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I smack his chest and he covers my hand, trapping it over his heart.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is a breathy rasp, filled with remorse and resonating sincerity.
He grabs me again, wraps me in his arms so tenderly it hurts my heart. But I’m not done venting. Not by a long shot. Years of repressed emotions come charging out of me at full speed. I struggle against him and the feelings I still have for him, pushing against a wall of muscle until I wear myself out. Tears of frustration I’m barely holding onto slide down my cheeks as I face-plant into his chest.
Noah whispers platitudes and endearments, more apologies I’m not ready to accept. “I’ve dreamed about holding you like this for years,” he murmurs, lips pressed against the shell of my ear.
I wrap my arms wrap around his waist and squeeze, needing to feel the weight of him, the tangible, solid truth that he’s really in my arms.
He tips up my face and brushes his lips over mine. Gently, sweetly––as if he’s expecting me to stop him. But I don’t stop him. I couldn’t stop him even if I wanted to because one touch of his lips is all it takes for the longing to quiet and the sense of completion I’ve always felt when I was with him to come charging back on a white horse.
This is for me. For all the years I pined for him, for all the time I wasted in anger.
I take command of his mouth. Owning them, I lick the seam of his lips. They part, inviting me in. Our tongues touch and stroke, dance around each. With a competitive streak equal to mine, the pushback eventually happens and the kiss turns brutal, a fight for dominance. My fingers dig through his hair. He squeezes my butt and lifts me. I wrap my legs around his waist and he sways unsteadily.
I won’t let him dictate what happens from here on out. I’m not the virgin he once knew. I’ve learned a thing or two since the last time we shared a kiss and he’s about to discover how much.
Cast arm hooked around his neck for leverage, I shove my hand between us and grip his erection, stroke up and down over his shorts and cup his balls. He whimpers and shoves harder against my hand and a slow smile of satisfaction creeps up my face.
“Tent,” I grunt. “Tent now.”
Abruptly, he drops me, and grabbing my good wrist, drags me back to the tent. Once we’re back inside, however, the reality of what we’re about to do sinks in. His gaze is an open window into his thoughts. Desire, anticipation, it’s all there. So is a heavy dose of uncertainty.
“I want this––for me. Do it for me.” My face is on lockdown, hiding everything I’m feeling while my thoughts silently beg him to say yes.
“You won’t regret it in the morning?” He looks unsure. More like the broken boy that drove me away than the man he’s become. I can feel it, my heart beginning to soften toward him. Darn it.
“I’m not the girl that chased after you when we were kids, Noah,” I rush to remind him before I lose the upper hand. Or better yet, myself. “I’m not the lovesick idiot you betrayed.”
He stiffens, his gaze falling away from me.
“I’m not in love with you anymore. This is just sex. I want it––” With undisguised hunger, my gaze slides to the wood pushing against his shorts. “Looks like you want it too. So let’s give each other what we both want.”
His excitement dims. I watch him retreat, power down. His face goes perfectly still. Sometime during my little speech he made a decision and it’s not the one I was hoping for.
“I can’t…” he says. Exhaling tiredly, he roughly rakes his fingers through his hair. “I can’t.”
I can’t believe my ears. “You can’t?”
“I can’t,” he repeats with greater force this time.
And the hits keep coming. There is no earthly measurement for the amount of disbelief I’m experiencing at the moment. “You’re turning me down? Am I getting that right? You had sex with Crystal––but you can’t have sex with me?”
“Mare––”
I never understood what a crime of passion was until this very moment. I’m ready to eviscerate him with a twig if he says my name one more time in that tone, the one that implies love and intimacy. We haven’t been those people in a long, long time.
“Don’t.”
Grabbing my sleeping bag, I fight with the zipper. The material snags on my cast. He reaches for it to help me and I stop him with a look that should’ve turned him to stone. Sadly, he’s still breathing. Once I finally get it open, I step into it fully clothed and lie down with my back to him.
