Buckled

by Pam Godwin

  Rain whips against the window inches from my face. It calls to me, my eyes fixed on the raging sky, my body gravitating toward the steel clouds that dissolve into the black landscape.

  A jolting flash flickers and dies, and in that explosion of light, I see him beneath the window.

  My heart stops, and I fall against the glass, pressing closer and begging my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  He can’t be real. I’m losing my mind.

  Another flare of light burns the sky, winking in and out through a series of jagged bolts. In the span of that illumination, he stares up at me in the rain, finding and holding my gaze.

  My breaths rush out, heaving my chest.

  He’s here.

  He’s really fucking here.

  His eyes widen, blinking against the downpour. He looks surprised, like he didn’t expect me to be here, either.

  Rain sluices off the brim of his hat and crashes against the solid silhouette of his wide stance. He doesn’t move, doesn’t look away.

  He waits.

  I slip away from the window and press my back against the wall, fighting to catch my breath.

  He still loves me.

  In the bed across the room, Raina doesn’t stir, deep in sleep, escaping the torment of her pain.

  No more waiting.

  I run to the door on silent feet, down the stairs, and smash into the falling sheets of rain.

  His shoulders jerk back when he sees me, his hands slipping into his front pockets, his entire body soaked and dripping.

  I pause a foot away, my voice stuck in my throat, my gaze glued to his.

  “Where did you go?” Muscles twitch along his jaw, his eyes flinty. “I thought you left, and I fucking lost it.”

  My mind spins, and I shake my head in confusion. “How did you—?”

  “I live at the motel.” He stabs a finger toward the center of town. “Your car’s been gone since yesterday.”

  “What?” I swallow. Blink. Swallow again. “You live here? For how long?”

  “Six months.” He squints at me, challenging me to go off on him. “I drive home a couple of times a week to catch up on work. Otherwise, I’m here.”

  I clutch my neck, trembling, drenched, but somehow still standing as eighteen months of pain release from my body.

  He never left. Never walked away.

  He never abandoned me.

  “I bought a truck you wouldn’t recognize, so I could follow you. Watch you. I couldn’t…” His hands lift to his face, and his shoulders roll forward, his huge frame shuddering beneath the deluge of rain. “I can’t let you go.”

  “Jarret…” I cup a hand over my mouth, muffling a cry.

  “Living without you is a form of death. A death I refuse to accept.” He lowers his arms. Then he drops to his knees, head bowed, buckled at my feet. “You can’t hide your pain from me. Your isolation, the bruises under your eyes, the permanent sadness on your lips…” His gaze lifts, stark against the strobe of lightning. “I see you. I see your misery, heartbreak, longing. It’s lived in your eyes since you left, trapped in turmoil. But I see love, too. It’s still there, Maybe, and I swear to God, if you would just accept it, if you would give me a chance, I’ll set you free. Let me take part in your pain, walk with you, sit with you, watch over you, something, anything… Just…let me join you in the hurt.” His throat bobs. “Come home.”

  The downpour ebbs into a gentle drizzle, beading droplets on the hard planes of his upturned face. I stand over him, drowning in rain, affection, love, and acceptance.

  I reach toward his jaw, slide trembling fingers along his whiskers, and apply upward pressure beneath his chin. “Stand up.”

  His brows gather, and he slowly rises. I keep my hand on his face, cradling the sharp edges and shivering with a flood of emotion.

  “Yes.” I put all the answers into that one word.

  “Yes?” His breath hitches, eyes searching.

  “You’re right, about all of it.” I step closer, slipping my boots in the space between his. “I fucked up, and I’ve come to terms with that. I accept the mistakes, the secrets, the guilt, the wrong turns, and the dark back roads. I accept everything that’s happened that led us here, and ninety years from now, I’ll remember you standing in the rain, begging me to come home. And I’ll never regret that I did.”

  Raindrops cling to his lashes, and amid the wetness, wells something deeper, stronger.

  Happiness.

  “Ninety years?” He touches my cheek.

