t have to leave right away,” Sage said when Belmont turned, watching her from beneath his eyebrows. “Can you wait here while I take a quick shower?”
Maybe that hadn’t been the right thing to say. His big back heaved and the touch of his tongue in her mouth came crashing in like a behemoth wave. They had crossed an unspoken boundary on the train platform. There was no going back to before, to when they stopped at rough, crushing embraces. As if that hadn’t been…more than sexual somehow.
“Yes, I’ll wait,” he said, his voice sounding like serrated metal. “I can light the fire for you.”
I’ll say. God, why did everything sound like an innuendo now? If her body weren’t flush and sweating beneath the jumpsuit, she would have laughed about it. But there was nothing funny about having Belmont looming mere yards away, looking like one word of encouragement would snap his chain and send him barreling toward her. “That would be perfect. I’ll just be…a few minutes.”
Sage all but dove into the itty-bitty bathroom, pressing her back up against the door and willing her racing heart to calm down. Why had she asked him to stay? Her resolve would weaken with every passing second. Biting down on her lower lip, she began the excruciating task of lowering the zipper of her jumpsuit, which kicked up a protest in her triceps and shoulder muscles. When she finally got it down, she gripped the hem of her T-shirt and attempted to lift it over her head.
Her arms wouldn’t cooperate. They flat out wouldn’t rise any higher than her ribs, leaving the T-shirt suspended in midair. Her muscles burned like someone had doused them in lighter fluid and held them above a flame. Sage’s agony must have escaped in the form of a whimper, because Belmont’s boots scraped just outside the door. And her stomach hollowed with awareness, lightning racing all over her skin.
“Sage.” His voice was deep, urgent. “Do you need help?”
No. Say no. She’d only gotten finished reminding him she didn’t need him. But in this case, it would be a lie and she’d done so much of that lately. With Belmont. The most truthful person she knew. “I can’t get my shirt off.” Her nose started to ache, the tip probably turning red. “My arms hurt.”
His growl was short and broken. A beat passed before the door opened and she felt Belmont filling the doorway behind her. She flicked a glance up to the ancient mirror and confirmed what she’d seen in her mind’s eyes. Belmont towering over her like an avenging angel, outlined by candlelight. He’d taken off his coat, leaving him in a black long-sleeved shirt, which he’d rolled up to the elbows. Every inch of visible skin was shot through with strained cords of muscle, as if his frustration were written on him like a road map.
Sage still had the shirt halfway lifted, so her lower back was visible. Not a big deal to most people. But Belmont had never seen anything below her neck. Or above her knees. With the jumpsuit peeled halfway down, the band of her underwear might even be peeking out.
Breathing grew difficult as Belmont took one step closer and took hold of the T-shirt, his knuckles grazing the small of her back. “You’re wearing”—his breath ghosted down her neck—“my shirt.”
Sage only realized she’d closed her eyes when they popped open. Oh God. In the shock of Belmont arriving, she’d forgotten. “I am?” Her mouth was parched. “L-look at that.”
“I am looking.” She jumped when Belmont reached over her shoulder with his left hand and turned on the shower, the sound of spray filling the room. Then the roughness of his knuckles returned, sliding up her spine along with the shirt. “I like knowing there was a layer of me standing between you and the earth.”
Her legs took on the consistency of Jell-O. His touch was a drug, making her languid, although it was different than the way he usually touched her. There was sex this time. So much of it. And it was that major difference that allowed Sage to accept the skimming of his fingers. Accept the part of herself that lusted. They were in a dark room and time had surely suspended anywhere outside this little plot of square footage. Words ached to leave her mouth, words that wouldn’t be suitable in the sunlight. This man, so warm and brave and large at her back, knew
things about her no one else did. What was one more secret? “I stole it out of your suitcase. I broke a commandment and everything.”
“Why?” He breathed into her hair, sinking heat like an anchor in her belly. The shirt came off, her arms dropped to her sides, and she was left in nothing but a bra from the waist up. Inches from Belmont. “Why, sweetest girl?”
