“Are you done?” I asked Axel, my face burning so hot.
“And then there was Svetlana,” Kate said.
“That’s the name!” Axel said, snapping his fingers.
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
“Svetlana,” Sawyer said. “You’d get so drunk, you’d take on foreign accents and make up your own language.”
“I think I need to go home now,” I said.
Everyone laughed.
I blinked fast, feeling like I was in a dream.
Standing there with my St. Skin friends. Hell, at one point, they were family to me. I lost them all when I lost Axel.
I looked down at my hand interlocked with Axel’s.
I lost him back then… but now…
2.
“Okay, okay, I have to ask something,” Sawyer said, waving a hand.
He was a little more than feeling it from the whiskey. I felt bad for Kate. She would have to drive home, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, with a drunk Sawyer to deal with. Tate offered for them to spend the night there, but Kate declined.
“Ask away,” Axel said.
We were all sitting outside, around a fire, enjoying a relaxing night.
I thought about Stacy. This moment for me was what Stacy was feeling when she called me. When she made me listen to the waves of the ocean.
But I wasn’t naive here though. I knew what I had stepped into.
It had been weeks since the night that became morning when Axel and I jumped back into the past, hoping for a future. There was a clear honeymoon thing going on right now. The way he looked at me. Touched me. The way he made my heart race all the time. It was the same, but different, all in the same breath.
He worked at the shop and would text me in between tattoos. It made me smile when I saw his name show up on my phone. We didn’t spend every possible second together, but rather just did what felt right in the moment. Which was maybe more dangerous than us being together. I wasn’t sure.
One thing I was sure of… when I was near Axel, I felt better about life. And we would eventually talk about everything, no matter what. I wasn’t going to let this thing get too serious without addressing what happened that caused us to drift apart to begin with.
“Are you going to ask or what?” Axel asked Sawyer.
Sawyer leaned forward, a cocky grin on his face, shifting his eyes from me to Axel, to me, then back to Axel.
“What is this?” he asked.
“What is what?” Axel asked.
“You two together. Is this real?”
“Sawyer,” Kate snapped and swung her hand, hitting Sawyer in the arm so hard, he dropped his beer.
The bottle hit the concrete ground, but didn’t spill.
“It’s a valid question, Kate,” Tate said in a stoic voice.
“Is it anyone’s business?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Sawyer said. “I mean, what happened before…”
“Cut it,” Axel said. “This is our business now. Nobody’s but ours.”
“Yeah, but come on,” Sawyer said. “This isn’t just something… this is…”
“You two weren’t together for years,” Axel said. “Right? Sawyer, you took off. Kate worked at the diner. We really didn’t see her that much. What’s the difference?”
“You were fucking married, man,” Sawyer said.
“Fuck that,” Axel said. “That was just something we did. It was all paperwork.”
“Paperwork?” I asked. I looked at Axel.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sign here, say this, and you’re married. Fuck that. Truth is in the action.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I’m going to go and use the bathroom.”
I hurried to stand, not sure if I wanted to slap Axel, Sawyer, or both.
I rushed toward the house and had no idea where the bathroom was. Not that I really needed to use it. I just didn’t feel like getting harassed about my past with Axel. It was nobody’s business. Hell, I wasn’t even sure yet how it pertained to my business. We were good together. We laughed. We spent time in bed. And we left each other alone when we needed it.
That worked for me.
I made it to the hallway from kitchen when I heard someone say, “You’re not being fair.”
I turned my head and saw Kate waddling through the kitchen door from the outside.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant and you move too fast. Slow down. So I can catch you like a good friend would.”
“Kate…”
“No,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”
I turned all the way around. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry about Sawyer. He’s drunk and running his mouth.”
“To be fair, they are good questions. Just not his business.”
“Nor should it be. Whatever you and Axel are doing is your thing. You two have a lot of history together and a lot to figure out. Don’t be upset over it. Screw Sawyer. He’s been on edge lately because of the baby.”
“New dad jitters?”
“Yeah.” Kate rubbed her belly. “I feel ready to pop. I’m looking at the calendar like, seriously, another two weeks to go? I can’t…” she stopped talking. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s… amazing. You look beautiful, Kate.”
“Oh, now you sound like Sawyer.”
“He tells you you’re beautiful when you’re that pregnant?”
“Yeah… why?”
“Nothing. That’s… amazing. He’s a good guy.”
“Other than being a drunk jerk,” she said with an eye roll.
“Now you and I both know that we’re used to that,” I said.
Kate laughed and snorted. “It’s good to see you. Have you around here. Whatever it is. I’m not asking a question. Just know that I’ve missed you. I’m sort of a bitch for not trying to reach out to you, Shelby.”
