by Snow, Nicole
“I’ve been running because you chased me away!” I flare hotly, then tense, bracing for the blowback of his temper.
Instead he only sits down on the bench next to me, leans forward, and rests his elbows on his knees, a heavy sigh drifting off him.
He’s not quite close enough to touch, but he smells like sea salt and male musk and I don’t think it’s just my pulse making me dizzy. He laces his hands together – so coarse, the ridges between his knuckles rivet me, my brain everywhere, bouncing around trying to find something stable to latch on to.
But I’m left free-floating, and completely unprepared for this conversation that’s been five years in the making.
“I did chase you,” he admits quietly. “Because you saw me for what I really am, and I couldn’t stand disappointing you.”
My mouth works incoherently. How? I want to ask. That word, and so many more. Questions like, What are you saying? That I mattered that much to you...that you cared that much what I thought of you?
And Jesus, if you cared so much, how could you be so cruel?
“Landon...”
He exhales heavily, lowering his eyes, his jaw tightening as he stares at his hands. “I know. I’m not starting this the right way. I’m coming at it sideways. But if you’ll just let me talk, let me get my thoughts out...then I’ll answer anything you want to know.”
I nod feebly. That, I can do. Maybe by the time he’s done talking I can figure out my thoughts and feelings and form words more coherent than “Okay.”
Still, he says nothing for what feels like forever.
I just see him gathering himself, and part of me wants to reach out to touch him, to say it’s okay, but I can’t. I’m afraid if I touch him I’ll break whatever this fragile moment is, this bubble in time when suddenly we’re teenagers again, sitting out under these stringy bright glitter-bulb stars, and he doesn’t hate me.
And he’ll actually talk to me. And look at me. And instead of forcing me away with the pure vibrant force of his anger, we'll find an understanding.
Finally, with a deep exhale that lifts his shoulders heavily, he says, “You shouldn’t have read my journal. But I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, either. That day years ago, Reb...” His brows draw into a thunderhead. He lifts his clasped hands to press his thumbs against the insides of his eye sockets. “It was too fucking much. I’d just found out what my father was really up to with Crown. Bad shit. Dirty, underhanded black market deals. I don’t know if he was actually involved in the drugs and trafficking, or if he just looked the other way, but it was bad. It cost him everything in the end. His family. His life. His honor.”
My blood chills. I remember Micah Strauss. He’d always had an easy smile on his big square shoulders. He was always kind to me, Steve, and my parents. Never someone I’d label evil.
My jaw hangs open. “Mr. Strauss? Dirty? You're sure?”
Stupid question, but it still falls out. Of course I already know if there was any doubt, Landon wouldn't be the tortured man he's become.
“Yeah. And I was so fucking angry. Angry with him for betraying us. Pissed with myself for not seeing it sooner, and finding some way to save him. There’s part of me that wants to believe he was just a good man who fell in with the wrong people so he'd keep making money for his family. Another part of me curses his fucking name for ever being so vile. I don’t know if I love him or hate him, I just know he’s not here for me to figure it out, and I’m still fucking livid over it – and pissed at myself for not finding out who pulled the trigger.” He lifts haunted, haggard eyes to me.
“I wrote that the same day you read it. And my emotions were a fucking wreck, and you got the brunt of it. But it wasn’t your fault, Reb. Nothing was your fault, really, from then till now.”
I swallow the knot in my throat. This hurts to hear, but I need it. I need it so much. “Then why...? Why did it take you so long to say...?”
“You know why,” he responds grimly. “My father was murdered. Killed. And you’re the only person who knows what I intend to do about it. What was I supposed to say to you after that? You always followed me around with stars in your eyes. Didn’t want to see them go out when you saw me for the monster I am.”
I suck in a breath, focused on one heavy word among many.
Intend, Landon said. Not intended.
So, he hasn’t done it. Not yet. He hasn’t murdered anyone.
But he might.
