The very same sliver pinched her now as she thought about how amazing David was, how completely and devastatingly handsome he was, and how horribly painful it would be if he destroyed her heart with betrayal.
David tried to make small talk as he served their dinner. It smelled insanely delicious and Abbey felt cozy and at home in the shabby house.
She looked around and could see it back when the Anderson family had lived here, the cheery yellow wallpaper in the kitchen that was now faded, the big fieldstone fireplace in the living room crackling with bright warmth as the kids sat around listening to Mr. Anderson tell them stories of his youth.
Abbey hadn’t spent much time here as a kid, but the time she’d had was filled with the smells and sounds of home.
“It’s not much, I know,” David said as he noticed her gaze wandering around the room.
“It’s not that, I can still remember the family here,” Abbey said. “It was a nice place back then.”
“When Mr. Anderson was hurt in that tractor accident, they had to move to the city to be closer to her family,” David said. “It’s been sitting empty forever and a day because anyone who wanted to buy it wanted to subdivide and break up the ranch.”
“So that’s not your intention?”
“Not by a country mile. I want to see this place back in operation. I’ll work on the house and get it shiny and new…and ready for a family maybe,” he said, suddenly bashful. For a moment she saw the David she’d known in high school and she realized what she might not have picked up on back then.
David did love her. He always had.
So why had he gone out with Sam?
She felt that sliver pinch and bubble with all the terrible things still left in her head and heart from Tom.
That voice whispered in the back of her mind and she couldn’t concentrate on their conversation.
He’s fucking Sam. They laugh at you behind your back. The whole town thinks you’re a laughingstock. I was right, you’re a dumb bitch.
Abbey finally couldn’t take it anymore, in the middle of one of his sentences she blurted out the thing that had been driving her to distraction.
“Did you go out with Sam this week?”
He stopped, looked at her and immediately she knew. His pained expression gave it away.
He dropped his eyes, lifted them again and locked them on hers. In a quiet whisper he said, “Yeah, I did.”
Chapter 11
Abbey’s icy heart shattered and the splinter worked free, releasing all the bile and poisonous thoughts that had been driving her mad.
“How could you?” she demanded. “How could you take her out when you’ve been hot after me?”
“It’s not what you think,” he replied in an even tone. “Hell, it was meaningless and nonsense.”
“Then what was it? It was a date, admit it.”
“It was dinner and a movie, that was it.”
“That’s a date!”
“I promised her months ago that I’d take her to see the new Star Wars movie when it came out. That’s all it was. I see Sam as a friend, nothing more.”
“Did you sleep with her?” Abbey asked, hating how his face once again let her know the answer.
“Yeah, I did. Months ago,” David said in that careful tone that almost drove her as nuts as his actions. Why wasn’t he fighting her? Why wasn’t he raging back?
“So you fucked her and you took her on a date. That’s classy,” Abbey spat.
“It meant nothing, Sam means nothing,” David said, and Abbey saw a flare of anger flash at that moment and it scared her. “Besides, why the hell are you interrogating me? What gives you that right? You’ve done nothing but push me away since you got here!”
“It just pisses me off that you’re no better than Tom,” Abbey snapped and saw her arrow hit its mark. David winced at that but she kept going. “You’re a man whore, chasing other women and coming back to me.”
“Don’t you dare compare me to that son of a bitch. I would never hurt you, Abbey. I would rather hurt myself than ever raise a fist to you,” David said in a low, measured voice. “And for your information I haven’t been with another woman since you got back, did you know that? I won’t apologize for the women I was with when you were gone, but I haven’t been with a damned one of them since you found your way back to us.”
“You can’t just switch that off, it’s part of who you are,” Abbey snarled, “I’ve heard about you, Officer McHottie. You hump and dump your way through town then start over again when you’ve slept with them all!”
Abbey couldn’t handle the flow of emotions racing through her, she felt shaky and threatened even though she knew deep inside that David would never hurt her.
He was no Tom, but her body and brain still couldn’t separate that fact.
She stood abruptly, her chair scraping on the floor, grabbed her purse and stormed out of the house.
It was dark now, darker than she had expected, and there were big fat white flakes of snow falling from the sky.
The kids would be happy at least, they would wake up and find the land blanketed in fresh, white powder.
If only starting over was that easy for her, but every time she felt like her heart was pure again and she was no longer the flawed woman who had stayed with Tom, cracks started to show and she felt like she was losing her mind.
She stomped over to her truck, got in and fired it up without looking back at the house to see where David was, if he was following her.
Adrenaline coursed through every cell in her body and her jealousy had morphed into a flight or fight reaction, and right now she was fleeing. It’s all she could do, it’s all she knew.
She put the truck in reverse and hit the gas. She heard the crunch of gravel under her tires and the sudden sound of the truck hitting wet ground.
“Shit,” she murmured under her breath. In her distraught state she must have driven off the driveway and onto the grass.