“No,” I said. “Kate… the way things happened with you and Sawyer. And then me and Axel. Everything just broke apart everywhere. Maybe we should have stayed in touch. But I’m not going to blame you and I don’t want you blaming me. That’s dumb. We have now.”
“Yeah we do,” she said. She did a little jump and yelled oh…
“You okay?” I asked, panicking.
“Yeah. Baby was kicking.”
“Can I… feel?”
“Sure. I mean, if you want to. Are you sure?”
No. Not at all.
I reached forward. Kate took my hand and pressed it against her hard belly. Almost instantly, I felt movement. Something rolling against my fingertips.
I ripped my hand away and my eyes filled with tears.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I said.
“Oh, shit, Shelby,” Kate said.
I took off down the hallway.
I made the mistake of turning into the playroom, which only fueled the fire of hurt and rage inside me.
With my back against the wall, I cried… alone.
3.
“Hey, I’m really sorry about Sawyer,” Axel said on the drive home.
“Oh, I’m not worried about that.”
“You were quiet from that moment on, Shel. You went to the bathroom and Kate chased you down. She came out and said you weren’t feeling well.”
I swallowed hard, mentally noting to thank Kate for covering for me.
But is that what I really wanted? To have Kate covering my feelings for me? That wasn’t the right way to build a new relationship with Axel.
Yet when I looked at him, I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t go there. Not yet.
“Axel, I’m fine,” I said. “Yeah, Sawyer pissed me off a little. And not that he meant anything bad, it just got me thinking.”
“About?”
“Us. This.”
“I thought we weren’t going to put a label on anything right now.”
“I didn’t say we were,” I said. “It’s just… I’m getting used to it.”
“
Me too, love,” he said. “If there’s anything you need to talk about, don’t hold it in. Okay? No matter what. If you want to be alone tonight, I’ll drop you off and leave. You tell me, Shel. I’m here.”
“I know you’re here, Axel. I can feel it. Believe me. It’s just that so much happened.”
“That’s life.”
“And what if things get really good?” I asked.
“Meaning what?”
“Do we undo our divorce? Are we that couple?”
Axel smiled instead of answering my serious question.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, feeling irritated.
“You just brought up marrying me again,” Axel said. “Does that mean you still love me?”
“You’re impossible sometimes,” I said. “You and all the St. Skin guys. You’re all the same.”
“Shel…”
“Don’t talk to me, Axel.”
I turned my head.
I didn’t want to look at him.
Of course he’d take what I said and pick out his favorite parts for his own use.
We drove home in silence and Axel walked me to my door.
I fumbled with my keys to unlock the door and stepped inside by myself.
Axel didn’t follow.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Giving you space,” he said. “Keeping boundaries.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want you nervous about this,” he said. “You want the truth? I’m as fucking lost as you are, Shel. That’s what brought us together in the first place. Being lost and hurt. Never having a clear path to anything in life. The only time I felt good was when I looked at you. That still holds true. And I know there’s a list of things I’m not supposed to say to you right now, but goddammit, it’s getting hard to keep that shit quiet.”
I stepped toward the door and reached for his shirt. I took a handful and shook my head.
“You will never know how much in my heart I really do hate you, Axel.”
“I know.”
“But you always push me and piss me off,” I said. “And for the record, yes, I do still love you. I never stopped loving you. There hasn’t been a single day that’s gone by without me loving you. That was the worst part of it. All these goodbyes and go aways and I still loved you.”
Axel stepped into my apartment and cupped my face with both hands.
“I still fucking love you too, Shel… always.”
4.
The night took another turn as I felt the warm swell deep within my core. My hands had seemingly explored every inch of Axel’s wild body already, and now I just held his face, my nails scratching, but not too hard.
He drove forward with force, grunting, lowering his lips to mine, then pulling away.
The word love was getting thrown around too easily, but that’s how we did it. We told each other that we loved each other when we were just teenagers. People told us we didn’t even know what that meant, but we knew. And in the clouds of darkness, love never went away, we both just lost sight of it.
Which is why I didn’t want to blink as Axel took me. I wanted to see everything in his eyes as I felt everything between his legs.
The pressure became too much to handle. I slipped my hands to the back of his neck and his upper back and pulled myself up off the bed as I cried out. My body reached its pinnacle as my head fell back, blood rushing to it, my entire body… mind, soul, everything… exposed for Axel to take.
His lips kissed where my neck met my chest. I shivered and clenched tighter against his body as he thrust harder at me. He held there, our bodies connected in a way that no other people in the world could replicate. His right hand spread wide across the middle of my back, his left hand curled tightly around my hair.
As he groaned against my chest, his breath made me groan right back at him.
We came together, thunder and lightning, booming and flashing, the quietness of our storm kicked right back up.
Axel lifted my head as he kissed up my neck. His lips sought mine and when he found them, he didn’t hold back. The kiss was like nothing I could ever remember with him before. He gently guided me back down to the bed, letting me rest as every muscle in my body twinged with desperation for more of what only Axel could give me.