  “Give or take. No regrets.”

  “Then I can finally give this back to you.” He shoves a hand in his pocket and pulls out the engagement ring. “Maybe, will you—?”

  “Yes.” I hold out my hand, fingers extended and shaking. “You’ve been carrying it all this time?”

  “Every day.” He slides the diamond band onto my hand, fitting it snugly in place.

  I pull back to take a closer look, but his fingers clamp down, holding tight to mine. He stares at me, and I stare at him, doused in a milestone of acceptance.

  We move at the same time, crashing together in a stumbling, uncoordinated leap and kiss. Our foreheads bump. He staggers backward, and our lips touch and glance off, clumsy and awkward, without the connection we crave.

  I right my footing and rub my brow, squirming with nervousness. “Should I have swooped in differently? I feel like I came in too hard.”

  “Hard is good.” He grips the back of my neck and drags me against him, chest to chest.

  “I was too eager, though.” I clutch his wide shoulders, and wings flap in my stomach. “We angled the same way, and our teeth hit. Maybe I should’ve dipped when you dove? And there’s also the rain. We’re all slippery and—”

  “Let’s not overthink it.” His gaze dips to my mouth.

  “Okay. Yeah, kind of loses the magic.” I inhale deeply, savoring the warmth of his breaths. “Can we try again?”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it.”

  His eyes spark. “I fucking love you.”

  “I love—”

  He devours my words, kissing me like there’s no choice. His tongue swirls past my lips, tasting and plunging as the light shower runs down our faces to where our mouths meet.

  Cold drops, sultry air, and the distant rumble of thunder—there’s something celestial about kissing this man in the rain. It’s a frenzied moment that refuses to wait. An outpour of love desperate for connection, uncaring about soaked clothes or chilled skin. It’s a rebellion against threatening winds and depressing conditions. Nature brings the rain, but we stand against it, united in mutual need.

  He presses his lips firmly against mine, controlling the depth and asserting the rhythm. The heat of his mouth is my home, the clench of his fingers my sanctuary. He’s my greatest torment and constant salvation, my beginning, my end, and all the roads between. The whole damn world should stop on its axis and take note, because no man alive knows how to love a woman like he does.

  He lifts me up his chest, and I cup his face, knocking off his hat and sinking into the hungry eyes that drive me crazy.

  “God, I missed you.” My legs encircle his waist, and my hair falls around him, becoming one with his dark soaked strands.

  He kisses droplets from my lips, and I smile against his.

  “There it is.” He sweeps my hair aside and nibbles a path to my ear.

  “What?” I sink into his arms.

  “Your smile.” He palms my butt through the jeans and yanks me closer. “I haven’t seen it in eighteen months.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.” I bury my face in the curve of his shoulder.

  “Hey.” He grips the back of my hair and captures my eyes. “I hurt you, too. No regrets, remember?”

  “And no secrets.”

  “No lies.”

  “No more deals.” I bite my lip.

  “No more waiting.” His expression tightens, his cheekbones like blades beneath the aggression in his g
aze.

  Does he know how hot he is when he looks at me like that? How it makes me want to smother his face in ravenous kisses?

  “I can’t believe you’re here.” My head swims, my blood pumping with ecstasy as I take in his gorgeous features.

  “I can’t believe you’re real.” He plants his mouth against mine, binding us in a kiss so unquenchable we claw at each other to dig deeper, closer, and it’s not enough.

  He bends to grab his hat. His feet move beneath us, splashing through puddles and carrying us toward the entrance to my apartment. Rain falls down around us, washing away pain and intensifying the heat of our bodies.

  The past ceases to exist, blurred and forgotten as I grab hold of the future with arms and legs. By the time he stumbles into the dimly lit stairwell, our need for each other has exploded into a raging fire.

  My back hits the wall, and he grinds against me, torturing the throb between my legs. The chill that soaks through our jeans doesn’t matter. We’re a furnace of desire and urgency, ripping at clothes, biting lips, and scoring skin.