She flipped it into drive and hit the gas again. The tires spun but the truck was going nowhere, the wet snow had turned the edge of the driveway into a mud pit and her old truck didn’t have proper tires.
“Damn,” she muttered and tried the gas again. Tires spun but she went nowhere.
Frustrated tears prickled her eyes and she began to realize how foolish she’d been acting as the adrenaline burned off her.
David wasn’t Tom, her body and brain needed to realize that, to catch up with what her heart already knew.
David was the one. The one she loved and the one who loved her. They were meant for each other and always had been.
Loving David wasn’t scary, and in a strange way, that’s what scared her.
She looked up and jumped, startled by David standing in front of her truck, in her headlights. He looked angry, but not threatening. He looked like a man in love and he was desperately handsome, even like this.
Tom had always gone ugly in his rage.
Abbey didn’t know how to react. Part of her worried that David had finally had enough of her emotional drama and was going to ask her to leave.
“Turn the truck off,” he said with a commanding voice. She was frozen though, frozen by her cycling emotions and the intense look in his eyes. She could see him as a police officer now, handling stressful situations with skill and a level head.
Her body surged with feelings.
Not fear though, desire, need, want, lust, love…but not fear.
“I said turn the truck off,” he repeated and walked around to the driver’s side. He opened the door, his face blazed with a fierce desire that made her heart flutter so hard she didn’t know if she could take her next breath.
“What do you want?” she asked slowly.
“I think you know,” he replied, reached past her to the keys and shut off the ignition.
“What are you doing?” Abbey asked, unable to hide the quiver in her voice.
“Something I should have done ten years ago. Ten weeks ago.
Ten hours ago. Ten minutes ago,” David said, his voice almost a feral growl. “Something I’ve been thinking about all these years and never had the balls to do. Until now.”
He locked his eyes on hers, carefully unlatched her seat belt and picked her up.
Her throat was clenched so tight she could barely speak. Her body hummed with need and felt hot, like a fever where he touched her.
The snow was falling faster by then and she let him carry her towards his house.
They were both soaking wet and she began to shiver. She wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or her being unable to contain her feelings for him
“What are we doing?” she asked again, almost unbelieving that it was finally happening.
He set her on one of the stairs leading to his porch. “This,” is all he said, reaching for her blouse and unbuttoning it slowly.
Her pulse quivered in her throat, a steady thread of need. His mouth kissed her bare chest, above her bra, and moved up her neck, across her rapid pulse, and to her lips again.
This time there was no softness, only force. She felt as if this was it, he was claiming her and nothing else mattered. She wanted to be claimed, she wanted to be his.
The snow came down harder, swirling around them like they were the lovers in the middle of a tacky sno globe you’d find in the local gift shop. It melted the moment it hit their heated flesh, they were getting soaked through and through.
Abby didn’t care though, none of it mattered anymore. The only thing that existed for her was David, his lips and his beautiful eyes.
He picked her up again when he noticed her shivering. His lips barely left hers as he navigated the steps, kicked his door open, and crossed the living room to his bedroom at the back.
Abbey was shaking so hard when he set her on the bed that he paused and looked down at her.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and slipped her blouse off her shoulders.
“I know,” she replied in a breathy voice. “I’m not scared, I’m excited.”
“I will never hurt you,” he continued and bent to kiss her neck, “I’m not like him, I’m not Tom. I might be a bit rough around the edges, but I will never hit you and I will never hurt you.”
“I know,” she said again and arched against him, “I trust you, I don’t know why but I do.”
“You trust me because you know I love you, I’ve always loved you,” he said as he lowered her down onto the bed, still kissing her between his words. “I’ve loved you since the first moment you smiled at me in grade eight. I’ve loved you all this time, thinking about you and wanting you even though you were married and hundreds of miles away. You’re in my blood, and I can’t get you out no matter how many women I slept with. Every single one of them meant nothing to me because they weren’t you, and as horrible as that sounds, it’s the truth. Every time I slept with another woman, I felt like I was cheating on you, Abbey, because it’s always been you, only you. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted.”
“And now you have me, I love you too,” she said breathlessly, pulling him down on top of her.
Somehow during all their declarations of love and kissing, they managed to pull off their boots and clothes until their naked bodies finally found each other at last.
“You’re still shaking,” David said as they stood in front of each other, bared completely for the first time.
“So are you,” Abbey smiled and noticed a slight trembling in his hands. It was amazing to see such a tall, muscular man shaking with his need for her.
“I’ll start the fire,” he said and kissed her on the forehead. He drew back the thick feather comforter and Abbey slid underneath, pulling him with her.
“I think we have enough heat here,” she replied and exhaled as his huge body settled on her. She loved the weight of him, the way his arms bulged as he carefully hovered above her, careful not to hurt her.
He made her feel precious and valued, not like Tom.
And as his mouth crashed into hers again, and he dropped down beside her, his leg hooked over her body, his hands everywhere all at once, Tom’s voice disappeared and he became a distant memory.
