Page 74 of Saving the Rain
This weekend, maybe?
I feel like we need to talk.
I’m sure I can makesomething work.
Although, I’m not gonna come all the way up to the top of that mountain and turn around five minutes later. If I agree to this, you can’t run away or try to kick me out in the middle of the night, pretending like it never happened.
I won’t.
You gotta know, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant to do at all... I just got caught up with everything here.
And, well, you know how phones are almost useless around this place.
It feels like he takes an absolute eternity to respond this time, with those little dots bouncing and then pausing, time and time again.
Finally, his next words come through. My eyebrows pull together immediately.
Well, I won’t take it personally next time you ignore my texts then, huh?
That makes me pause.Ignore him? My stepbrother doesn’t talk to me, let alone text me, so I have no idea what he means.
Like a fiend, I dive into my messages—seeing there are a slew of unopened ones from that night. Between doing my best to avoid my mom and not wanting to talk to Chaos, I had tossed my phone aside while driving and didn’t think to go back in and check for anything else that might have arrived. All I’d done was keep going, operating on autopilot, until I found myself slumped on his doorstep, waiting in the dark for him to return.
My next breath stalls halfway to my throat. There are texts there. From Raine. Every single one I’d ignored that night was from Raine.
What I’m seeing before my eyes... none of it seems real.
Even before I turned up on his doorstep, without me knowing, he’d been trying to get in contact.
Raine had been checking on me.
Chapter 31
By the time I pass under the hanging sign arching over the entrance to Devil’s Peak Ranch, it’s long after dark.
This moment right here feels like either the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, or the most completelyright, and I still don’t know the answer. The whole day, I’ve been left struggling with turbulent thoughts, an uproar running through my mind. What does agreeing to come up here mean?
Beyond sex and rampant desire and all the implausible ways the two of us aren’t supposed to keep being drawn together... we still seem to give in.
Kayce is at the door before I’ve even crossed the yard, and his eyes look like they’re going to fall out of his head with how wide and round they grow. He can’t help himself from looking me up and down as I reach the covered porch that wraps around the impressive house. Even though he hastily swallows and tries to keep his attention fixed on my face, I see the brief flicker lower to that spot below my belt.
It shouldn’t stir my blood the way it does to have his attention, but then again, there are a lot of shoulds and should-nots I’ve crushed beneath my tires while making the drive up this mountain. I don’t know that any of my boundaries are still intact where he’s concerned.
That notion alone should terrify me. It would have been the very reason a past version of me would never have considered coming in the first place.
And yet, my feet keep moving forward. Toward him.
“Hey,” he says, in a voice that makes it sound like he’s just run the length of this ranch. “I made dinner, but wasn’t even hungry. There are plenty of leftovers if you want some?” His chin ducks low, and he slips away inside the house, leaving me to follow.
“I’m good. Ate earlier.” Shutting the door, I take a moment to shed my outdoor layers, before padding after him to where he’s vanished into the kitchen.
“Are you sure?” He uses the fridge door as a shield, hiding behind it, pretending to look for something. “Need something to drink? I’m not sure what we’ve got...” His words are interspersed by things clanking as he rearranges the shelves.
I have to bite back a chuckle, leaning one hip against the kitchen island. Folding my arms, I let him keep rustling around for a moment. “A soda will be fine.”
When he emerges, it’s with two drinks, a can clutched in each fist. He lets the door swing shut, sealing it with an elbow, before extending an arm a little hesitantly my way. As if I’m about to lunge forward with punishing steel-trap jaws and snap through bone. Those blue eyes of his waver, not meeting mine. Instead, they hover somewhere around my jawline, and he nibbles on the swell of his bottom lip.
“Thanks.” Reaching out to take the soda from him, I use the opportunity to trap his fingers beneath mine. That brings his startled gaze flying up real fucking fast, widening at the unexpected contact and pressure from my hold. “Just breathe, snowflake. I’m not gonna bite.”