His hands flat against the bed, Axel pulled away from the kiss with a wet smack sound and stared at me. Slowly, he eased himself out of my body and moved to the side of the bed that was always secretly reserved just for him. Touching my right shoulder, he rolled me to my side to face him. Using his fingertips, he fought with a few sweaty strands of my hair, moving them behind my ear.
I took a deep breath, my heart still pounding.
“Something tells me that that wasn’t supposed to have happened, love,” Axel whispered.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said. “But I won’t say it didn’t make the night perfect.”
I wiggled my toes and touched his legs. There was just something about that… the hair on his legs… the strong feel of his bones and muscle… it was so stupid, I know, but it was Axel. He made me feel safe and okay, even if I really wasn’t.
“Shel, there’s something waiting behind those eyes of yours,” he said. “And I hope whatever it is, you figure it out. Or if you can’t, you trust me to help you. I’m not here just for this…”
“Like you were going to turn it down,” I said.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Axel said, stroking my cheek, “I would never turn down a chance to feel you against me, love. But I’m not here for that reason alone.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’m sorry if things were weird tonight with everyone else. It’s been a while and it’s… you know, I didn’t see Sawyer for a long time. Or Kate. Hell, I wasn’t even myself for a while. You know what happened with my mother and sister…”
“Axel,” I said. I swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry I didn’t do anything when your mother passed. I found out from a friend of a friend kind of thing. I… I knew things with her were always…”
“It’s okay,” Axel whispered. He stroked my cheek again. “Look, if we’re going to step back in time and point out every little thing that was wrong, we’re eventually going to forget about all the good.”
“I wish it were that simple for us,” I said.
“It can be.”
I shook my head. “Axel, there’s so much we have to talk about…”
“I know,” he whispered. He inched forward and kissed the tip of my nose.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now though,” I admitted.
“Okay. Then tell me what you want right now.”
“I want you to stare at me and keep my heart racing so I know I’m alive.”
“That I can do… for the rest of my life, love,” Axel said.
He kissed my nose again and smiled.
I forced a smile…
… because I’d heard him say those same words once before…
Sixteen
*PRESENT DAY*
Axel
1.
“Where are we going?” Shelby asked for the tenth time.
“I told you, a little ride,” I said. “I’m kidnapping you.”
“I got into your truck willingly.”
“Only because I kissed you.”
“True.”
“And we know the power of a kiss from Axel.”
I leaned across the truck and Shelby put a hand up. “Focus on the road. Your kisses aren’t that good.”
“What?”
“Oh, you don’t like that?”
I jerked the wheel and pulled off the road in a couple of seconds. Dirt and rocks kicked up behind me as Shelby put her hands to the dashboard and let out a yell.
I slammed on the brakes and the truck came to a stop.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Shelby snapped at me.
I slipped my hand behind her neck and pulled her close to me.
“Don’t ever say t
hat again,” I said.
“You know I was kidding.”
“Were you?”
She opened her mouth to respond and I kissed her. A slow and perfect kiss. The kind where I studied her lips with mine. My tongue flirted with hers. I kept her close, and when she wanted the kiss to get hotter and faster, I kept it slow and purposeful. That drove her crazy as she grabbed my shirt and exhaled forcefully through her nose. She bit at my bottom lip, then my top lip, but I still kept the kiss the way I fucking wanted it to be.
When I broke the kiss, Shelby looked down for a second, letting out a breathless moan. She lifted her head and I fell in love with the way her lips looked. Like she had just been kissed the right way. The way she wanted, needed, the way she deserved to be kissed.
“Never forget that,” I whispered.
Shelby nodded. “Okay. Sure.”
She sat back in the seat and put her hands on her legs. She let out a few shaky breaths as I pulled back onto the quiet road.
After a minute of silence, I said, “I’m going to show you something that might piss you off.”
“So that explains the kiss,” Shelby said. “Getting me excited so you can piss me off.”
“Not really,” I said. “Just want to show you something truthful.”
“You didn’t get married or have a kid or something, did you?”
“Shit, Shel, what the…”
“I was kidding,” she said. “Sorry. That was bad to say.”
“It’s okay. You just surprised me with that comment. And, no, I didn’t do either of those. There was nobody since you.”
“Liar.”
“Shel, you know what I mean when I say that.”
“So you’re telling me that you didn’t go on a single date?”
“No,” I said.
“Why?”
I felt my hands grip the steering wheel tighter. “You really want to talk about this stuff?”
“We already are talking about it.”
“Right.” I stared forward at the road and swallowed hard. “I compared everyone to you, love. From their hair to their toes…”
“Toes? You looked at other women’s toes? No wonder you never went out on a date.”
I laughed. “Are you going to let me talk or what?”
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