  Our groans echo off concrete walls. Our bodies writhe, and his boots squeak across wet floors as he swings me toward the stairs.

  We make it halfway up the first flight before he lowers me on the steps to deepen the kiss and rock between my legs.

  “Need inside you.” He licks my tongue, panting against my lips.

  I don’t know who needs who more as the roll and kick of my hips battles the grind and thrust of his.

  “Three flights.” He cranes his neck and groans at the staircase high above us. “We’ll never make it.”

  Good, because Raina’s in my bed, and I’m not going to kill the moment with that conversation.

  “My neighbors go to work early.” I grip his hair, bringing his mouth back to mine. “They’re already asleep.”

  He pulls back to look at me, his eyes like every fantasy I’ve ever had of him, every moment I longed for over the past eighteen months.

  Then he kisses me with hail and lightning. Crashing in with a persuasive tongue. Lighting me up with dominant strokes. Owning me with the thunder of his heart.

  I wrap my entire being around it—the kiss, the look, the stolen moment that could’ve so easily slipped through my fingers. But our path is set, fated and indelible.

  He gathers me close and shifts us up two more stairs. “We should—”

  “Here.” I reach for my fly and release the button. “Right now.”

  He’s on board, already tearing at his belt and zipper and breathing as hard as I am. His mouth doesn’t leave mine as he drags off my boots and everything beneath my waist. His jeans are next, shoved down to his thighs.

  Then we’re on each other, panting with need, burning with desire, and trembling with hunger. He bites my nipples through the wet t-shirt, and I yank on his hair, writhing beneath him, aching, pulsing, grinding to get closer.

  His fingers find my hot, wet center, and he sinks two inside, groaning against my lips. I buck against him and reach for his cock. I’m too worked up for foreplay. It’s been too fucking long to draw this out.

  “Please, Jarret.” I squeeze the steely length of him. “Hurry.”

  He glances down between us, lips parted as he glides the head of his cock along my slit. “I haven’t been with anyone.”

  “Me, neither. And I still have the IUD.” I release a breath and meet his eyes. “Someday… Not now, but someday, I want kids with you.”

  His cheeks lift with a smile he can’t contain, and he grabs the side of my head, his other hand clenched around his dick.

  “Fucking love you.” He thrusts hard and deep. “Ahhhh, Christ, Maybe.”

  His forehead drops to mine. His hands fall to my hips, and he doesn’t give me time to adjust. He fucks me with a speed and urgency that bounces my breasts and stretches my inner muscles.

  Arms sliding beneath me, he leverages me off the steps and prevents my back from grinding into concrete. His hunger, his power, his love—all of it slams into me, rough and fast, like a hammering piston as he unleashes a year and a half of celibacy.

  I palm his ass, delighting in the flex and clench of hard muscles as he wedges himself deeper, harder between my legs, bowing over me, forcing me to open wider, demanding I accept every long vicious inch of him.

  His eyes stay with me, absorbing my expressions and cementing the connection. Our hips move in tandem at the quickest pace we’ve ever fucked, but our heads hold together, foreheads touching, breaths joined, gazes locked in a trance.

  “You’re going to make me come.” I lean in and lick his lips.

  “I’m with you.” He presses a hand against my lower back and grinds against my clit, deepening the strokes. “Come on my cock.”

  My entire body erupts, pulsing and clenching. I open my mouth to scream, but there’s no sound. No air. Only him and the overwhelming pleasure he ripples through us.

  He comes with me, jerking his hips, his face slack, and his low long groan reverberating through the stairwell.

  “Fuck, Maybe.” He braces his hands on the step on either side of my head, staring down at me, breathless. “That felt so damn good.”

  I clench around his softening cock, exquisitely replete and struggling to focus.

  “Don’t bother getting dressed.” He rocks his hips, stroking in and out. “As soon as we get upstairs, I’m spreading you out on the bed and worshiping you properly.”

  The bed that’s currently occupied.

  I close my eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  It’s after one in the morning when I pull the truck under the archway of Julep Ranch. Maybe’s head lolls on my shoulder, her minty scent teasing my inhales and warming my blood.

