Page 47

“You’ve done so well for yourself,” Raeann muses.
“It was a lot of hard work, but well worth it. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than playing ball.”
I sit next to her. She immediately moves closer, and I lift my arm. She snuggles into my chest.God damn. My heart races. This feels too perfect.
I turn toward her, and she peers into my eyes. The fire reflected in her green eyes sizzles, and the way the glitter on the Wildcats shirt twinkles in the light of the flames has me cupping her face. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
Her gaze drops to my lips. My heart skips a beat, and I lower my mouth to hers. She lifts her lips at the last second, and I seal mine to hers, a brush of lips, of body parts, of lives. Two people who were nowhere near each other on this Earth until fate brought them together in one of the oddest ways imaginable.
I comb my hands through the hair at the nape of her neck before gripping her strands and deepening the kiss. Asmall whimper escapes her throat, and my mind wars between wanting to claim her and leaving room for her to breathe—to exist outside of me.
I can’t get enough. The feel of her tongue. The way she presses her body against mine. The fervent way I crush her against me until she gasps for breath. “Micah.”
It’s that moment, hearing her breathless cry, that makes me pull back. I wasn’t sure I could stop if I wanted to, but just that one word. That one plea.
I’m used to having all the power, but it’s then that I realize that it’s not me who holds the reins in this relationship. It’s Raeann. She could break me right now and I’d let her. Nothing can keep me away from her.
“I can’t breathe,” she says, and my instant panic is doused when she smiles lazily, like she’s in a haze.
“Good, because I can’t think.”
“I can’t do that either,” she admits.
“Want to make bad decisions together?”
She quirks her head at me. “What kind were you thinking?”
“You, me, hot tub.”
“Clothes?”
“Optional.”
“You’re trouble, Micah Freeman.”
Good God, what I wouldn’t give to have her look at me like that for the rest of my life.
Now that I know what it’s like to kiss Raeann, to consume her, a renewed possessiveness grows into a steel embrace.
She’s mine, and I’ll make sure that she is until the day I die.
13
Raeann
Micah is all-consuming, all-encompassing. I’m drunk on the high I get when I’m with him. Like I’m free-floating, existing outside myself in a buzzed haze. When I’m around him, nothing is in his orbit but me, and when you grew up where I did and how I did, you live for the moments when someone pays attention, someone sees you as not just the wild girl with the perpetually stringy hair and dirt on her knees, but the layers underneath that truly encompass who we are at our core.
Micah hasn’t moved from the couch yet. He stares, his eyes following. Even when I take off my shirt and lay it nicely on the ground—and then my shoes, socks, jeans—his gaze never leaves me. He sits back against the cushions with his leg over his knee, sipping the wine he brought from the kitchen like I’m his favorite show. The sensation of being observed is as familiar as the watchful embrace that’s coated me recently when I’ve walked Athena down my street. Or when I’ve stopped by my favorite café for a drink. Like I have complete sanctuary wherever I go.
I dip my toes in the hot tub, and it’s so pleasantly warm compared to the chilled evening air that it calls me in like a siren. The giddy, playing-with-danger feeling spurs my actions.
I step down into the water, explicitly not looking at Micah before moving to the opposite side where a waterfall dribbles over into the pool. Farther out, the view of the lake is spectacular. The glow of the moon reflects off its shiny surface. It’s like I’m living in a fantasy world. How is Micah’s house exactly the way I would’ve built my own if I had never-ending funds?
Minutes go by and still Micah hasn’t come over. I peer over from the corner of my eye. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and his tattoo sleeve ripples from clenching and unclenching his fist. From this position, I can just see the eagle wrapped around his bicep.
Finally, I turn toward him. “Why did you fly Pawpaw in?”
Micah doesn’t show surprise that I asked him this question out of the blue. His emotions are schooled. Even. “Because I noticed the way you looked wistful when you talked about him at dinner.”