Air rocked from my lungs.
God. This girl.
This amazing, insightful, brilliant girl.
The girl who’d made me remember.
My hold tightened on her hips, fingers sinking in because I didn’t want to let her go.
You don’t deserve her.
You can’t have her.
You will wreck her.
I groaned when she began to slowly shrug out of her sweater. She pealed it from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor behind her, exposing the dress which was really nothing more than a slip. Her breasts strained at the thin material that caressed every slim curve of her body.
“Willow.” I said it as a warning that got locked up in my raw throat.
She toed out of her shoes, before those tender hands were threading through my hair, eliciting a moan, just as the girl edged forward, making a spot for herself right between my knees.
On a shaky exhale, I buried my face in her flat, quivering belly. I gripped her behind the thighs to keep her close when I knew full well I should be pushing her away.
When she eased back just enough to put an inch of space between us, I almost pulled her back to me. A shudder skated across her skin, before she reached down and gathered the material. Ever so slowly, she pulled it up, inch by inch.
The girl just about undid me when she pulled it over her head.
She was bare beneath.
Just a goddamned endless expanse of peachy, creamy skin.
I groaned, fighting for some kind of restraint. But shit. I was just a man. A man dying for the one thing he couldn’t have.
She leaned in closer. My breaths became hers. “Pretend with me. Just for a little while, I don’t want to feel so hollow. So alone. Pretend with me.”
Shame blew through me like a bullet.
If she knew, the last thing she’d do was ask this of me. She’d hate me. Exactly like I deserved.
I gripped her by the side while my fingertips danced across the tattoo on her collarbone. All those dreams. Fleeting. I swallowed the swell of grief and slid my palm to the curve of her neck, fingers spreading wide.
Her pulse fluttered and thrummed against my touch.
I drew her down. Slowly. Slowly. Until that sweet, honeyed mouth met with mine.
This kiss?
It was too tender.
Too deep.
Too soft.
A plea. A second’s surrender.
But right then? I couldn’t stop from treating her like the priceless treasure she was.
Sex and brutal, vicious comfort.
Because it hurt the most when it was gone.
I shifted her and pressed her down onto the mattress as I climbed over her. I twisted out of my underwear without ever breaking the kiss.
I kissed her and kissed her while her shaking hands trembled across my skin. Gliding up and down my back. Touching my face. Pressing at my heart.
The girl always, always touching my heart.
She managed to in a way no one else ever had.
And I knew that familiarity was real.
That it belonged to us.
That it wasn’t some twisted, fucked-up perception.
Without a word, I edged back and dug into the nightstand drawer, quick to cover myself.
Emotion clotted in my chest when I paused to look down at her.
She was shivering in the middle of my bed. Pleading with her unwavering gaze.
Slowly, I crawled back over her and nestled myself between her thighs.
She cast out a shaky exhale full of nerves and need.
I threaded her fingers with mine, kept them held between us when I bracketed her with my elbows that I braced on the bed.
Nose to nose.
Chest to chest.
Our breaths confused.
Our hearts a thunder in the confines of my room.
I could feel her sinking into me when I sank deep into her.
Her lips parted, and her eyes adored while I shivered and shook when I took her whole.
Fire. Flames. An incinerating blaze.
I kept her as close as I could get her. Just for this little while.
Our bodies moved slowly.
In sync.
Quietly.
Remorsefully.
Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes and into her hair while I stared down at her and tried to tell her all the things I couldn’t say.
In that moment, I knew I was closer to a person than I’d ever been.
Closer than I’d ever wanted to be. Closer than I could be.
And I knew I wouldn’t ever feel this way again.
What we were feeling was the furthest from pretend.
She came silently, her mouth parted on a muted gasp, and I just tucked her closer and dropped my forehead to hers when my body went rigid.
And for a moment…Peaches and I?
We bled with the stars.
Where they streaked and wept across the endless sky.
Infinite.
Burning bright right before they quickly burned out.
Ashes.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I kissed her mouth. Relished this girl for a second more. Before I wordlessly climbed from bed. I snatched my underwear from the floor and headed straight for the attached bathroom.
Everything pounded and roared while I shucked the condom and pulled on my underwear. A vicious war between my head and my heart that wanted to hold on to her forever and the fleck of courage that demanded I grow a backbone.
On a strained sigh, I leaned both hands against the counter and dropped my head.
Jesus.
What had I done?
I’d fucked everything up.
Fucked it up bad.
I forced myself to leave the minute’s safety of my bathroom. I took a single, wary step back into the storm. I could feel it building.
Willow now sat facing away on the trunk she’d strategically placed at the foot of my massive bed. She’d redressed and was hugging that sweater around her body as she stared at the far wall that still remained blank.
It was the one spot in this room she’d never gotten around to completing before that mind-blowing bliss we’d touched on had gone to shit.
My chest tightened, and I attempted to swallow around the shards of glass that had gathered at the base of my throat.
