Page 27 of Hidden Vows (Love in Ashford Falls #3)

twenty

JUDE

The knock at my door surprises me. Not many people know I’m staying here instead of my dad’s place, and considering three of the people I’ve spent the most time with since I got home left the bar thirty minutes ago, I think it’s safe to assume it’s not them.

Looking around the sparse apartment, I can’t help but regret that I haven’t taken the time to furnish the space.

To anyone looking at this situation, it appears that I have no plans to stay, and that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

My only plan is to be wherever Abbey is, and after this past week, I’m starting to think that might actually be a possibility—regardless of what Edward wants.

It didn’t surprise me when he showed up at the bar yet again this morning, but fortunately for me, he wasn’t there long.

His plans were thwarted when he barged in and found Jane and me interviewing someone for the open bartender position.

He seemed poised to fight, but quickly decided against it and left.

He didn’t need to say the words; I knew what they were— stay the hell away from my daughter .

I stand from my seat at the kitchen island and move to the door, peeking out the peephole briefly before opening it. I’m happy it’s Abbey standing on the other side, but I can’t stop the worry from washing over me.

It’s late—almost two in the morning—and if I heard correctly from the guys when they were at the bar, it was ladies’ night at Caleb’s this evening.

“Hey,” I whisper as my eyes land on her. Her gaze is firmly on the floor, and the pinch of her brows grows my unease. “Is everything okay?” I ask softly when she doesn’t move.

She lifts her eyes to mine, but it takes her a minute to speak. “I don’t know.”

My shoulders fall at her words. I don’t know if it’s relief—that she might finally let me tell her about the past—or dejection—that she might be done letting me into her world.

I step back, opening the door a little wider and ask, “Do you want to come in?”

She hesitates, but only for a moment before she’s nodding her head and taking a small step over the threshold.

Her eyes immediately move around the space, and I wonder if she’s taking in the emptiness of it as it is now, or imagining it with all the warmth and comfort she infused into the space when we lived here together.

Has she set foot in this apartment since she walked out of it seventeen years ago?

Gently, I close the door before stuffing my hands in my pockets. I want so desperately to touch her, to hold her, to offer her comfort for whatever is troubling her, but I don’t know if that’s something she’d accept right now, and I don’t want to stop whatever this conversation will be.

It takes her a few minutes, but when she’s done looking at the space around us she turns to me, and I hate that I can’t read what she’s thinking .

“Didn’t you have a ladies’ night over at Caleb and Emily’s?” I ask when she doesn’t say anything. I know the answer, but I can’t think of anything else, and this conversation has to start somewhere.

“Yeah. I just got home.” Her eyes don’t move from mine, but something in her shifts. It’s like I can almost see the shield going up around her, like she’s preparing to take some kind of hit, but when she doesn’t say anything, I think I might be wrong.

“Abbey,” I whisper, afraid she might run if I speak too loudly. “What’s wrong?”

“I told them what happened,” she blurts before her eyes fall to the floor, her fingers toying with the strap of her bag slung across her shoulder. “Back then—why we split.” The words are simple and yet they still hit some imaginary wound across my soul.

It’s a wound of my own making.

I’m the one who messed up.

I’m the one who broke us.

But it still hurts more than anything else in my life.

“Abbey—”

“No,” she interrupts. It takes her a moment to continue, but when she does, her eyes meet mine straight on.

“I know it’s not smart, and I know it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t want to talk about it.

” She draws her shoulders back as she drops her purse to the floor, her posture straightening as she readies herself to say the next words.

“I’m pretty sure you lied to me back then, and while I should demand to know the truth, I know you wouldn’t have lied to me if you didn’t have a really good reason.

” Her voice wavers, but she takes a step forward, closing the space between us.

“If I’m being honest, I’m afraid to know the truth.

I’m afraid of knowing the reason you lied to me. ”

“Abs.” My voice breaks and I have to fight with everything I have not to reach for her. There are more words I need to say, but in the moment I can’t find them.

“No. I know it’s stupid and goes against everything you are, but I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve lost so much already, and I’m not ready to lose more.” Another step and another foot of space gone.

I could so easily wrap my arms around her and finally feel her body pressed against mine, but I hold back. I won’t take this moment from her—whatever it is.

“What do you want?” I whisper.

“For you to love me again.” Her words are just as soft as mine, but I hear them as if she shouted them in my head.

There’s nothing in the world that could stop me from reaching for her—not at those words. Slowly, so she can still back away if she wants, I cup her face in both of my hands, tilting it so her eyes meet mine. “I never stopped loving you.”

Her feet shuffle and she closes the last bit of space between us, her hands rising to grab my wrists, holding them in place, as if I have any plans of moving them. But it’s the tears building in the corner of her eyes that finally breaks me.

How can she possibly think I don’t love her anymore?

My lips crash to hers with a desperation I’ve never imagined. It’s like a drink of cold water on a hot summer day or the first day of spring after a harsh winter.

It’s like coming home.

I’ve known from the moment I walked away from this town that I’d never be the same again. Leaving Abbey was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve constantly thought about a world where we got another chance, but my imagination never conjured up anything like this.

It’s not gentle, not at first. This kiss is fierce and built on seventeen years of want and need. It’s built on a lifetime of love, because there hasn’t been a single day that’s passed that I haven’t loved Abbey with everything I am.

Without pulling away from her, the pressure of my lips against hers gentles, becoming tender as my tongue coasts along her bottom lip, begging for entrance.

