Page 56 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Forty

I’ve been quiet most of the afternoon. I’m a lot of things, but blind isn’t one of them.

I know what this is: Alida’s send-off shone a light on some corner of me that I’ve kept dark.

The desire, despite how uncomfortable it feels, to have people around me.

People who would miss me if I were gone.

People who I let get so close to me—despite my flaws—and would want to say goodbye.

For so long I’ve pretended not to want it, now there’s no denying that I do.

Hours later, climbing the steps of my porch, there’s an ache in my chest.

Molly must sense it because when I walk inside, instead of barking and pouncing on me with something valuable half chewed in her mouth, she nuzzles her nose against my leg until I pet her. At my quiet sit , she obeys.

The apocalypse is upon us .

I drop my purse at the door, the Miranda Lambert record on the player, and my body onto the couch. Molly rests her head on my lap.

Despite my best efforts not to love the house, I do. Even without a picture on the wall. Every little detail makes it beautiful. Every single piece tells a story.

I feel the poems under my toes and hear their words in the silence.

A single industrial bulb drips from the ceiling overhead—which I hired Pedro to install after I realized he wasn’t a hustler—and I hate it will light the way for someone else.

Along with the three woven barstools at the kitchen counter I found on the side of the road.

And the ridiculous purple, velvet, wingbacked chair Wren loves but is constantly moving around.

And the coffee table of natural wood with the raw edge exposed from the furniture craftsman in Rocky Ridge.

Molly stretches with a growly groan, her black-and-white pattern popping against the bright green fabric of the rug that spreads across the living room floor.

Through the windows, Ford’s truck appears. He gets out, the shirt of his uniform unbuttoned and untucked revealing his vest. He makes his way to the house, but there’s a slow slump in his step. He looks how I feel.

“Scotty,” he says, smiling slightly when he opens the door and sees me.

“Hey,” I say, not moving from the couch .

He pecks me on the lips and sits next to me with a heavy sigh. “Hey.”

I curl into him, tracing his face and neck with my fingers. “Where’s Wren?”

He drops his head back and looks at the ceiling. “At Becca’s studying.”

I snap upright. “The pint-sized Letts bitch? Why?”

“Because she asked.” He turns his head to face me without lifting it from the back of the couch.

“Listen, I know she’s not my kid, but I heard that little shit—”

He shakes his head. “Not now.” Then his eyes close and I can see the exhaustion all over him. His normally crisp uniform is stained with streaks of clay-colored mud, nearly hidden by the dark color of the fabric.

“Okay.” I swallow my argument and take his hand in mine. “Something happen?”

He opens his eyes, rolling his head on the back of the couch until his face is angled toward the ceiling. “There was an accident out on Highway 68. Seven-year-old kid was crushed in the back seat. I had to pull him out. They don’t think he’s going to make it.”

My eyes do a full-body scan looking for injuries, landing back on his uniform. The mud is blood. The boy’s. Ford is smeared in mortality and pain. I frame his tired face with my palms, desperately wishing I could absorb all the hurt from him and carry it as my own.

Around us, Miranda Lambert’s smooth, twangy voice sings about loss like a well-placed song in a sad movie .

Pull, don’t push.

I stand, tugging his hands in mine until he stands.

“Let’s get cleaned up.”

He doesn’t say anything, just follows me up the spiral staircase into the mid-renovation bathroom. The bathtub is the crown jewel: an oversized modern claw-foot, the biggest one I could buy.

“How are we going to get clean in here?” Ford asks with a slight smile from the doorway.

I chuckle as I toe my heels off, the new white octagonal tile a cool relief against my bare feet.

“No shower. No sink. No working lights.” I wave a lighter through the air then light three pillar candles.

The soft flicker of the flames dance against the aqua subway tiles on the wall.

“But the tub works. And it’s gigantic.” I cut my eyes to him. “Big enough for Octoman.”

He makes an amused sound as he eyes the exposed pipe of the showerhead and the sinkless vanity, but he doesn’t argue, slipping off his uniform shirt and toeing his shoes off as I start the water and check the temperature with my fingers; it’s near scalding.

I add a large pour of bubble bath, the scent of vanilla filling the air.

Ford takes his belt off—filled with all his cop paraphernalia—hanging it over the vanity before moving on to his pants. I cross the room and wrap my hands around his, stopping him. “Let me.”

He kisses me lightly, tilting his head in compliance.

The music downstairs shifts to another track—sexy and about wild mustangs—as I undo the Velcro straps of his bulletproof vest, working it off him and dropping it on the floor before moving to his pants, dragging them down his legs along with his briefs.

When I stand, I lift the bottom hem of his T-shirt, and he raises his arms as I pull it over his head.

My hands go to his gunshot bruise, hardly faded at all, tracing it gently.

A reminder of how life can change at the speed of a bullet.

Then he’s there, naked and tattered as I stand completely clothed.

It would be filthy if it wasn’t so tender. If looking at him didn’t feel so raw.

He kisses me, soft. “My turn.”

I shake my head, rubbing my cheek against his. “You get in.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but the lull of steamy water pouring into the bubble-filled bathtub wins. He steps in, making a face at the temperature that I laugh at while he slinks down into it.

“I like it hot,” I say with a grin as I shimmy out of my pants.

When I’m naked, I walk freely, knowing he’s watching, and go to his belt, fumbling to release the item I need.

“Handcuffs?” he laughs as he drops his head back to the edge of the tub and looks at me with one eye. “Should I be scared?”

“Probably,” I say as I step into the tub, turning the faucet off as I sink into the water with a long ahh!

On a stool next to us, there’s a stack of towels and washcloths.

I exchange the cuffs for a washcloth and position myself between Ford’s long, outstretched legs, dunking it under before dragging it along the side of his neck and down one arm he has draped along the edge .