  I still can’t believe she took me back. I hoped. Fuck, I hoped with every goddamn breath I took, and I would’ve never given up. But when she ran out of her apartment in the rain, the sight of her suspended me in a dream.

  I’ve yet to wake from that dream.

  We have a lot to discuss, eighteen months to catch up on. Not to mention the reckless stunt she pulled with my father.

  My hand clenches around the steering wheel as anger reignites.

  When she told me Rogan conned her, I wanted to kill him all over again. Then she described her rescue mission with Raina. I had to lock my rage down tight. Punching walls and roaring at the top of my lungs wouldn’t have been the best way to welcome her back into my life.

  She’s alive and unharmed, and I’m focusing all my energy on that. Her punishment will come later.

  Beside her, Raina curls up against the door, frozen in the kind of stiff sleep that doesn’t bring rest.

  She hasn’t spoken since I found her in Maybe’s apartment five hours ago. She’s barely been conscious. I looked over her wounds. A lot of bruises, welts, and knife cuts. But nothing appears infected or broken. On the outside.

  What lies behind her haunted eyes is something else entirely. She doesn’t need an ER doctor. She needs a psychiatrist.

  As I park the truck in front of the house, the front door opens, and Jake steps out.

  I called him before I left the apartment, and we decided this was the best place for Raina until we know what happened.

  She’s lived with my father for over two years. I’m certain she knows every secret we’ve buried, every crime we’ve committed. Hell, she probably knows more about my family than I do. She’s a huge fucking liability.

  The fact that she doesn’t want the cops involved is a blessing. But it also puts me on high alert. She’s either done something or she intends to do something. Something outside of the law. While it’s a way of thinking I can relate to, I don’t want my family caught in the crossfire.

  Jake opens the passenger door and lifts her into his arms. He takes in the swollen damage to her face, his eyes hardening with murderous fury before lifting to mine.

  “Jesus.” He shifts her against his chest, making her groan. “Dad did this?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah.” I cradle Maybe against me and carry her out of the truck.

  “I can walk.” She loops her arms around my neck and nuzzles her face against my throat.

  With a chuckle, I kiss her brow and follow Jake inside.

  She didn’t have much in her apartment. The clothes and few things she collected in Texas sit in the bed of my truck. Her car stayed behind. If she wants it, I’ll have it towed home.

  In the house, Jake pauses in the foyer, glancing between the living room and the hall to my wing.

  “Lorne’s room.” I don’t want Raina sleeping on the couch.

  Maybe pops her head up and clutches my shoulders. “But Lorne comes home in two days.”

  My chest rises at the glorious sound of those words. “We’ll figure it out.”

  On the way home, I updated her on the highlights of my life, outside of stalking her every move.

  Conor graduated and is now officially a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Jake finished building her clinic over the filled-in ravine. Chicken is spoiled rotten, hand-fed and pampered like a family pet by everyone who lives here. And Lorne earned an early release from prison. He’ll be home in two days.

  Raina’s arrival settles a cloud over our excitement. But I’m holding my entire world in my arms. Nothing can put a damper on the lofty, buzzing feeling in my chest.

  Jake carries Raina down the hall, and I trail behind him. In Lorne’s room, Maybe squirms against me until I set her down.

  “Where’s Conor?” She hurries through the room, gathering sheets and blankets.

  I help her make the bed, anxious to get her into my own.

  “She’s asleep.” Jake lowers Raina onto the mattress, taking care with her injuries. “She’ll be pissed I didn’t wake her.”

  Maybe spends the next few minutes fussing over our new house guest, while Jake and I hover, sharing an unspoken feeling of distrust for the abused woman.

  I don’t know what to do with her. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will loosen her tongue tomorrow. Until then, I just want to wrangle up my girl and bury my nose against her skin.

  “Maybe.” I crook a finger at her. “Let’s go.”

  She pretends to ignore me, focusing her attention on Raina. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”