Owned me.
Possessed me.
“Ash.”
He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip once more, dipped it into my mouth, before he pressed it against my clit. Stroking and circling.
His touch building and inciting and ruining.
Because I would never be the same.
Our bond might sever, but mine would never break.
Our movements were frantic. Desperate and consumed. I clawed at his chest while he annihilated me.
Laid me to waste.
I had no chance.
No reserves.
Pleasure sparked in my nerves, gathering fast to the tiny pinpoint of bliss. Where the man sent me soaring, floating with the stars. Lost in darkness. Blinded by light. I shuddered and shook as he did the same, the man gone with me as he jerked and twitched inside me.
He gasped out a strained breath, mouth open at my chest.
His arms slid around my waist, and he hugged me tight.
He’d walked into my store and told me he’d give me anything. To name it and it was done.
And the only thing I wanted? I wanted him to stay.
twenty-six
Ash
I pressed my face to the bare skin of her stomach that was slick and wet. Just as slick and wet as the skin between her thighs. I gasped for breath. For some kind of goddamned clarity when it was nowhere to be found.
“Peaches,” I mumbled, squeezing her tighter as the girl I was wound around began to shake. Draining of adrenaline and filling right up with regret.
If I share my body with a man, it’s because I love him and he loves me.
Her assertion from all those weeks ago raged through me, all the while reality settled slow.
Hard.
Painfully.
Fuck.
Wincing, I eased out of her body. A part of me wanted to vomit. Give my own damned self a beat down.
Or maybe climb right back inside her.
Shit.
I didn’t know.
All I knew was I’d fucked up.
Fucked up bad.
I swallowed around the jagged rocks lodged at the base of my throat, words so rough when they came out they cracked on my tongue. “I’m clean. I swear.”
My head gave a bare shake of my shame as I met the churning expression I couldn’t quite read in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. Never meant to get carried away. Lose control. Not with you.”
Here I’d been the fool who’d thought there was no harm in pretending.
She started shaking all over the place. Like she was the one who’d been standing in the driving rain, cold taken to brittle bones.
If I share my body with a man, it’s because I love him and he loves me.
What the hell did I do?
Guilt ate me whole. A panic unlike anything I’d ever felt rose, a wave ready to drown and destroy. My eyes darted around the dusty shop, landing on what I was looking for. I reached out and snagged the old blanket that was folded on a shelf off to my left, shook it out with a hand and wrapped it around her, covering that gorgeous body.
I tucked it tight up under her neck like a shield, not that it would protect her from the depravity I’d just dealt her.
I should have known better. But like always, I was the reckless bastard, bingeing on the good. Taking what wasn’t mine to take.
I kept one hand tight to keep the blanket closed, and I fumbled into just my jeans. I left them unbuttoned, quick to sweep an arm beneath her back and another under her knees. I lifted her against my chest.
A sigh filtered from between her quivering lips. She hid her face under my chin and snuggled close.
The scent of peaches and wood and honey glided into my already muddled senses.
Ruining me a little more. I carried her from the shop, hugging her tight as we stepped out into the rain. It poured down around us, and I ran toward her house.
“Back door,” she managed, and I carried her up the three tiny steps. I leaned my side against the wall to keep her propped against me so I could fumble with the knob.
The door swung open. I slammed it shut with my foot behind us, the sound of the storm muted within the walls. The house was dark. Quick flashes of lightning blanketed the windows, guiding my path.
It seemed crazy that I’d never stepped foot inside her house. It was warmth and beauty, new and old, comfort and ease. Perfect, just like this girl.
A feeling I didn’t want to recognize tightened in my chest. But it was there, present with her weight in my arms, her heart this thunder where it beat against mine.
I carried her out the small archway, into the main room, and straight up the stairs that rode the side wall.
There were only two doors at the top, and I took the one on the right, figuring it had to be the same room where I’d seen her silhouette taking up the window that first night I’d dropped her here. Walking inside, I headed straight for the attached bathroom.
Carefully, I set her on her shaking feet, keeping one hand on her for support while I turned the showerhead hot and high. Steam filled the confined space, and she kept flicking those chocolate eyes my way. Searching.
That familiarity clung to me stronger than it ever had before.
Making me feel like I might just lose my mind because I was fucking terrified I was losing my heart.
What did I do?
I peeled the blanket from her body. So slow. A shiver wracked her whole.
God.
She was so damned beautiful.
Stunning.
She watched me while I shucked out of my jeans before I laced my fingers with hers and led her into the glass-encased shower. Steaming hot streams fell from the showerhead. It hit my cold skin like a million fiery needles.
I breathed out when I began to get used to it, and I wound my arms around her, pulling her to my chest, turning us both so the shower fall was mostly on her. I nudged her head back, getting that mass of waves wet, kissed her forehead because how the fuck could I not?