Fucking torture.
Wistful, subdued laughter rippled from her sweet mouth, and she looked down, exposing the nape of her neck as she picked at a thread on her sweater. “That morning when I found you…I felt you. I didn’t just sense you, Ash. But I felt you. It was that moment when you opened your eyes. I was staggered. I knew when you walked in my store that day, things weren’t going to end well. I knew I should guard myself from the collision I felt coming the second you stepped in my path.”
Her head tilted to the side. The breath she pulled in was palpable, tugging at the air. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I think I lied to you that first day here in your room…when I told you I didn’t believe in love at first sight.”
She hesitated before she spoke again. “Because I’m pretty sure a piece of me fell for you the first time I saw you broken on the ground. And I’ve been falling ever since.”
The lump in my throat throbbed.
“Willow.” It was raw.
She shifted a fraction, turning to me with that stunning, unforgettable face. Chocolate eyes liquid. Soft and tender. So soft they nearly knocked me to my knees.
She touched her chest. “Tell me you love me…the way I love you.” She clutched the sweater tighter, a shield and an anchor. “Because I have so much love. So much, Ash. And the only thing I want is to give it to you.”
Those were the words that cut me in two.
Love. Goddamned love. It was everywhere, nagging at my conscience and thrashing in my spirit.
Grief pelted me, and I dragged my attention away, looked to the ground. I ran the back of my hand over my mouth and forced myself to t
ell her the most blasphemous kind of lie. “I can’t tell you that.”
I phrased it the only way I could because my heart wouldn’t let me form a deception that big.
I could see her work up to acceptance, the way her shoulders jerked and her head bowed, before her spine eventually straightened.
She wiped her face with the long sleeves of her sweater and stood. She glanced around the room, somehow bearing a semblance of a smile.
“It’s a good room, Ash. Thank you for letting me share it with you. Be a part of it.”
Tears streaked free, and she clasped her hands together right over her chest. “Thank you for saving me the way you did. I’m sorry I didn’t get to completely finish, but I can’t pretend anymore. Not when all my pretending is a lie.”
Our lie.
She started for the door.
Let her go. Let her go.
Panic spun. Too fast. Too much…
“Willow.”
Still facing away, she hesitated. Her shoulders heaved up and down.
The girl so fragile and so strong.
Drawn, I moved to stand behind her. Her back an inch from my chest, I set my hands on either side of her neck. Her pulse thrummed wildly, a fluttering plea at my skin, and in her own surrender, her head dropped back.
I leaned in and pressed my lips to her forehead, the word the barest plea. “Stay.”
Fuck.
I didn’t even know what I was asking.
What I was asking of myself.
Because what did I have to give her but more pain?
Sadness danced with the shadows. Slowly she shifted to face me. Her words were soft but filled with resolve. With belief. This broken girl who was the farthest from weak.
“You told me that guy’s out there looking for me. That one day he’d find me because I deserve him. You made me promise not to settle for anything else. I want him to be you. So badly I’m dying inside. But I won’t settle, Ash. I won’t settle for anything less than the match to my heart.”
She lifted her arms out and turned her face to the ceiling. Like she were looking for a promise somewhere beyond the room we were in, lost in the night sky she couldn’t see. “Maybe he’s out there, floating on those wishes my mama had me casting into the air. Maybe I just haven’t caught up to him yet.”
Tears streaming down her face, she aimed her attention back on me.
She smiled that dizzying smile that did that crazy thing to my heart. It trembled with sorrow and brimmed with hope.
My guts clenched with agony and regret.
I love you. I’d die for you. I’d live for you. But the one thing I can’t do is take this away.
I couldn’t make any of it form on my tongue.
“I love you, Ash Evans. I hope you know you were worth the risk.”
One last time, she brushed her fingertips over my mouth and down my beard.
So goddamned sweet.
Then she turned and walked out my door.
thirty-three
Willow
I pressed my hand to my mouth as I ran out his front door and flew down the porch steps. I just needed to keep it together for one second more. I jumped into my car and slammed the door, hands fumbling to get the key into the ignition. I gasped out a relieved breath when I finally turned the ignition over and threw it in drive.
I had to get out of there.
Away.
Tears streamed down my face, my eyes bleary as I strained to focus out the windshield as I took to the street. I swept the back of my hand beneath my eye, struggling to keep in the sob bottled in my throat.
It erupted.
Broke free.
Just like I could feel everything splintering inside of me.
Loss. Grief. Heartbreak.
They churned with the power of a hurricane in the confines of the cab.
How much could I take?
I choked around a cry that climbed my throat.
Ash.
My beautiful, bold, brilliant Ash.
So full of life yet so terrified of living.
I’d seen the fear in his eyes.
Felt the love in his touch.
Heard the truth in his lies.
Maybe that was what had scared him most.
