“Harder,” she whispers, surprising herself with her request.
“You sure?”
“Very sure.”
When he presses his thumbs into the muscle, she gasps, rolling her head in an effort to soak up the feeling. Almost rubs her thighs together to relieve the throb between her legs before thinking better of it.
It’s easier for him to touch her when she’s facing away and she briefly wonders if that’s how they’d be together for the first time. If he would need to take her from behind to be comfortable. The moment that thought enters her brain, she scolds herself. It’s not fair to think of him like this, and she’s only giving herself something to lose when it never happens. There is a reason they never slept together in all the years they’ve been friends. He isn’t interested. Never has been. She would know if he was.
“Had enough?”
He noticed her pause, but the last thing she wants is to stop. “Keep going?”
His hands run down to her elbows and she catches them, knowing she shouldn’t. Isn’t sure if she pulls his arms around her or if he does it on his own, but one moment he’s working the kinks from her back, and the next she’s enveloped in his embrace.
She drags his hand down and under her shirt to rest against the scar she earned during an ill-fated attempt. “I got this about a year after I lost you. Random encounter. Unrelated. Someone from Paradise Falls found me bleeding. I went back with them, begging for shelter and supplies. It’s how I met Luke…I almost stayed there. I had no leads to find you. I was so tired. So fuckingtired, and he was kind to me. So I almost gave up and just stayed. How could I have done that? I’m so sorry.”
“You couldn’t have done anything for me then.”
He’s warm at her back, strong and solid. She’s been the one holding him up since his return. Now the tables are turned, and she didn’t realize how badly she needed the support.
“Can you forgive me?” she begs, on a hitching breath.
“Nothing to forgive.”
“But there is. I almost abandoned you for a chance at a comfortable life with a man I didn’t love, and all because I felt lost. Hopeless.”
He presses a kiss to her temple in the most unexpected gesture. For the first time, she has no ideawhatthey are anymore. For as long as she’s known him, they have only ever been friends. She’s come to terms with it, but friends don’t wrap up together so intimately. They absolutely don’t drop peppered kisses to hairlines.
“I’d still be in that cell right now if you didn’t one woman army your way through half the group to find me. You saved my life, Kara. I owe you everything.”
His arms are warm and strong around her and his scruff rests against her temple. Nothing about what they’ve done lately fits with everything she knows to be true. It’s enough to have her second-guessing herself. She moves away quickly, afraid of what she might start to assume or even what she might do if she lingers here. It’s too intimate. Too close. Too much of what she so desperately wants.
There’s an apology on his lips for crowding her and a vaguely heartbroken crease to all the worry lines on his face that she can’t bear to see.
“It’s okay. It’s not you. I just need a minute.” She flees the kitchen, running up the steps to leave him alone.
She may not be running from the house, but she’s running from herself and a possibility more terrifying than anything she’s faced yet.
Chapter 16
Wade fucked up. Knew it would happen eventually, but he’s still confused about why and how.
Touch me anywhere you want. However you want, she told him, but the moment he showed her affection beyond the usual, she couldn’t get away fast enough.
He sits in shock where she left him, trying to piece together what went wrong in a mental loop of mistakes. He didn’t have any motive beyond wanting to be closer to her and she’d been so receptive. Melted back against him like there was nowhere else she’d rather be.
Maybe it was how he held her, he wonders, arms bracketed like a cage. Could be a reminder that she’s far too close to someone as dangerous as him.
Or, maybe it was the kiss. She only went rigid when he brushed his lips to her temple. He went too far, overstepped unwritten boundaries, and if she leaves him for good now, he’ll have earned it. The kitchen begins to feel like a stadium as possible outcomes, each worse than the last, tumble in his head. He can’t live here without her. He isn’t ready. She makes him feel like he can succeed when he’d otherwise fail. If he’s left to his own devices, he’ll curl up in the corner and never move again.
Wade slides off the counter, curbing the desire to chase her and beg forgiveness. She wants space, and she’s earned thatmuch. The dirty plates in the sink are a mocking reminder of a stupid idea. He’s trying too damn hard, and it backfired.
Kara said she needed a minute, but ten go by with nothing but silence. Her name throttles in his throat along with a desperate request for clarification. All she has to do is tell him exactly what’s off-limits and he’ll follow that rule like a bible, but he’s not confident enough to ask.
When the dog begins to whine at the back door, Wade absently opens it, too consumed with his own thoughts to pay attention.
One moment Gator is sniffing the grass and the next, he’s chasing a squirrel across the unfenced yard and around a corner. Instinct pushes Wade to the edge of the back deck where his bravery ends. He can’t venture out alone into a community filled with enough terrors to land him in another panic attack. Without Kara as a pretty band-aid, all his scars still bleed at the slightest scratch.