Once the sharp prickles of heat turned to a relaxing thrum, I grabbed a sponge and squirted it with soap. I massaged it over her body, starting at her shoulders and neck, down her sides and belly. I sucked in a stealing breath when I leaned down and pressed it between her thighs like maybe I could rub myself off her.
She shivered, clutching my shoulders for support.
I glanced up at her. “You’re not on the pill, are you?”
The unreadable expression flashed tighter, harder, and she slowly shook her head.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I was mumbling again. My mind was racing for an easy fix. But this girl was the furthest thing from easy, and I couldn’t even begin to form the words. Instead, I was soaping up her body. Gently. And she was doing the same to me.
And the expression I was having such a hard time deciphering grew soft. This girl undoing me.
I made sure we were both rinsed and then shut off the water. The old pipes screeched, and I reached outside the shower for a dry towel on the rack. She stood still as I wrapped it around her, only moving so she could hold it closed. Then I grabbed one for myself, twisted it around my hips, and picked her back up.
“Ash.” She said my name like confusion, the girl staring up at me as I carried her to her bed.
I pulled down the blankets and lay her in the middle. When I backed away, she stretched out her hand. “Stay.”
And God. A wise man would go. Stop this bullshit right then. But there I was, dropping my towel and sliding in behind her.
Tucking her against my body.
Why did she feel so good?
She sighed.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“What are you sorry for?” She reached up and threaded her fingers through mine that rested just above her head. “I told you what I wanted. I told you I wanted you.” She murmured it out into the stillness of her room.
I snuggled closer and kissed the back of her head. “See? That’s what I don’t get. I’m
no good for you, darlin’. Can’t give you all those things you really want. What you really deserve. Things I want you to have. But in the back of my mind, I’m getting stingy. Want to keep you for myself. Then I go and…”
Fuck.
“I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting inside you.”
She squeezed my hand. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
Silence spun around us. Minutes. Hours. I didn’t know. “What happened this afternoon?” she finally asked.
“What happened?”
I’d always prided myself on being the nicest guy you’d ever meet. But my conscious wouldn’t let me get away with that lie. Because that was always on my terms and never if it came at my own expense. That kind of cost was something I just wasn’t willing to pay.
“You want to know?”
Still facing away, she nodded against her pillow.
I buried my nose in her damp hair and offered the confession there. “You terrify me, darlin’. Make me want to do things I just don’t do. Like step up and be a real man when someone needs me. It terrifies me that I’m fool enough I just might offer it, knowing the only thing I’m gonna do is turn around and break your heart. That’s what I do, and that’s why I don’t get attached. When I was sitting there beside your mother, I realized just how fucking attached I’ve grown to you. How much I wanted to take care of you.”
She rolled to face me.
Muted light glanced across the curves of her face. So goddamned sweet. She touched my cheek. “I’m terrified of you, too.”
“Tried all afternoon to stay away. I should have.”
She shook her head. “I needed you.”
That, right there, was the problem.
“What was the song?” she asked, so tentative, knowing she was pushing against those raw places I didn’t want her to see.
I swallowed around the grief that bottled at the base of my throat. “Wrote it a long time ago.”
Desperate to change the subject, I brushed my fingers through her hair. “Tell me about your sister.”
Pain lashed across her features as she drifted someplace far away. “She was the best. So full of life. The kind of person who walked in a room and lit it up. The dreams she shared with me and our mama were always so big. She was always laughing. Teasing. She loved so much.”
I played with a strand of her hair. “Sounds like you two were close.”
She barely nodded, before her brow pinched. “But she was sick, too, Ash. So sick. She’d always been, and it got worse as she got older, or maybe it was just that I’d gotten old enough to recognize it. Always so high then so low. Happy then couldn’t get out of bed. My best friend then someone I couldn’t even recognize.”
I swam through her sorrow, held her close as she whispered her grief against my neck. “I begged her not to go, but she left when she was eighteen. And somehow I knew I’d never see her again.”
My throat constricted. And it scared me a little more how badly I hated this for her. How I’d do anything to go back and change something for her I didn’t come close to knowing anything about. Protect her from the pain. “I’m so sorry.”
She chewed at her bottom lip. “You keep saying that.”
“That’s because I’m the bastard lying in bed with you when I don’t have the right to be in your space. Shouldn’t be touchin’ you. Not like this.”
“What if this is right where I want you?”
“Peaches.” It felt like a warning. For her. Or maybe one for myself.
I’d fucked up. Bad.
I was such a damned fool.
Because even I was wise enough to know it was a fool who learned no lessons.
I rolled her to her back and climbed between her trembling thighs.
Then I turned around and fucked up all over again.
twenty-seven
Willow
Seventeen-Years-Old
“Summer.” Frantic, Willow dropped to her knees where her sister was on the floor, her back pressed against the wall and her knees hugged to her chest. Rivers of black streaked her face from her tears and her face was splotchy as she wept.
And her room.
Her room was torn to pieces. Clothes strewn and furniture overturned.