With David in her life, there was no room for Tom in her head.
“I want to taste you,” he said, pulling away from their kiss. “I’ve wanted this for so long…”
He kissed his way across her collarbone, to her breasts where he gently mouthed one while cupping the other and rolling her nipple in his fingers.
“Oh…god…” Abby moaned slowly, overcome with the sensations of him mouth and hand on her sensitive flesh.
He continued though, kissing across the gentle swell of her stomach, across her stretch marks that he kissed reverently, as if worshipping the body that had brought her children into the world.
“You don’t have to,” Abbey breathed as she realized where his kisses were taking him.
“I told you I’ve been thinking about this for years,” he replied, looking up at her from between her thighs. “I’m going to taste you, this pussy is mine.”
Her body quivered at his declaration and she knew she did belong to him at that moment, her heart, her mind and now her body.
She was David’s and he was hers.
He continued his slow, lazy exploration of her body and nibbled and kissed his way to her throbbing heat.
Abbey thought she was going to die when his lips reached her most intimate place. He was the first man to do this to her, and she was completely unprepared for how exquisitely intimate the moment felt.
His tongue darted out and found her clit immediately, Abbey gasped, threw her head back and bundled the sheets in her fingers, as if clinging to something to keep her from floating away.
He sped up his movements against her tender flesh and Abbey felt something break free, the tension she’d carried in her body since leaving Tom was dissipating like smoke on the wind.
He gripped her thighs and continued pinned her down as she began to thrash in response to his mouth and tongue. Her fingers ached from clutching the sheets and finally it felt as if a damn broke loose, her body shook and her voice cried out in a hoarse tone she didn’t even recognize.
She felt like a new woman, she’d never had this kind of reaction to sex before and it had released something inside of her.
She was powerful, she was beautiful, and she was good enough for a man like David.
He slowly kissed his way back up her body, pausing on her trembling stomach, until he was at her lips.
“That was…wow,” Abbey said in a whisper. “I’ve never felt like that.”
David arched a brow and said, “Never?”
“Never,” Abbey laughed and shook her head. “Is that what it’s supposed to be like.”
“Every time with me,” David replied with a smug confidence that didn’t bother her at all. If anything it turned her on ever more, knowing that he could deliver on that promise. “I’ll never stop wanting you. I’ll never stop pleasuring you.”
“What can I do for you?” Abbey asked as she slowly regained focus after her shattering orgasm. “I want to please you.”
She reached down and grabbed his shaft, it pulsed hot and hard under her touch.
It was also bigger than she’d ever imagined and that pleased her in some fashion. Bigger than Tom’s by a country mile.
“You can please me by laying back,” David replied and kissed her. She tasted herself on his lips and it didn’t freak her out as she thought it would, if anything she felt empowered that she’d marked him as hers and hers alone.
She grazed his back with her nails and dug her fingers into his hips, desperately dragging him towards her.
Still with his mouth on hers, he guided himself against her entrance and rested it there, throbbing against her swollen flesh.
“This is it,” David whispered in a hoarse voice that was thick with emotion. “I’ve waited for this for so long, and here it is.”
“Here were are,” Abbey replie
d and met his eyes with hers. She’d never felt like much of a beauty with her mousy brown hair, pale blue eyes and tomboy body…but with David on top of her looking at her like that, she felt like a sex goddess. She felt loved and love overflowed from her heart making her feel powerful and magical and connected to the human experience. “I’ve been wanting this too. I never knew it until I got back, but I missed you as more than a friend all these years. I’m sorry I ever left you.”
“I’m sorry I ever let you go,” he replied and kissed her forehead, looked at her again and slid his thick length into her waiting body.
She gasped immediately, she was filled by him and she let herself draw him in. Their bodies fit perfectly together, as if they truly had been made for each other.
“I love you,” she moaned and arched her back, wrapped her legs around him and dug her fingers into his back. “I love you so much I’m not even afraid of it. I’ll never be afraid of our love ever again, I promise.”
“I love you too, my beautiful, perfect Abbey,” he growled and slid himself deep inside of her. She felt his muscles working under his skin as he advanced and retreated, a steady rhythm that was pushing her closer to another unbelievable orgasm, like waves on the shore.
The swell in her mind finally grew great enough that she could no longer contain herself. She crashed into her bliss, calling David’s name, her voice throaty and almost unrecognizable to her. She’d never made these sounds before, Tom had always wanted her quiet when he did his thing with her body.
David encouraged her though, he dropped onto one elbow and whispered in her ear, “Come for me, Abbey. Scream my name, I love it when you scream my name.”
“Oh David,” she exclaimed one last time before she exhaled and trembled underneath him.
David slowed down and made love to her then, their bodies felt sinewy and sensual, flowing in and out of each other with tongues and touch and their sex.
Abbey had never known it could be like that. She’d never known how beautiful the act of sex could be. She couldn’t believe she’d never experienced it like this, but was grateful that David was the one to teach her.
The Way Down Page 8