Page 42

“You’d say you weren’t hungry,” I tease, “or that you didn’t need to pack something that day. I knew your body better than you knew it yourself. You were always hungry.”

“And you always had something for me, even though you had such little to spare.”

That’s love, Lana. It was my honor.

“You didn’t think you needed sunblock, but then?—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves me off, the tips of her fingers brushing over my chest. Her touch sends my heart into a skittering mess. “I got it. You were bossy, but every now and then, you were possibly right.”

“Every now and then,” I snort. Fuck, the loose fabric of her skirt tickles my fingers.

I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I just know that I pinch the material between my digits and hope she doesn’t notice.

“Almost always,” I tease. “Sometimes, I felt like you intentionally made bad choices so I’d be forced to pick up the slack.

Like you enjoyed when I took care of you. ”

Which, when her eyes flicker with acknowledgment, I realize how right I am. She came from a home where her mother did nothing except make her feel like shit.

She was just a girl who wanted to be cared for.

Psychologically, it’s as simple as that.

And, plainly put, I wanted the same in return.

“We were exactly who we needed, huh?” Her voice comes out with a wistful sigh.

Breathy and sweet. “It seems impossible that we could come from such different homes and wildly different worlds, but beneath all the noise, we were just two souls that needed what only the other could give. I often wonder… Would we have survived adolescence if we never met?”

“I would have survived. For Chris.” I roll the soft fabric of her skirt between my fingers and wish for a way to ask to take it home and it not be weird. “Not sure I’d have stayed out of prison, though, if not for you.”

Her plump lips curl into a seductive bow. “Yeah. You often lacked control over your temper back then.”

“Back then?” I brush the side of my finger over her silky thigh.

Good fucking lord, I swear I don’t mean for it to happen.

But she doesn’t run away, and I’m not sure I could stop, even if the whole place caught on fire.

“Pretty sure some would say my temper still runs a little hot. You don’t agree? ”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.” Her heart creates a heavy, steady beat in the air between us.

Not racing. Not slow. Simply constant. Comforting.

“I wouldn’t have survived without you. At the risk of sounding ridiculously dramatic, I don’t think I could have gotten through those years if her voice was the only one I heard.

How embarrassing I was. How flighty and dumb.

I never dressed right, never walked right. My grades were never good enough.”

“You had A’s across the board. Always.”

She searches my eyes, the truth of my words floating gently between us.

“So much damage.” She sighs. “And for what? Did she think I would be better if she criticized me more? Did she think I could try harder than I already was?” She drops her gaze, tilting her head from side to side.

“She was mean. Like she fed off my misery, and even to this day, she won’t acknowledge it.

She sees no fault in her actions. I doubt she ever will.

But then there was you…” She brings her eyes up again, a wrinkle in her nose and a sweet curl of her lips.

“Your kindness was the antidote to her poison. Your love, and the way it never wavered, saved my life.”

“Lana…”

“If not for you, I would’ve assumed my mother’s example of love was normal.

And if by some cruel twist of fate, I did survive it, then Jesus, maybe that’s the kind of love I would’ve shown my child.

Could you imagine a world where I spoke to Franklin the way my mother speaks to me? The viciousness. The spitefulness.”

Bravely—or stupidly, maybe—she rests her hand on my chest and strokes right where, beneath my shirt, she penned ink into my skin back before we knew how foolish and permanent such a thing would be.

“You came from an awful home. From parents who wouldn’t know love if it smacked them in the face.

But for reasons I’ll never truly comprehend, you loved me. You saved my life.”

My heart skips, but it’s not like they speak of in the movies. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

“If not for that light in the dark, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

“Have you been drinking today?” I slide my fingers over the side of her thigh—proving to us both it’s no accident—and cup her cheek with my other hand. “Tequila for dinner?”

She snickers. “No. Though I’m beginning to wish I had. Just a little to help me be less afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” I rest my forehead on hers. Too close. Way too fucking close. “Me?”

Her single, fast nod shatters my heart. She’s afraid of me? When, in my soul and with my actions, I thought I’d proven I would trade my life for hers.

I would’ve taken a bullet for her when I was seventeen.

I would have stopped a speeding car. Derailed a fucking train.

I would destroy any man with no hesitation, spending the rest of my life behind bars, if that’s what I needed to do to keep her safe.

And even now, though I’m not sure it’s healthy for me to admit, I would do the same.

There is no point in my existence if she’s not safe and happy.

That’s why all this hurts so fucking bad.

“I’m afraid of making things worse,” she whispers, stepping just a little closer so I know it was no accident.

“Afraid of hurting you more. It breaks my heart that ten years have passed, and you’re still so angry, because it terrifies me to consider a world where you haven’t found love again.

A world where the greatest soul, the greatest man who ever existed, escaped the parents he was burdened with and the life he was tossed into, only to be broken by a silly girl not nearly worthy enough to have hoarded the best years of love he would give. ”

Fresh tears settle on her lashes while her eyes glitter in the shadows .

“It’s not fair that you fought through so much pain and such cruel beginnings, and now, because of my horrible choices, you can’t feel the happiness you deserve.”

“You seem to think you get to dictate who I deserve.” I slide the pad of my thumb over her plump bottom lip, stroking until I’m rewarded with a brush of her tongue. “You’re trying to jam a square peg through a round hole, Lana. Constantly fighting against what’s right, what fits?—”

“We don’t?—”

“When all along, I’ve only ever wanted you .” I pull her to the tips of her toes and gently press my lips to hers.

She sighs, her breath sprinting to the base of my lungs, and then she kisses me back, ensuring I’ll never again retrieve my soul, suckling on my tongue and wrapping her arms over my shoulders to keep me close.

It’s not like last time when tequila, loud music, and the safety found within the shadows ruled our hormones. This is sweeter. Softer. Her tears mingle on our tongues, and her breath is choppy because of how she cries.

I slide my hands around her thighs, tugging her closer in my quest to eliminate even a sliver of space between our bodies. But she wants more, jumping into my arms instead and trusting me to hold all of her.

I would normally turn and slam her to the door. It’s as natural to us as breathing. As arguing. Living. But I bend my knees instead and earn her whimper of approval as I lower to the floor.

The rough wood catches on my shirt, tugging threads and crackling in the evening silence, but the fabric saves me from splinters, and her lips on mine make me not give a shit anyway.

I wouldn’t care if the skin was torn from my bones.

If my bones were fed to a fucking wood-chipper.

I wouldn’t care if the entire world was burning.

Not when I place her over my lap and her fingers go to the snap of my jeans.

Alana Page and I are good at fucking.

We might have been young ten years ago— probably too young to have practiced as much as we did —but fuck, we know exactly how to make the other fall apart.

But this isn’t fucking. This will be lovemaking.

And hell, I like that, too.

“Say the words.” I drag the strap of her tank off her shoulder, trailing my fingers over her delicate skin until she breaks out in goosebumps.

She draws my cock out of my jeans, humming with pleasure and carefully lining it up at her fiery opening. Then she slides down, swallowing me up and dropping her head back with a whimper .

Her breath turns choppy.

Desperate.

But fuck, she’s so beautiful sitting atop her throne.

“Hey?” I wrap my palm around her throat and force her eyes back to mine. So blue, even in the waning light. So bright despite the hurt circling between us. “Lie to me, Lana. Say the words.”

“I love you.” She rides my cock with slow, languid strokes that stoke an inferno in my blood, and when I free her tits from her top and take her pebbled nipple between my lips, she mewls. “God, Tommy. I love you.”