I shake my head quickly. “You're not a monster,” I manage to choke out.
God, why is this breaking my heart? Why do I want to cry, pull him close, kiss him until he sees that he’s still the same Landon, and I still see that boy with bright blue brilliant stars he gave me reflected in my eyes?
“I ran today because you wanted me to go, Landon. Not because I didn’t want to stay.”
He looks at me with such a desperate, dark-eyed stare that it seems he might say something else – something I painfully need to hear – but instead he continues flatly, “You don’t think I’m a monster? What if I told you the only reason I’m still on this job with Milah is for a chance to sniff out what’s going on at Crown Security and with Dallas? That I don’t give a damn for her and I just want to destroy that fucked up company from the inside-out? Because it ruined my father...”
He’s incandescent, hushed and rough-edged words, leaning in closer to me. Nearly overwhelming me with his presence. “What if I told you, when I find the man who killed my father, I’m going to snap his neck with my own two hands?”
I’m trembling.
Trembling, again, but I lift my chin. Desperately trying to make my shaking, rioting body calm when every last part of me rebels. There’s a small, frightened, animal part of me that’s screaming to run before the predator eviscerates me – but there’s a dark needy twisted part of me wanting to be eviscerated.
One thing you learn writing romance is that part of the appeal in dangerous men is the thrill of flirting with that sharp edge. Knowing he wants you, needs you, loves you too much to ever cut you, but the danger’s there nonetheless.
There’s a reason attraction is terrifying, and fear can be arousing.
The very same reason I made Landon into Logan, and put way too much of myself into those passion stained pages.
It's like a chemistry experiment. Landon ticking every box. Right here. Right now.
I’m scared of him in delicious ways, but hurting for him, too. Aching like I didn't know I could.
“I’m still not afraid of you,” I whisper, and manage a wry smile. “Sorry. Still a starry-eyed idiot, I guess. I don’t see a monster. I see a man faced with complex choices and a lot of pain, and I don’t think you have murder in you.”
“And if I do?” he demands. His eyes crackle, cold and demanding, mysteries and intent and just enough fierceness to steal the breath from my lungs for the hundredth time today.
“Then you do,” I answer, wondering what it means. That if he killed the man who killed his father...I’d see it as a righteous act of vengeance, distasteful as it might be. Not sheer monstrosity.
And I'd see the dark potential consequences, too. Landon winding up in prison, or worse. Ruining his life, or losing it in the process.
My smile strengthens, and I shake my head. “Sorry. You’re gonna have to try harder than that to scare me.”
“I don’t want to,” he spits. “That’s just the thing. I don’t want to scare you away anymore.” He makes a frustrated sound. “I want you to come back, Reb. With me.”
That’s when it hits me.
He didn’t just come here to clear the air so we didn’t part with bad blood.
What is he here for then? When it hits, I'm gone.
No apology can clear years of self-doubt. I can’t let myself hope or assume too much.
Can’t let myself do anything.
Because even if I understand him better now it doesn’t change the stone cold fact that the two of us together are a volatile mess. More p
ain than pleasure, guaranteed.
“Landon, I can’t,” I say. “God. I’ve wanted to hear you say you forgive me for years, but I...we don’t work. We’re a fucking mess, all claws and teeth and misunderstandings. It took five years to talk out one conflict. What happens when I leave the milk out on the counter and it goes sour? We don’t talk for five more years while we build up more tension? More hate?”
“Wouldn’t happen,” he says firmly.
I want so bad to believe it.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because Velvet and Mews would chew the carton open and drink the milk way before it went sour.”
It knocks me for a loop so fast I can’t help the sharp burst of laughter, easing some of the tension between us, even if that tight prickling is still behind my eyes.
“You know what I mean, jerk.”
“I know.” He’s smiling, though, and I haven’t seen that in forever. One-sided, easy, confident, with just a touch of arrogance. Softness, too. The heart-stopping kind. “But are you so sure we don’t work? Because I’m not. There’s something between us, Reb. And I’m done running from it. I just need you to stop running from me.”
