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Before he has finished speaking, I tug my wrist from his grasp to take off at a run, but it’s like he was waiting for me to do exactly that because he reaches to grasp my long platinum hair.
“Get back here, Summer.”
His voice, so like my lover’s, yet utterly different, echoes through my brain as I take off at a pelt, heading straight for Layla and reaching her in the space of three frantic breaths.
“Lay—”
She cuts my exclamation off with a scream, pointing frantically in the direction of the mill. “Archer! You need to help him. It’s worked too quickly.”
My eyes move downriver, and my whole world shifts on its axis right as Archer joins our group.
“He’ll befine.”
My eyes meet Layla’s worried ones before we both look back towards Caden, who’s clearly struggling to stay afloat.
“What did you give him, Layla?”
My tone is brimming with recrimination, and my best friend has the grace to blush under my insinuation.
“Nothing bad, Summer. Nothing he hasn’t taken before, for fuck’s sake. I just—I didn’t think—I didn’t know—”
Palming her with a quelling hand, I shift on the balls of my feet, facing Archer as though the incident between us didn’t just occur. My only thought is to ensure Cade’s safety.
“You’re the only one here who can keep him afloat, Arch. I—I’m not strong enough.”
I’m a good swimmer, but Caden has almost a hundred pounds on me. I’d never get him to shore by myself.
Archer sidles forward, his eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. “What’s in it for me, little deer?”
* * *
My train of thought is halted when the front door of the house opens to reveal…
Fuck, my knees almost buckle underneath me. My heart rate picks up, and tears prick my eyes.
It’s him.
I choke on a sob.
After all this time.
Swallowing down my thoughts, emotions, and unrealistic dream of a picture-perfect reunion, I take a shaky step forward as he descends the steps outside his front door.
My mouth turns to cardboard when I take in the sculpted perfection of his idyllic body, clothed only by a towel that covers him from his hips to his knees. Water is dripping down his sinewy form, his hair longer than I remember and hugging his chin as he comes closer.
I’m unable to move. My legs have seized under the weight of the emotions toiling through my body, so I stand there numbly, allowing him to close the gap between us.
He stops not three feet away, coming to an abrupt halt as his deep blue, utterly unforgettable eyes engulf me like a tsunami. He consumes me now, precisely as he did then, and I’m utterly helpless to stop it. And nor do I desire to.
Our gazes hold as if there’s not been fifteen years and an ocean of distance between us. As though the ghosts of the past are not haunting our present. We stare into one another’s souls until time becomes inconsequential, and I’d be all too willing to live in this moment forever.
He moves first, shattering the stillness to close the gap between us and, in a singular, fluid motion that shocks me to my core, sinks to his knees at my trembling feet to wrap his arms around my waist.
I swallow roughly past the lump in my throat when he rests his cheek against my stomach as his arms lock more tightly around me.
My own arms hang uselessly at my sides until, like a magnet, I’m compelled to bring my hands up to rest them atop his head, brushing a couple of errant strands back over his forehead.
“I’m sorry.”