Maybe tonight was the most foolish thing I could have done. I had stepped out on that limb and put myself in the line of fire.
But I couldn’t go on without knowing. Couldn’t spend one more day waiting for him to return. Couldn’t stand to sit alone praying he’d show up and confess whatever had sent him running.
I’d known it when I’d chased him outside the restaurant that night.
This man, all cocky arrogance and flirty tease, kept a well of secrets and pain. I’d felt him so close to giving them to me.
I’d felt his surrender in the days he’d stood at my side. When the man had supported me through one of the most difficult times I’d ever endured. I just couldn’t comprehend what had sent him running three days ago. When he’d gone from a man promising not to leave my side to one fumbling out my door.
So I’d stepped out. Taken the risk. Landed right in the middle of a failure I didn’t want to find.
Loneliness.
I swore it was a living, thriving being.
Gasping over a sob, I swiped the sleeve of my sweater across my face and tried to focus on the road as night descended.
Ominous. Overwhelming.
I could feel it pressing down on me. Taking me over.
My mama taught me all along I was stronger than this.
My world was mine to hold. Even if it were in pieces.
But tonight, those pieces were scattered so far I wasn’t sure they could ever be gathered.
Everyone.
Everyone was gone.
I turned onto my street. Home. Vacant. Empty.
I could feel the last pieces of me sheering apart when I saw the truck parked in front of my house. Anger and hate compounded with the misery that lined my body.
Why was he doing this to me?
I was trembling when I turned into my drive, every inch of me shaking when I put my SUV in park and killed the engine.
I fumbled out.
At my end.
“You need to get off my property.” The words grated from my throat.
Bates pushed off from where he was leaned against Billy’s truck, Billy still sitting in the cab. “I came here to talk to you.”
I turned my back on him, headed for my door, could barely get my hands to cooperate as I attempted to unlock it. “I told you before, I don’t have anything to say.”
“Oh, I think you just might have something to say about this.”
I scoffed, tried to hold back the tears fighting for release. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of him. I just couldn’t process it, the fact he was here, continuing to do this to me after I’d lost my mama. There was no question he knew, the grapevine in this small city surely crawling its way back to him.
The door swung open in front of me. “Please, just leave me alone. I can’t do this with you, Bates.”
He grabbed my arm. A shocked breath shot from me, and I tried to shake him off. His jaw clenched as he gripped me tighter, fingers digging into my skin. He sneered. “That guy…the one you’ve gone and slutted yourself off to? Actin’ the whore?”
Whore?
My mouth twisted with fury. “You don’t have any right to accuse me of anything. I don’t belong to you. Not anymore. What I do and who I see is none of your business. Now go…before I call the cops.”
He laughed as if I was ridiculous. As if he held all the control the way he always had. He suddenly released me and I stumbled back into my living room. He pushed into my space.
Fear rose up.
That was just before he drew attention to the folder he had in his hand.
Confusion spun through me, dread pooling in my belly. I couldn’t take any more of the cruelty Bates had to offer.
But he had no mercy when
he pulled out the first photo. Black and white and blown up big.
Horror slammed me.
I dropped to my knees. Both hands pressed to my mouth.
Nausea spun and the walls closed in.
No.
My head shook. “No. N-n-no.”
Bates dropped the folder to the ground in front of me. Pages and pages of glossy, black and white pictures slid out to reveal their brutality.
Ruthless.
Inhumane.
Wrong.
“No.”
Bates’ vile breath was at the side of my face. “Willow. Always so naïve. Seems you don’t know him at all, doesn’t it?”
thirty-four
Willow
Twenty-One-Years-Old
Sobs echoed through the line. Frantic and frenzied. Incoherent. They were the kind Willow had grown to recognize in the years before her sister had left, even though there was no chance she’d ever grow accustomed to them.
Dread curled her stomach.
Willow pushed the phone harder to her ear. With the other hand, she fumbled around in the dark to find the switch to her bedside lamp. She flicked it on, squeezing her eyes closed against the intrusive light that cut through her small childhood room. She still lived with her mama so she could help take care of her on the bad days. She blinked and tried to orient herself. To catch up to that speeding train Summer had seemed to be riding for far too long.
“Calm down, Summer. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Since Summer had left four years ago, Willow never knew what kind of call she was going to get. If her sister would be full of life, bubbly and shining her bright, blinding light. Or if she’d fallen to the depths of her sickness where it was dark and bleak.
Willow felt it stretched out between them. The distance. Greater than it had ever been.
“He told me he loved me…he told me,” Summer babbled, tears in her harsh breaths. “He’s cheating on me. Oh my god…I can’t believe this.”
More sobs, and Willow could almost see her sister yanking at her hair. “I told him…I told him… He won’t listen. He won’t listen!”
The last was a hurled shriek, and a breath later, glass shattered in the background.
Summer wailed, out of breath. “I can’t…I can’t do this.”
“Calm down, talk to me.”
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