I feel her tears wet my palms where they cup her cheeks as she melts into me, her hands leaving my wrists and trailing down my arms. She opens her mouth and meets me with equal desperation.

The feel of Abbey pressed against me, her hands at my waist, and her lips moving in tandem with mine, all of it feels so familiar and like everything I’ve always wanted. I can’t believe I made it this long without it.

“Abbey.” I pull away, only enough to see her face. I need to know she really wants this. I need to know this isn’t some itch to scratch or some momentary lapse in judgment.

I need this to mean something real.

We may have spent the last seventeen years apart, but she can still read me as easily as any book on her shelves. “I’ve missed you.” Her grip on my shirt tightens. “I’ve missed this.” Her lips brush over mine lightly as she moves to her toes and whispers in my ear, “I’m done wasting time.”

She moves to press her lips against mine, but I don’t let her.

I want this more than anything. To be back where we were before I left—before I messed everything up—but not talking about the details feels like setting us up for failure in the long run.

It feels like a Band-Aid on an injury that requires surgery.

“Abbey. We can’t pretend the past didn’t happen.” My voice is gentle, trying desperately to make sure she doesn’t view this as rejection.

“I know, and I’m not asking to. I’m asking to put that conversation on hold.” She doesn’t fight against my grip. She leans back just a bit more, enough to make sure I can see her face. To make sure I can read how serious she is. To make sure I know she’s telling the truth.

And just like she could read me, I can read her.

She knows what she’s asking for. She knows what she wants, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to say no when it’s everything I want too.

Releasing her face, I drag my hands down her body and around her waist, lifting her as my lips crash back to hers.

There’s so much for us to talk about, so much she doesn’t know.

She thinks I lied to her before, and I know how stupid it is for us not to clear the air before this goes any further, but when I drop her onto the one piece of furniture I’ve purchased for the apartment and she stares up at me with that much lust in her eyes, there’s nothing I can do to stop us.

There’s nothing I want to do to stop us.

Abbey sits up at the foot of the bed, her eyes never leaving mine as she reaches for me where I lean over her, my hands braced against the mattress on the outside of her thighs.

“Are you sure?” I ask, my eyes roaming her face, searching for even an ounce of hesitation.

Her answer is instant. “Positive.”

It won’t be the last time I check in with her tonight, but it’s all I need to let the dam break. My lips are back on hers. Abbey scoots back on the bed, pulling me with her, and not a single morsel of me fights her on it.

Seventeen years later, and we still move together as if it’s only been hours since we were last together.

Her arms snake around my shoulders as she lays back against the bed, my hips fall into the cradle of her thighs as she arches into me, and I can’t stop my hands from roaming up her sides under the hem of her T-shirt.

I don’t even try to stop the groan from breaking free when I finally feel the heat of her skin under the calluses on my palms. Nothing has felt better—well, that’s not completely accurate.

“Jude,” she moans as her hands grip the back of my shirt, tugging and pulling desperately. Her body melts into the bed when her fingers finally meet bare skin.

Thank God I’m not the only one desperate to feel skin.

I pull away, sitting up on my knees—opening her legs wide around me—as I pull my shirt over my head.

My eyes are back on her the moment I toss my shirt to the floor, but instead of falling back on top of her, I let my gaze roam her entire body.

I’ve barely touched her, but her chest is already heaving, and I honestly can’t blame her.

The pressure of my cock pressed against the zipper of my jeans is truly painful, but I do absolutely nothing to relieve it.

Abbey’s back arches, her hips driving into the bed as she seeks some kind of friction, and I feel bad for only a second before I’m letting my hands coast up the outside of her bare legs.

Her hips move again as I pause at the waistband of her shorts, but I’m not ready to give her that relief quite yet.

“Patience, love.” I lift her shirt, placing a feather light kiss to the skin right above her shorts.

“I don’t want to wait.” Abbey has never been one to blindly take orders. She’s always been an active participant in everything she does. It really shouldn’t surprise me that she pushes me away to sit up and tear her shirt over her head along with the lacy bralette she’s wearing underneath.

My eyes drink in the sight before me as she falls back onto the bed, a smirk forming across her lips.

I’m not the only one who’s marked their skin.

I want to say the first thing I notice is the elegant script under her left breast, but it’s the glint of silver at her nipples that captures my attention first.

I don’t even think about it as I reach for her left nipple.

My fingers barely brush the pebbled tip when I hear her little moan and my eyes spring to hers.

The way she bites her lip as she stares at me has my cock pulsing.

It’s entirely possible I’m going to come in my pants without her laying a hand on me.

“When did you do this?” I ask, pinching her nipple around the barbell piercing.

“A few years after you left.” I appreciate that she doesn’t shy away from saying it. It’s proof that she wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t want to forget about the past.

“And this?” My fingers trail down her breast to the words tattooed across her ribs. My breath catches when I register the words.

…and until we meet again…

A line from an old Irish blessing my father gave us on the day we told him about our wedding.

“The day our divorce was finalized.” Her voice is soft, but I don’t hear the pain I thought I would. And when my eyes meet hers, all I see is sincerity. She’s not saying it to hurt us, she’s simply stating the truth.

I let my gaze fall back to the words, watching as my fingers slowly trace each letter. Goose bumps pop across her skin, but I can’t stop.

I bring my lips to the tattoo and finish the blessing against her skin. “May the joys of today, be those of tomorrow.”

“Jude,” she begs, reaching for me.

This time I don’t make her wait, my lips crash to hers.