A light steam had begun curling in the air like beckoning fingers. Maybe this is a dream. It felt like one of the fevered fantasies she woke from on occasion, sweat slicking her breasts and neck. “Because I like the way you smell and it hadn’t been washed.”
His exhale was gravelly. “Sage.”
“Yes?”
She thought he might not respond, but finally he asked a question that made her nipples turn to hard points. “Can you manage”—a long, windy inhale—“the bra?”
Sage tried. She really, truly did. Her arms felt as though they might break off and hit the floor, but she reached back until her muscles locked up, refusing to move farther. But Belmont was already there, pushing them back down, holding them at her hips.
“Jesus. Please, stop. I can’t watch it.” His touch disappeared only for a second and then the cotton material of the bra tightened over her breasts. She could feel him working the back clasp with fingers she knew so well. They’d tunneled through her hair so many times, twisted in her clothing, but had never, ever, touched her with any kind of…intent. Intent to seduce. And that’s what he was doing, intentional or not. The inhibitions she’d held close forever, circled the drain, along with the shower water. “Your back is so beautiful.” A ghost of a fingertip traced down her spine. “But I need to leave before I—”
“What?”
“Before I turn you around.” They weren’t touching, but she could sense the shudder that ran through him. “Or look in that mirror.”
Right or wrong, the mine, their codependency aside, Sage knew if she let him leave just then, she would regret it for all time. Her body had been woken up. By one man. He’d kept her on the razor’s edge for thousands of miles, surrounding her with his power and taking it away. Over and over. And this fever wrapping around them in the tiny bathroom was completely different from easing his anxiety. Finally, she felt like a woman standing in front of him, instead of a calming device. This was mutual and alive and she couldn’t stand it to end. Tomorrow might be a different story, but this moment was the culmination of a thousand dreams and she could no more deny herself than she could forget his face.
“Belmont, do you think of the kiss?”
“I never stop,” he groaned into her hair. “Never.”
She took a deep breath for courage. “Will you shower with me?”
* * *
Was he hallucinating?
There was a high that every user chased. The more chemicals entered the bloodstream, the harder and more taxing it became to hit that peak. And it was fleeting. So fleeting. Standing close to Sage with their flesh almost touching, her naked back glistening with shower steam…he couldn’t even describe the gravity shift taking place inside him, around him, beneath his feet. He worried he might not be able to stand it. What was on the other side of this raging high? The comedown would shatter him, wouldn’t it?
He was going to find out, because hell if there was a choice.
Sage. Sage Alexander. Asking him into the shower.
You don’t treat me like a woman. She’d once said those words to him, and he must have made some progress toward fixing that mistake. Yes. He must have, because she wanted…more. But how much more?
Belmont allowed his hands to settle on Sage’s waist, holding her steady when she swayed. God above, she was soft there. He’d thought the skin of her neck was smooth, but the curve of her hips brought the perfect texture of her home. “The jumpsuit…” he managed, swallowing a moan when she nodded. After pushing the starchy material down to her ankles, he had to brace himself before looking. But nothing would have helped. Seeing her backside so close to his distended groin with nothing more than thin, black underwear covering that part of her…it amplified the ache between his legs until it was excruciating.
There was no choice but to move or he would implode, but he didn’t want to startle her into changing her mind. So he walked her slowly, slowly into the shower stall, marveling at the sensation of water cascading down Sage’s ribs and over his fingers.
“Aren’t you going to…undress?”
“No,” he rasped. “Too much.”
Her head bobbed as if she didn’t need any more explanation than that, only serving to increase the maddened tempo of his heart. She could probably hear it over the shower spray and their laboring breaths, it was so loud. Water soaked into his shirt and pants, filling his boots, but the only discomfort he could process was the material over his cock growing heavier and pressing down, welcome and unwelcome at the same time.
He leaned in to smell her hair, neck, and shoulders, catching the aroma of earth instead of her clean, sweet scent. A growl built in his throat. “Can I wash you, Sage?” His hands traveled without a command from his brain, smoothing sideways along her belly. “All of you?”
