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She squeaked beneath the pressure and swatted at my sides. I quickly pulled away and glanced at her wide eyes. Her gaze studied mine. There was nowhere for either of us to hide. There was nowhere for either of us to run to. Mist glistened in her eyes, and then she slammed her lips back onto mine and squeezed her palms tightly against my sides. I deepened the pressure against her mouth and gripped her cheeks. With a gentle caress of my fingers, I slid them through the tangled mess of hair that I’d been itching to touch, and twisted the strands within my grip.

As I worked my lips against her mouth, everything in me filled with the regret I’d held for fifteen years. I’d been fully aware of what would happen if I left, and it had all come to a head upon returning. I’d sat in that barrel of guilt, drowning from the moment that I took that first step to disappear.

Yet, as I pressed my hips tighter into her, a spark of familiarity and relief fluttered within my heart. If there was one thing I could convey with this kiss, I prayed she heard the plea for forgiveness, and the sorry I couldn’t quite yet speak aloud.

My desire to share everything with her. The fact that she was my everything, and had always been, was the one thing that hadn’t changed the moment I’d left. No matter what had transpired since then, and even if this was the last time that I tasted the honey of her kiss. Even if the warm cinnamon of her scent would never again caress my skin, I needed this.

One final expression of words I could never say.

Quickly, I broke apart from her mouth, tipped her head the other way, and dove back against her swollen lips. Just one more second was all I would take, and then I would return to the shadows that I found solace in. I would become that creature of the night again.

Her fingers slowly dug into my sides, sliding down to rest low on my hips, and she tugged me toward her. My body radiated with warmth from the passion of my lips against hers. As her kiss softened, her breathing slowed, and her lips slowly parted. I met her acceptance with a brief dance of my tongue between her teeth, but afforded myself no more than a second on this web of time we were weaving because I was owed nothing.

Not even this.

And then I pulled away and guided her feet to the floor of the tub. Her eyes remained closed, and her lips puckered as if she wasn’t aware I’d stopped kissing her.

Oh, how I wanted to keep kissing her.

But I couldn’t.

Just as her brows twitched and her parted mouth closed in recognition, I shoved the shower curtain to the side and steppedout. Ripping a clean towel from the rack above the toilet to my left, I wrapped it around my waist and left the bathroom without a backward glance.

Chapter 10

COLETTE

Air was absent. Oxygen had left with Ford as he’d disappeared from the bathroom yesterday. His mawmaw had come and knocked on the door, offering me a pair of ill-fitting clothes that I’d quickly traded out for my wet ones, then I disappeared outside without noticing a single thing about his house.

His bedroom door, just down the hall from the bathroom, had been shut, and I was running on shock and guilt from his aggressive and desperate kiss, leaving me unable to find the strength to knock before I’d left.

Plus, the revelation that his mawmaw clearly knew about us fueled my exit out of that home as quickly and quietly as possible.

And I’d avoided any place where we could’ve accidentally run into each other for the rest of that day. I hadn’t gone into town. Hadn’t visited the restaurant. And made sure Azelie was always with my parents as I buried myself in non-existent work at theclinic.

The inevitable ghost lingering over my shoulder followed me all around work yesterday, and now today, as I sat in my car, parked behind the restaurant, it was still there. When would O’Connor strike next, and why had he put a pause on going after the Thibodeauxs simply because he hadn’t known about Ford before?

Something else also told me Ford knew more about this entire situation than he let on. There was a voice gnawing at the back of my head saying he questioned O’Connor just like I did, and he didn’t believe that snake was “taking a break.” There was something deeper at play. Ford wasn’t dumb, far from it. In fact, he let people underestimate his intelligence all the time, or at least he had while growing up.

But he clearly wasn’t the boy I’d known growing up. Part of me felt like that was my fault. I was still angry at him. But more so, I was angry at myself. Mostly angry for not beingmoreangry at him. Or at least angry for longer. He’d been back for less than a week, and I was already feeling my rock-solid walls crumble around him.

And whatever this was, it felt new, almost refreshing. Obviously, the tension and desire between us that I’d always felt were still there, evident from the rough kiss we shared. But I still hadn’t told him about Liam, and if he knew… Would that change things? Would he think I wasn’t worth pursuing anymore? He’d clearly never let me go—it was obvious that I was his one and only love—so if he found out about Liam, would he feel betrayed, even though Liam had been killed by a drunk driver eleven years ago?

Besides, Ford had left me. I thought he’d never come back. So, I’d moved on. And while I knew there was nothing wrong with that, I’dalready had an incredible love with Liam. Leaving me to wonder if I was even deserving of another chance with Ford.

I leaned my head back against the rest, wishing I could use the excuse of a busy day at the clinic again today, but I couldn’t. The doctor O’Connor hired really hurt me on a professional front.

Despite the fact that I knew the patients wanted to see me, O’Connor and Dr. Brandt had done everything possible to keep me from having any appointments. All of the changes about home life had left me so occupied and overwhelmed that Ford’s arrival had even held less of a shock in this little town.

I missed it.

That sense of home and community that I grew up with.

No matter how much my family and the Thibodeauxs were at each other’s throats, in the end, when it really mattered, the entire town had always been there for each other. Nobody went hungry, nobody lacked for water or warmth, or a nice crisp, air-conditioned roof over their heads.

We looked out for each other.

And then this nasty motherfucker, Robert O’Connor, showed up, and within four months had turned everything upside down. Most of the people who remained were either too old to leave, stayed to take care of the elderly, or were too poor to go anywhere else.