My heart remembers to beat hard enough to punch me. I hesitate, then ask, “What are you asking?”
He falters, then glances away, looking out across the deepening twilight of the yard.
Then he looks up, at the trees full of string lights overhead. For a moment, with them shining down on his swarthy skin in little dots of gold, he’s that boy again, looking up at the sky and counting stars.
“I could still use your help with Milah,” he says, reluctance catching in his throat. “I could use a fake girlfriend.”
I bark out a hurt laugh. It feels like swallowing glass. “Seriously? She already overheard us. What good will pretending to be your girlfriend do, Landon?”
“By telling her it’s real now, and not only am I off limits, but she can keep her shitty little comments about you to herself.”
“But it’s not real now.” I smile weakly. “And to be fair, I looked like crap this morning.”
His modesty fades, leaving only a thoughtful, stripping sidelong look that flicks over me. He's assessing me, taking me in, consuming until there’s nothing in my world but brilliant blue and the frantic rush of my heart.
“No, you didn’t,” he murmurs. “You always look damn good, Reb.”
Those words are arrows, but they don’t strike my heart until he touches me.
Not until he reaches out, traces his fingertips along my cheek, their bluntness and coarseness so hot against my skin.
A shiver flutters over every inch of me as he tucks my hair back, his gaze riveted on his fingers as they trace backward, then curl against the back of my neck, his hand so heavy. So possessive.
I swear, I can’t help licking my lips, outlining my tingling mouth. It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. His gaze snaps to my mouth, locks there, lingers with a touch I can feel.
Before he leans in and kisses me.
There’s a scratch of beard and a burst of fire. Then I’m spinning and lost and seeing the fire's red, drunk on the passion, lost in my heart's deafening throb.
Landon kisses like he’s intent on conquest, and I’m already claimed in one sweeping blow.
He takes control of my mouth, surges into me, teasing with such bold and hungry strokes. Every time his tongue slides hotly, obscenely deep, I feel it clenching and wet deep inside me.
His kiss makes me full to bursting with a tingling need. Achingly, painfully empty with a desire to be filled, hyper-aware of every inch of my body. Every part of me he isn’t touching.
Until he is.
Until his hands are on me, dragging me across the bench as if I weigh nothing, pulling me into his lap.
Until my ass is against his thighs and there’s something hard and hungry and oh-so-thick pressing up against me, hot even through the denim of his jeans, burning against the naked backs of my thighs.
Until his arm is hard around my waist, caging me against the steel of his body, giving me everything I need with the pleasure of his touch crushing against me.
Until everywhere he touches me, pressed chest to chest, stomach to stomach, makes me aware of my senses in the way no Cabernet-swigging douchebag ever could.
It’s like when Landon touches me, when he kisses me, I come alive.
I’m all bright lights, and he’s the yawning darkness that makes them glow so sweetly.
He bites at my mouth, stinging and bruising and all delicious heat.
I bite right back. Fighting him, giving back need for need, kiss for kiss, lick for lick, nip for nip until we’re a tangled mess of rushed breaths and grasping hands.
Tangling my fingers in his hair, I stroke back through his thick black nest. He lets out a thrumming, feral growl against my lips before burying his face against my throat.
He sensitizes my skin with the rasp of his beard, then ignites me again with kisses and gentle, slow bites trailing at my throat, following my pulse.
My gasps come low, at first, turning into startled cries as he lifts me, shifts me, his possessive, rough hands on my thighs.
Making them shake as he pulls them apart, repositions me, settles me down on his lap again until I’m straddling him.
Suddenly, this is so much more intimate.
I’m wide open, my panties drenched and pushing up against sensitive, needy, wet-slicked flesh. His hands dig into my ass, making that empty clutch in me, that need to be filled, pulse ten times harder.
