Page 11 of Broken Cedar

I come. Harder than before. A white-hot wave that starts at my core and radiates outward, pulling a cry from my throat that I muffle against his shoulder. My inner muscles clamp around him, and the sensation pushes him over the edge—I feel it in the way his rhythm falters, in the broken groan against my neck.

We stay there. His forehead against mine. His cock still inside me. Our breathing ragged, his faster than mine, both of us trembling in the aftermath.

Colt slowly lowers me, and my feet find the floor. My legs are jelly. We separate, and the loss of him is immediate and acute. I want him back inside me five seconds after he leaves, which is its own kind of problem.

Neither of us speaks. What is there to say? The evidence is all over us. My thighs are sticky with his come and my lips are swollen. The room is quiet. So quiet I can hear both of us breathing. My heartbeat is finally beginning to slow, but my body still feels like it’s remembering him. Every place he’d touched me hums beneath my skin, as though it hasn’t realized we’re finished.

Neither of us moves. Somewhere beyond the window, a cricket starts up. The house creaks softly around us. The world outside carries on as if nothing has changed.

I keep waiting for reality to crash through the door. It does. Colt sighs. He drags a hand over his face and lets out a long breath that sounds almost painful. He reaches for his jeans without looking at me. I watch him pull them up, his movements slower than usual, like each one costs him something. He buttons them and stares at the floor. Runs both hands through his hair. Then he’s still again. “Hallie…”

My eyes lift to his. He shakes his head. Whatever he was going to say dies before it reaches his mouth. I don’t rescue him. I don’t think either of us knows how. Another silence settles between us. Different now. Heavier. I pull my jeans back up, fumbling with the button because my hands won’t quite do what I’m telling them to.

I risk a glance at him. He’s watching me. Not my body. My face. Like he’s trying to memorize it. The moment our eyes meet, he looks away. His jaw tightens.

“I was doing all right.” His voice is barely above a whisper.

I frown. “What?”

He lets out a humorless laugh. “Or at least, I thought I was.” He shakes his head once. “I thought I’d gotten over it.”

The words hang between us. Over what? Over me? He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to. Neither of us has the courage to finish that sentence. I swallow hard. He closes his eyes. Just for a second. When he opens them again, something inside him has changed. Locked back behind the walls I’ve watched him build for eight years.

“That…” His voice catches, and he starts again. “That can’t happen again.”

The words land like stones. I nod because I don’t trust myself to speak.

He rubs the back of his neck. “We can’t.”

“I know.”

“Your mom…” His eyes flick toward the hallway. “If she ever found out…”

“I know.”

He nods, then falls silent again. He takes one step toward the back door. His hand closes around the door handle. He doesn’t turn it. For a long moment, he just stands there with his back to me.

“I’ve wanted…” My breath catches but he shakes his head. “No.” His shoulders rise as he drags in a slow breath. “I shouldn’t have.”

There’s so much he isn’t saying that it almost hurts to listen to. He finally turns the handle and opens the door. Then stops again. Without looking back, he says quietly, “This has to stay between us.”

“I know,” I say, my throat bone dry.

“No one can know.”

“They won’t.”

He gives me another long silence. When he finally speaks again, his voice is rough. “It was one time.” He’s trying to convince himself. I can hear it. “We got it out of our systems.”

My chest aches. “Yeah.” The lie tastes bitter. “Just this once.”

He nods, but he doesn’t move. Neither of us believes the words hanging between us. I know it. He knows it. The silence knows it.

Finally, he takes a step through the doorway. Something inside me reacts before my brain can catch up. My hand lifts, just slightly, as if I could reach for him. As if I could ask him to stay. I stop myself. My fingers curl into my palm instead.

He hesitates. Only for a heartbeat. Then he walks away. He steps out the back door and doesn’t look back. The sound of the screen door shutting behind him is almost unbearably loud.

I go to my room. The spare room. The room that used to be mine, and I close the door behind me. The click sounds impossibly loud. I don’t turn on the light. I can’t.