He makes a small moan, and his eyelids go heavy as I repeat the motion on the opposite side. “I’m sorry about the kid,” I say, straddling him so I can squeeze water over his head. “That’s hard.”

He opens his eyes. “You see death every day.”

“I don’t see it happen.” I dunk the cloth underwater again and reach my arms around him to scrub the slopes of his shoulders. “I don’t have hope when I’m dealing with bodies—you do. There’s a difference. Hope’s the MVP of cocksuckers.”

He chuckles softly, running his bubble-covered fingers through my hair.

“Not always though. Hope sometimes gives you a reason to keep trying. Keep showing up.” He smiles and leans forward, dusting a kiss on my lips before relaxing back.

Beneath the water, his hands find my hips and drag me toward him.

“Without hope I wouldn’t be in this ridiculously big bathtub with you. ”

The look in his eyes is genuine, and it sparks a nascent flame of panic in me. At the intimacy of the moment. How good it feels. How much I want him. How much I want him to want me. The tug of what I want against everything I’m so sure I don’t deserve to have.

I grab the handcuffs—the abruptness of my movements a stark contrast to the slowness of the music drifting from downstairs and the tenderness on Ford’s face.

He watches but doesn’t react. Not as I fumble to get them open.

Not as I wrap one around my right wrist and the other one around his left, tethering me to him.

He holds his hand up, elbow still submerged, amused expression on his face. “Not what I expected. ”

“I want to love you,” I blurt. “Without looking away. But I’m not sure how, so”—I tug at my wrist chained to his—“I’m forcing myself. To look. This was plan B.”

He chuckles and spins our hands so our palms face one another and fingers interlace. “And plan A?”

“A choke collar and cage.”

A loud laugh bubbles out of him and then his mouth is on mine.

With the hand not chained to mine, he pulls me onto his lap where I feel all of him.

He’s hard—the way he’s been since I stripped his pants down his legs.

My heart beats fast; his mouth moves slow.

It’s terrifying. Far from a virgin, it’s exactly how I feel.

I position myself on top of him, straddling him so I can take him inside of me. I lower; my body willingly yielding to him where we meet. I’m greedy for more—he stops me, serious look on his face. “You sure?”

I nod.

His eyes flare, breath quickens. Then he grips my hip and slams me hard, sending soapy water sloshing over the lip of the tub as I cry out from the sensational severity of it.

And as much as I crave movement, I still, zeroing in on his gaze and letting it consume me.

It’s nothing—just eyes pointing toward each other—but the intensity of it nearly swallows me whole.

“What do you need?” he whispers.

My simple response: “You.”

With the cuffed hand, he cups my face, and I drop my forehead to his as my hips find a rhythm grinding against him.

All I need him to do is be there and let me work, and that’s exactly what he does.

Through every rock of my body and cry from my lips, he stays there, eyes locked with mine as water leaves the tub in buckets over the edge and splashes onto the floor.

Rock after rock after rock of my hips.

“Scotty,” he grunts, eyes not moving off mine as I grind. “I’m close, baby.”

I whimper but can’t speak. Can barely keep myself moving. He feels the shift and picks up my slack, guiding me with his free hand, water sloshing.

I stare at him through every emotion each thrust brings. The grip of panic. The fear he’ll hate what he sees. The sting of tears from the magnitude of the moment.

Through it all, I look. Even as the orgasm slams into me as fast and hard as a freight train.

My head fights to jerk away; Ford holds it firm.

My eyes start to close; “Look at me, Scotty.”

And I do. Fully. While pleasure sends me floating away before bringing me back to the now-cold water of the bathtub and the depth of the moment. All the while, he keeps moving, rocking our hips for as long as it takes for him to feel exactly what I do.

Then Ford shatters, and I watch every single piece of him.

The slight way his blue eyes roll back. The way his jaw locks then goes slack.

The jagged breaths followed by a period of no breath at all.

The coarse way he shudders, the softness of how he chants my name.

The whole-body tension followed by full-blown come apart .

The air is cold, water is everywhere except in the tub.

We’re a tangled mass of wet legs and cuffed wrists, but I don’t want to go anywhere.

I want to live in this bathtub with goose bumps on my skin attached to Ford Callahan for the rest of my life.

“You did good,” he says, rubbing his nose against mine. “You okay?”

I look at him, open my mouth to say something clever, but instead, I cry. Tears stream down my face and mix with bathwater as I look at him, and he wraps his free arm, still slick with water and dappled with bubbles, right around me, tucking the cuffed one between us, our fingers intertwined.

I shift off him and curl into the space between his legs sideways, angling my head so I’m looking at him. “I’m sorry,” I say with a laugh. “I don’t know why I’m crying. That was good. You were—” I sniff, trying to find the right word, feeling lame when all I can say is, “Beautiful.”

He smiles in that true way he does. “So were you.” He kisses my thumb. “Can I tell you I love you?”

I look at him, biting my lip. “Will you know I feel the same way even if I don’t say it?”

He presses his lips to mine, saying against my mouth, “I’m in love with you, Scotty Armstrong.”

Sitting in a bathtub naked and handcuffed, those seven words forever change the rhythm my heart beats in my chest. Swift as a starling shifts direction midair.

“Hm.” I pull back, biting my bottom lip. “I’ll need more evidence, Officer. ”

He growls—it’s sexy—and pulls me to stand at our cuffed connection.

He scoops me up, naked and slippery, and I shriek through a giggle as he carries me to the bedroom.

Ford drops us onto the new mattress and touches me like I’ve never been touched before.

He makes love to me. And when soft swears and whimpers of his name come from my lips, he doesn’t look away.

Neither do I.