Page 27

27

FAWN

I t had been my idea to have a welcome home party. I’d spent all week helping Eve and Lyric and Ophelia organize it, spending hours poring over unimportant details like the color of the balloons and whether we should have plain or barbecue-flavored potato chips. I’d driven Eve mad by changing my mind a thousand times on whether the kids should have their own table or if we should even have a sit-down meal at all. We’d changed from a barbeque to a Thanksgiving dinner style formal event to a potluck and back again so many times that by the day of the party, I had no idea what was going on, until Eve took me aside and gave me that motherly look I remembered all too well.

She rubbed my hand briskly. “Talk to me.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know how to explain the mass of confusion inside me that hadn’t settled in the week since the showdown at the motel.

But she saw through my protests. “You do know. Just say it.”

Except it wasn’t her I needed to say things to. I glanced over at Zane across the yard, and my heart squeezed painfully.

Like she always had, Eve seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. Her shoulders slumped as she drew me into what had to be the hundredth hug of the week. “Oh, Fawn.”

I stepped back, shaking my head, trying to brush off the impending feeling of doom that settled in the pit of my stomach every time I looked at Zane.

Which was exactly why I’d thrown myself into planning this party.

Because without it, I had nothing to distract me from feelings and memories I didn’t know what to do with.

My body electrified in his presence, his broad shoulders tapering down to his narrow waist. He laughed at Augie, who handed him another balloon to attach to the bundle he was tying around a pole of their backyard deck.

Zane caught me watching him, and he smiled easily, in a way I so desperately wanted to return, except the confusion in my head had me questioning even the simplest of things. Especially when it came to him.

A little hand tugged at my long skirt; one Eve had taken me to buy during the week. It swished around my legs in a pretty display of color. The flowing top in a matching fabric covered the worst of my scars, and I’d even rubbed some fake tan into my skin, the smell triggering sweet memories from the times I’d spent at Eve’s club, browning myself up before taking to the stage. I barely even recognized myself in the mirror. There was color in my cheeks again, and the dark circles beneath my eyes had lightened. I’d spent hours one night locked in the bathroom with Lyric, who’d cut all the remaining matting out of my hair, and soaked it with a deep conditioning treatment, so now it was soft and fluffy.

I felt pretty for the first time in a long time, and I glanced down at Otis, smiling at him, because unlike everything else in my life, he was the one thing I was completely sure about.

I smoothed back his dark hair, also recently cut by his new Aunty Lyric.

He was thriving, surrounded by so much family. I wanted to be too. But so much of my head was still stuck in that house in the woods.

Not just with Eddie.

But with Zane too.

I fought off the tight, restrictive bands that tried to wrap themselves around my chest.

“Can we play the party games now?” Otis asked.

I grinned. “As soon as your cousins and everyone else gets here.”

He’d been talking about party games all week, ever since Lexa had asked him if there’d be any. She’d had to explain to him what they were, and his face had filled with excitement.

So of course, we’d planned a whole afternoon of fun, and now he was like a golden retriever, running around the yard with a case of the zoomies.

Augie and Ophelia’s small house and yard got fuller by the minute, and so did my heart. So many people turned up to welcome me home, many I knew, but many I didn’t.

There were new partners. New friends. New babies. Children who had grown. My friends’ and families’ lives had moved on in the past five years.

But I feared mine was always going to be stuck in the past.

Eve pushed a glass of wine into my hand, and I drank it down, probably a bit too fast, but needing the way it calmed the screaming in my head to something more manageable.

But my eye kept searching Zane out in the crowd. He was everywhere I looked, Otis often up in his arms, and I found myself seeking him out time and time again as well, like he was a safety blanket that both my son and I needed to be near.

By the time the party ended, and I’d tucked Otis into the bed in the attic bedroom Augie had cleaned out for him, Zane’s arms were the only place I wanted to be. Avoiding him wasn’t working, and I couldn’t hold out any longer.

He closed the door of the bedroom I already thought of as ours, and pressed my back against the wood, dipping his head to capture my lips in a slow, soft, sensual kiss that spun my head. “I barely saw you all night,” he whispered.

“There were so many people to talk to.” I stroked my fingers across the nape of his neck and encouraged him to lower his head again.

He obliged, his mouth landing on mine. I instantly deepened the kiss, and he followed my lead, our tongues stroking, our bodies melding into that perfect shape where every part of us connected and came alive.

Our clothes were on the floor in minutes, and he was carrying me to the bed, pulling back the sheets impatiently, both of us needing that soul-deep connection that came when he was inside me.

My back hit the mattress, and he was on top of me in the next instant, kissing my neck, whispering how beautiful I was, his lips moving across my skin.

I widened my thighs, inviting him into my body by lifting my hips, my pussy greedy for his cock. And he sank in deep, a perfect grind, bottoming out and pleasure shooting through my spine.

But I didn’t close my eyes. I stared at his face, memorizing every line, every feature, every breath that misted across his mouth.

I wanted to hold him forever. And panic lit up inside me at the very thought of not having him this close. I slowed us down, forcing the thrust of his hips to draw out to long, leisurely movements that prolonged our pleasure.

But also kept him with me longer.

It was good though. Every push inside my body had me floating higher, my brain shutting down, my body taking control until we were moving too fast again, both of us chasing down pleasure, using each other to reach it and loving every second.

My orgasm drove him into his. He came with my name on his lips, whispered words of love on his tongue I wanted to swallow up so they would be with me always.

And I whispered them back, loving this man with every beat of my heart.

Even though I knew I couldn’t.

Exhausted and sweaty, he rolled us, so he was on the bottom, and I was laid out on his chest. His fingers trailed up and down my back, familiar now with every scar and lump. He’d loved on every single one of them until I no longer worried he would find them hideous.

They weren’t. They were a part of me, just like everything else that had happened.

He’d accepted it all without question.

But I hadn’t.

“This is over, isn’t it?” he whispered quietly into darkness.

I breathed out so slowly it was barely audible in the silent room. “I don’t want it to be.”

“I don’t either. But this isn’t healthy either. And I think we both know that.”

I lifted my head to look at him in the darkness. “I love you.”

He bit his lip and nodded. “I know. I love you too. But you fell in love with me in a situation where there was nothing else. No happiness. No kindness.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “No choice.” He stroked his fingers down the side of my face. “You didn’t choose me. I was just the first person to show you kindness.”

“I can’t breathe when I’m not around you. It physically hurts.” I shook my head. “I want to love you, Zane. God, I want to love you so much. But I don’t want to be dependent on you. Or anyone. Ever again. Eddie made me rely on him for everything, and it nearly got me and Otis killed. I can’t have that again.”

“I would never,” he whispered.

I pressed my finger to his lips. “I know. I know you wouldn’t do the things he did. But my whole life has been in limbo for more than five years. I don’t know who I am or what I want or what I need. Only that this thing between us feels special, and I don’t want to ruin it by trying to keep it when it’s not yet mine to have.”

My bottom lip trembled, and it was on the tip of my tongue to take it all back. To shove the words back down my throat and pretend like I’d never said them.

But we both knew I couldn’t.

I fell asleep on Zane’s chest, lulled by the steady rise and fall of his chest and his warm heat beneath me.

But when I woke in the morning, my bed was cold.

He was gone.

Without a note. A number. Or any way of contacting him.