He grabs at my shorts, handfuls of my flesh, and brings me down against him.
The pressure of his cock against his jeans is almost fucking me, sliding and rubbing between my thighs, scorching my own wetness into me with heat and friction, and there’s no escaping it when his body is so large between my legs that my inner thighs ache. It's the effort to span him, to straddle him, bared in all but name.
The thin fabric between us can't keep him from ripping my senses to shreds.
I’m spinning, struggling to breathe, clutching at him, struggling to keep the sounds rising in the back of my throat from leaving the back of my throat. It’s too much, too intimate, too dirty, and everything in me craves it with the addiction of a heady drug with a high more intense than any other.
And we’re out in the open, in my brother’s backyard. Steve might wake up from the exhausted nap he and Melanie both crashed into after their evening yoga class after work.
Perish the thought. All I need right now is my brother walking out here and finding me straddling his best friend with those dark heavy hands all over me, and my body so tight-strung and wet I’m probably soaked through my shorts.
Please. Just give us time.
I just got Landon back, after all.
I can’t let him lose Steve over something like this, too.
“Landon,” I protest weakly, digging at his hair, tugging gently. “Landon, we can’t. Not here. S-steve....Steve will never forgive you – mnh!”
His answer cuts off my startled cry, burying his face against the low neckline of my tank top, dragging the delicious friction of his stubble over the upper curves of my breasts. He only pauses to dip his head, captures my nipple in his mouth, sucking and nibbling and teasing through my top and bra.
It’s molten, the fabric trapping the wetness and heat of his mouth, slicking it against my skin.
His tongue lashes fire against me in jolts that leave me writhing against him, rocking my hips, grinding myself against him greedily until I’m all wildness and pulsing, desperate need, completely stripped of my senses.
He makes a deep, satisfying sound with one last little lick, then lets go, looking up at me with those blue eyes smoldering.
“You were saying?” he growls.
I can’t talk. Can't move. I’m a wreck, completely shattered inside, and if I don’t give in to this wanting I’m going to lose my mind.
But I’m trying to think
straight, still trying to be an adult. “I can’t let you ruin your friendship with Steve,” I whisper. “It's –”
“If me wanting you ruins our friendship, then it wasn’t a friendship at all.” But he relaxes his tight, clutching, entirely distracting grip on my ass, and strokes his hands up my back.
There's a gentleness at the contrast with the demanding fire in his eyes. “Be with me, Reb. Right here under the stars. We’ll spend the night like we used to.” That darkly arrogant smirk flashes a glimpse of teeth. “Only this time, you won’t have to write the sex. You're talented, yeah. Good luck ever finding the words for the shit I'm gonna do to you.”
I can’t help a shaky laugh. I lean in, resting my brow to his, breathing him in. Breathing in the scent of raw desire between us. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Must be. Feels like I’ve gone crazy.” He kisses me again – softer this time, a gentle thing that ends in a taunting nip, a promise. “Feel like being crazy with me? Breaking a few rules?”
If I say no, I’ll be lying to myself, and him.
But if I say yes...holy hell.
If I say that, with another kiss, then I’m tumbling from one heartbreak to another when this man is so volatile and wild he can destroy me with a single touch.
Too bad, right now, I want to be destroyed.
Completely shattered inside and out, if only to know what it’s like to have him this one time.
I bite my lip, tasting him on it, then curl my fingers against his shirt, gripping at the hem and tugging upward. “Let me touch,” I whisper – and that’s the closest to a yes he’s going to get, when my common sense is screaming Danger, Will Robinson, danger! at the top of its lungs.
His eyes brighten, then darken, and he leans back from me enough to grasp his shirt and pull it up over his head.
Muscle flexes powerfully, writhing like licking tongues of steel coiling and sliding over each other in pure filthy suggestion. He's filthy.
Made for sex and secret things in the dark, for those little twisted whispers you never speak in the light of day. I can't decide where I want to touch him first.