Page 12 of What I Should Have Felt (Anchors and Eagles #4)

She finally huffed and lowered her shoulders from near her ears.

Her eyes slowly slid down my face and paused at the scar on my jaw.

Her racing heart slowed with each passing moment, and the sporadic breaths that bumped against my chest became more even.

Softer, the air shifted from sizzling tension to something more tender and vulnerable.

“When’d that happen?” she asked, nodding her chin toward the scar on my jaw, her voice a little gentler .

“Around when I left.” I studied her hair.

Every coil that seemed to still never quite end up where she wanted it.

My fingers craved the feel of her strands wrapped around them again.

I wanted— No, I needed that coarse feeling sliding across my skin again.

I needed to bury my nose against her neck and inhale that rich cinnamon smell she always carried.

Her green eyes followed along my neck, and then slowly, I watched as she began tracing the ink that covered the entire right half of my body from toe to neck.

Hesitantly, her brows pulled together, and she tipped her head.

Her wrists relaxed even more in my hold as her eyes suddenly widened. “Ford, I recognize them. All of them.”

Her gaze became frantic, sliding down my body without a care for decency or anything else. I’d wanted to wait a little longer. Be further on the path to forgiveness before she figured it out, but being butt-ass naked in the shower broke that barrier.

Her fingers twitched as if she desperately wanted to touch them, and I faltered in my conviction.

I closed my eyes and released her wrists, then cautiously tucked my hands beneath her thighs, still clinging to my hips.

The inevitable slap against the cheek, or punch, or stab was coming, and I braced for impact.

But instead, the smoothest skin brushed against my right arm. Intimately, tenderly, her touch worked its way along the lines of every doodled piece of art that I’d permanently etched onto my body.

Her art.

It was the only way I’d known to bring her with me.

She was my Sunday on a porch with a crab boil in the back, listening to the dogs bark, and every neighbor laughing about stupid shit.

I knew that a simple lazy Sunday was not in the cards for me; I’d accepted that the moment I’d signed my name along that dotted line years ago.

But every once in a while, every blue moon, when there was a lull in the war in my head, I’d close my eyes, and we’d be on that rickety porch swing in the back with her legs draped over my lap.

We’d be sipping on a beer, listening to the gators bellow and the sizzle of the most delicious Cajun food. There was no tomorrow. There was no yesterday. There was only that moment. With the sun sinking low, the sky painted as red as her hair.

My spider lily.

My Cher.

Her fingers wound across my pec and then walked down my abdomen. Bumps and ridges that she’d never explored before danced beneath her touch, and instead of pulling away with each imperfection, she lingered.

“You didn’t have hair like this on your chest or below your belly button when you left,” she whispered.

I chuckled, reveling in how close she was to me. “Fifteen years, Cher.”

“You’re not that kid that ran away.” Warm breath washed over my mouth with every word she spoke. Whether she was intentionally near my lips or not, I had no idea. But I could feel her there, lost in a world of art she’d created for me before I’d ever shattered her heart and disappeared.

“You might not like the man I came back as,” I replied.

“We all have secrets, Ford.” Her voice was as gentle as honey, as crisp as that cinnamon scent that floated over me.

I wanted this, needed it. But I was not owed her forgiveness, let alone her.

But here she was, practically taunting me to take what wasn’t mine.

To steal one final kiss as if to say that I’d never actually left. Like I never tore her heart apart.

I inched forward, cracking my eyes open as her lips hovered dangerously close to mine, yet her gaze was focused elsewhere, drawing across splotches of reds and blues that had been of her creation upon my skin.

My heart raced in my chest, as erratic as electricity, swirling with anticipation. Plump satin waited for me to simply take. It was my turn to be in control, to have exactly what I wanted. To hell with these secrets. She was right, we all had them—me more than most.

And I slammed my lips against hers.

She squeaked beneath the pressure and swatted at my sides.

I quickly pulled away and glanced at her wide eyes.

Her gaze studied mine. There was nowhere for either of us to hide.

There was nowhere for either of us to run to.

Mist glistened in her eyes, and then she slammed her lips back onto mine and squeezed her palms tightly against my sides.

I deepened the pressure against her mouth and gripped her cheeks.

With a gentle caress of my fingers, I slid them through the tangled mess of hair that I’d been itching to touch, and twisted the strands within my grip.

As I worked my lips against her mouth, everything in me filled with the regret I’d held for fifteen years.

I’d been fully aware of what would happen if I left, and it had all come to a head upon returning.

I’d sat in that barrel of guilt, drowning from the moment that I took that first step to disappear.

Yet, as I pressed my hips tighter into her, a spark of familiarity and relief fluttered within my heart. If there was one thing I could convey with this kiss, I prayed she heard the plea for forgiveness, and the sorry I couldn’t quite yet speak aloud .

My desire to share everything with her. The fact that she was my everything, and had always been, was the one thing that hadn’t changed the moment I’d left.

No matter what had transpired since then, and even if this was the last time that I tasted the honey of her kiss.

Even if the warm cinnamon of her scent would never again caress my skin, I needed this.

One final expression of words I could never say.

Quickly, I broke apart from her mouth, tipped her head the other way, and dove back against her swollen lips. Just one more second was all I would take, and then I would return to the shadows that I found solace in. I would become that creature of the night again.

Her fingers slowly dug into my sides, sliding down to rest low on my hips, and she tugged me toward her.

My body radiated with warmth from the passion of my lips against hers.

As her kiss softened, her breathing slowed, and her lips slowly parted.

I met her acceptance with a brief dance of my tongue between her teeth, but afforded myself no more than a second on this web of time we were weaving because I was owed nothing.

Not even this.

And then I pulled away and guided her feet to the floor of the tub. Her eyes remained closed, and her lips puckered as if she wasn’t aware I’d stopped kissing her.

Oh, how I wanted to keep kissing her.

But I couldn’t.

Just as her brows twitched and her parted mouth closed in recognition, I shoved the shower curtain to the side and stepped out. Ripping a clean towel from the rack above the toilet to my left, I wrapped it around my waist and left the bathroom without a backward glance.