Belmont caught her with a forearm around the waist when she dipped. Supporting her weight meant bringing her close, though, and that was when lust broke free of its prison. The firm mounds of her bottom pressed against his pulsing flesh and there was no choice…no choice but to settle her there more firmly. He’d dreamed of it too many times and she’d asked, right? Yeah, he thought so. He could barely think past Sage’s curves nestled against that hurting part of him, separated only by soaked material that could be removed so easily. If that was what she wanted.
“You want me,” she breathed. “I was never sure. Is it me?”
Sweat mixed with steam on his forehead, wrought from the effort of not rocking his hips. “What do you mean, ‘Is it me’?”
“I mean, is it me you’re attracted to or would it be this way with…” Her voice dropped so low, he could barely discern her words. “Any woman?”
A shout climbed up his throat, but he jammed it back down. He’d failed so badly with Sage. Completely missed her need to be touched this way. Could he explain to her he’d had no way of knowing, without sounding foolish?
Desperate for a distraction, he used his free hand to grab a bar of plain, white soap. “Can you stand?” Her wet head bobbed once and he released his hold in degrees, making sure she was steady before pulling his arm away. Between his belly and Sage’s lower back, he lathered the bar in his hand, then set it back on the small tile shelf.
His soaped-up palms coasted over her rib cage and down, raking over her hips and moving inward to her belly. When his fingertips grazed the waistband of her underwear, Sage gasped and pushed her bottom back up against his groin. Belmont gritted her name, his vision doubling before swooping back together. “I’ve never been with a woman like this, Sage.” The truth was out, mixing with the shower mist, before he could stop it. “Never touched a woman beneath her underwear. Or her breasts. Never been inside.” He couldn’t swallow, so a choked sound broke loose. “I don’t really have a way to explain how much it’s you. Out of a million women, it would always have been you. My body…the part you feel between my legs…has never ached for anyone else.”
“I—I’ve never been with anyone, either.”
It was Belmont’s turn to lose his equilibrium. He couldn’t save himself from pitching forward and pinning Sage up against the shower wall. “It was wrong of me to hope for that. It wouldn’t have changed anything.” He dropped his lips to her wet neck and kissed her with an open mouth. “But I’ve wondered if there are men on this earth I’d want to damn to hell.”
Sage’s head dropped to the left, giving him room to slide his mouth up to her ear, feel her shiver against him. “What else did you wonder about?”
Honesty and starvation welled inside him. “I wondered how I’d give you pleasure. If you’d be able to tell me how. Or if I’d have to…try everything until y
ou cried out and I knew.”
She pushed up with her backside, elevating his groin, inviting him to grind forward, so he did. He did it hard. And firebursts blinked in front of his eyes, the promise of satisfaction riding low and painful in his gut. But nothing compared to the flood of need that almost sank him when she spoke again. “I’ve touched myself, Belmont.” Even in the muted candlelight coming from the bedroom, he saw the pink flush steal up her neck and cheeks. He loved that display of Sageness so much, he licked it. He licked the increasing wealth of pink, up and down, left to right, until she started to whimper. “I know what I like.”
“Show me.”
Chapter Nine
When had she gotten so brave?
Maybe it was leaving Belmont in the first place. Or coming home to a place she feared in the deepest recesses of her soul, the close call she’d faced this afternoon. It could simply be the darkness of the bathroom and embracing her sexual nature. Whatever it was, Sage wasn’t questioning it. She was all but seated on Belmont’s thick bulge, her tiptoes wobbling on the wet shower floor. His tongue had left a path from her neck to her ear, and now his breath fanned the spot, sending electricity zapping downward to every feminine part of her body.
There was still a warning in the back of her mind, telling her to tread carefully. When they got close, they consumed each other. Their mutual reliance was an excuse to ignore their issues for just a little longer. A little longer. But facing away from Belmont while he touched her kept it about the physical. Kept Sage from forgetting her resolve completely.