Page 23 of Paper Horses

Her eyes shifted back out the window, and I wanted to reach over and grab her hand, to tell her to come back to me. To tell her how much I missed that laugh and the smiles that came with it. How much I missed her, even after all she’d done.

“So, your brother married and had a son?” I asked, thinking of how we would have been married and happy if she hadn’t massacred our future. My fork clunked as it stabbed my egg, and she glanced down at it.

“A little more complicated than that, but yeah. They got married in April. Lots of pink and fluff. Not my color at all, and I told Tori that.” She stared at her nails, their mauve color almost too dark.

My fork hung in stasis between my hand and my mouth. “You always looked pretty in pink,” I said before I could stop myself. The memory was there, vivid and raw, and I couldn’t stop it from taking form.

“You look beautiful tonight,” I said, dragging Olivia into my arms. “Pink is definitely your color.”

I kissed her shoulder, nudging the thin strap of her dress down as my pulse quickened. The awards banquet for the lacrosse team had given me an excuse to see her all dressed up. And it was worth every unsolicited glance from other team members that I’d had to endure because she was the sexiest thing there.

“You think so,” she sighed, tipping her head back as I scraped my mouth up her neck.

“Fuck yeah.”

“Language, Hudson,” she playfully scolded.

Three months together and she was still scolding me for my swearing. It wouldn’t stop me. In fact, I loved how it riled her up. Capturing her mouth, I lifted her, forcing her to wrap her legs around me and the dress to stretch up high on her thighs.

Her laugh bounced in the air, streaking to my chest and seizing it. I pushed her against the wall and looked into her eyes. Sultry and dark, the hazel shifted to hues of chestnut and gold.

“I love you, Olivia. Don’t ever stop laughing or wearing pink.”

She giggled, grabbing my face with her hands. “And I love you, Hudson. Don’t ever stop making me laugh.”

“I promise if you do.”

“I promise.” Her eyes searched mine before she pulled my face to hers. That kiss. How could I describe that kiss? It reached into the furthest recesses of my being and laid claim on them. Searing her name in the caverns of my heart and clamping a collar on my soul that stated her ownership of it.

Her touch scorched me. Her moan threatened to break me. We had yet to go all the way. Not that I didn’t want to, but she was delicate, and I was her safety, something I’d discovered when she’d returned from fall break. It had taken two days for her to return to the girl who pierced me with her laughter and broke me with the mere flick of her lashes. I didn’t want to risk hurting her or damaging what we had. I wanted to always be her island, the safe arms that would keep whatever hurt her at home away.

Every part of me screamed to push her and find out what it was that turned her mood, that brought the depths of sadness to her eyes that wounded me, but I knew she’d tell me when she was ready. Or perhaps she never would because bringing that into what we had made her fearful of losing it. No matter what, I would continue to be her shelter.

And that was why I hadn’t pressed her to have sex. I was her protector, and nothing I did would ever risk that position.

But her kisses turned more desperate, hungry, and I knew if I didn’t stop now, I’d need to excuse myself and finish off in the bathroom. She worked me up so much that it had become the norm. It wasn’t like we hadn’t fooled around, that I hadn’t touched every inch of her body or she hadn’t used that amazing mouth to ease my discomfort. But we hadn’t taken the final step.

I brought my hand to the wall, breaking our kiss and only then noticing the tiny thong that left most of her ass bare under my other hand where I was holding her.

Breathless, she searched my eyes. “Don’t stop, Hudson.”

My heart thundered as my eyes bounced between hers. I stepped back against her, shifting her body so that I couldn’t ignore her heat pulsing through my pants. She tightened her legs, pressing me further into her, and I groaned. “You sure?”

She nodded, her consent doing something to me. Shit, everything she did unleashed some part of me I didn’t recognize. Calling her a good girl as her eyes looked up at me, all kinds of commands filling my mind as I jerked off to images of her.

I brushed my lips over her freckles, dropping my mouth to her ear. “You want me to fuck you, Olivia?”

Her shiver was rewarding, and I brought my hand up her neck and threaded it into her hair, taking a chunk and pulling her head back. “Be a good girl and tell me how bad you want it, honey.”

A shudder wracked her body, and I glanced down to see her nipples taut against the fabric of her dress.

“Desperately,” she breathed, and that was the consent I needed.

I slammed my lips against hers as all hold on my control shattered with that word. Tearing the dress from her, I vowed to keep her in pink for the remainder of our lives as I walked her into my room.

“Hudson?”

Olivia sat across from me in the diner booth, the mature, gorgeous woman she’d become with amber eyes that studied me too keenly, as if she had seen into my mind. Seen the memory that had taken me hostage. The fork was still hanging in front of my mouth, my grip on it as hard as the bulge in my pants. I didn’t know how I was going to hide that.