Carefully, Willow touched her sister’s shoulder, fear trembling all the way to her bones. “Summer…what happened? Are you okay?”
Her sister looked up at her, eyes glazed over. Faraway. Before they slowly came into focus. She shook her head. “No, Willow, I’m not okay.”
Willow felt the ache all the way to her soul. More and more her big sister had been like this. Frantic and raging. Lost.
“But what about the medicine?” Willow almost begged as she scooted forward. “I thought it was helping.”
Helpless, Summer stared at her. “I can’t feel on it, Willow. Don’t you get that? I don’t feel anything, and I’d rather be dead than feel that way.”
“Don’t say that.”
Her smile was somber. “I hate this, Willow. You know that, don’t you? Hate being who I am?”
Willow shifted to sit down beside her, their backs resting side by side. “Of course I know you hate it. Your sickness isn’t any different than Mama’s. Neither of you asked for it, and I’d take it from both of you if I could.”
Summer tapped her temple. “But mine’s all here. I should be able to control it. Change it. And I don’t know how to stop.”
“It’ll get better,” Willow promised. Even to her, it sounded like a lie.
Sadness rimmed Summer’s mouth. “I’m scared that’s not gonna happen here. I’ve got this feeling like I’ve got to get out of here before I come out of my skin. Before I completely lose it. I can feel it…me coming unhinged. And that’s not something I want Mama to see. It’s bad enough, some of the things I say to her when I don’t mean them. But every time I swear to myself I won’t let it happen again, it does, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Fear curled through Willow’s spirit. “Please, don’t leave me.”
“You’ve got Bates and Mama’s got you.”
“But what if I need you?”
Summer linked her pinky finger with Willow’s, lifted it between them. “You’ll always have me, baby sister. But I’ve got to find myself before I get smothered. I can’t breathe, and I feel like I’m gonna die if I stay here for one more day.”
She pressed a fist against her chest. “You’ve got to understand that, Willow. You’re going to stay here and have that big family you want and you’re going to be happy. Tell me you want that for me, too. To find happiness. Because I’m not going to find it here.”
That was the only thing Willow wanted for her sister. She nodded, a lump so big in her aching throat when she tried to speak. “Just…just promise you’ll come back to me.”
Her sister squeezed their pinky fingers tighter. A bond. Unbroken.
“Love is never cut and dry. It’s messy. Confusing. Sometimes it’s ugly and sometimes it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.” Summer looked at her, so sincere, like she was trying to convey a message Willow couldn’t quite understand. “But no matter how much it might hurt, it can never change the fact it’s real. That it’s worth fighting for. And the real kind of love will always come back to you.”
twenty-eight
Willow
“What the hell were you thinking?” Emily hissed her horror and shock as she scrambled along at my side. We had just left our favorite coffee shop, which wasn’t that far from the store, and we were strolling down the sidewalk.
That was the problem. Neither of us had been thinking.
I ducked to miss a low-hanging branch.
“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“God, Willow…this isn’t like you. You’ve been waiting and waiting for a guy who would step up and be the kind of man you want. And then you go and jump in bed with a rock star? Without a condom? That man is likely to give you some kind of d
isease.”
I cringed with the brash assumption.
“He told me he was tested.”
Of course, that was completely after the fact.
After I’d already gone and done all the things I couldn’t take back.
“Convenient,” Emily scoffed, before she huffed through a sigh and slowed her pace. “I mean…” She blew out a breath that made her cheeks puff. “I don’t even know what I mean. I like the guy, Willow, I promise I do.”
“You were the one who pushed me his way. You told me I had to take the job or I’d ‘regret it forever’.”
She blinked. “I was talking about the job, Will. It was time for you to step out of your comfort zone. To get back on your feet. See a great opportunity when it was offered to you. And yeah…I saw the attraction, and I thought maybe that would be good for you. For a man to flirt with you and make you remember what it felt like to be beautiful and wanted.”
She wet her lips. “I just never thought it’d go this far or that you’d be so reckless about it. And I hate saying it, Willow…I hate it…but you know he’s not the type of guy who’s going to stick around, and you know as well as I do it’s going to wreck you. You’re standing there, and I see that expression on your face. I see what you’re feeling. I know you’re going to get your heart broken all over again.”
Her words struck me like knives. Tiny daggers cutting me in all the places that hurt the most.
Wrecked.
I was well on my way.
It wasn’t as if her assertion was breaking news. I knew he wouldn’t stay. That I couldn’t have him in the way my heart already claimed him. My foolish heart that had grown prone to so many foolish, rash things.
She looked me straight on, eyes reeling with disappointment, voice a reproach. “You want it so bad that you’re willing to get it this way? A baby? Because you keep on with this kind of foolishness, that’s exactly what you’re gonna get.”
Pain squeezed me all over.
Shame and regret.
A wheeze of words tumbled from my tongue. “Of course not.”
Of course not.
I staggered a step and slumped down onto a bench.
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