Year 28

by JL Mac

  “What?” I bark. “You’ve been stewing and rude, then laughing, then back again all day. Now suddenly it’s all radio silence. Say whatever it is you gotta say! Get it over with!” I shout over the wind and rain.

  She looks around at my property and throws her hands up. “Home, Sylas. My home, in Palmetto Grove. I didn’t even want to be here, yet here I am. I’m supposed to be on my way back to DC but here we are, and you haven’t told me why. You tease and joke like we can just pick up where we left off like nothing has happened. Like this isn’t the world’s most awkward—” she huffs shaking her head. “There’s a pattern with us. Why is everything with you a goddamned train wreck? You’re a walking bad omen for me!”

  “Everything with me is a train wreck? I’m a bad omen? Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Ice Queen?” I march toward her stopping only inches away. “Last I checked, Rae, you were the one leavin’ me in your dust every chance you get, and without an explanation. You have always been the one pissin’ on the wheels of progress so don’t stand there spewing your bullshit at me. You’re also the one that needs to lighten the hell up so excuse me for trying to help you accomplish that. You want to talk about the heavy stuff instead? You think I don’t know that you’re hiding something from me?”

  Just then lighting glows making a wicked spider web cross the sky above as thunder booms then leads into trailing rumbles.

  “Home,” she growls with her mouth twisted into a furious bunch.

  “Take a look around Rae! We aren’t going anywhere until this shit passes,” I boom stomping one boot into a puddle while tossing my arms outward in no particular direction. The muddy water splatters against both of us. Turning on my heel, I leave Rae standing in a growing mud puddle.

  “This is exactly why I shouldn’t have come back!” she yells from behind me. “Everything about me is a joke to you! A conquest! I have always been some kind of sick hobby for you to pass the time, to pick at. You never took me—us—serious like I did. My life past, present and future is mine, Sylas and definitely not up for grabs to some asshole from high school.”

  Anger and hurt curls its talons around my gut and I turn to face her, glad for the rain hiding the pain welling in my eyes. I’m a proud man but I’m not a robot. She’s the love of my life from high school and to her I’m just some asshole from high school? Her words hurt like hell. “A joke? You think this is a fuckin’ joke, Rae? Asshole from high school? You think every day I have felt empty without you is a joke? Is that how some high school asshole feels? Is that how an asshole who wasn’t serious about us feels? Think they all pine for their first love well after being a grown ass man? You think the jealousy this asshole felt every time I even consider you with some other man is a joke? You think the misery I have felt not having my best friend by my side is a joke? I can’t even call you on the goddamned phone, miss high and mighty!” I yell, shaking with anger or several other emotions I can’t name at present.

  “Sylas—”

  “Don’t! You don’t get to just say rotten shit like that and expect me to take it on the chin. I get that I hurt you by leaving and I kick myself every single day over it but you hurt me too. And as far as your past and present and future goes, all that’s mine too, and I dare you to try convincing me or anyone else, yourself included of anything different. You may not give in, and you can tell yourself one lie after another, hell you may even start to believe your own bullshit but you’ll never erase history, you’ll never erase us, and you’re a goddamn fool for trying.”

  “It was a stupid pact—”

  “Fuck the pact!” I bellow, shaking so violently with anger I think I could rip my house apart, board-by-board. “I never needed a pact or anything else to tell me what I knew in my fucking bones. We were made for each other. You just wouldn’t let it happen back then and you won’t be bothered with it now ‘cause of whatever fucked up lie you’ve sold yourself. You don’t even have to balls to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” I declare on a low growl with my teeth clinched so tightly my jaw aches.

  “I have no interest in fighting with you or anyone else in Palmetto. I have no desire to stroll down memory lane and I have no inclination to be here with you.”

  Before she can even finish her insult, I march back across the distance between us to invade her space. “Not interested in being here with me Rae? Not interested in this thing we have? It’s the same thing we’ve always had, and it’s still there. I know you feel it.”

  “All I feel is irritation and regret,” she snaps.

  “Isn’t that tiring? Keepin’ up this bitch routine? Snapping at anyone who dares to get too close. I take it that tactic normally works on people?”

  “Fuck you, Sylas!”

  “That an offer?” She shoulders past me and storms into my cabin with me on her heels. Coming to a stop in my living room she just stands there with her arms wrapped around her middle, her iron will refusing to let her lip quiver. She’s got her teeth dug down into the flesh of her plump bottom lip. I prop my hands low my hips and shake my head. “Rae,” my voice is lowered and ragged after the yelling. “Snow, look at me,” I rasp, tilting her face upward to look at me. “Why won’t you give this up—whatever it is? This is you and I. It’s me.” I pull my dripping wet shirt off and drop it to the floor. I cocoon her against my chest in an effort to warm her up. Iron will be damned, she allows me to wrap myself around her. Her cold fingertips inch up my torso, tracing over the small scar at my ribcage then the tattoos I got during my time in the Corps. She sighs and looks up at me. “You don’t have to fight me. I’m not the enemy. I’m on your team. Always have been, Snow. Even when I’d rather not,” I say gently.

  “I don’t want fight you,” she whispers in a wobbly voice. “But I don’t want to talk about anything that happened, Sy. I can’t,” she whispers in that painfully sad voice that makes a fresh ache sprout up in my chest. I know what it’s like to not want to talk about the things that have hurt you most. I’ve had over three years of regular therapy that taught me all about my PTSD. I squint my eyes studying Rae. She’s hurt. Bad. I can feel it and while I know me leaving broke her heart—especially after what happened with Teddy—a gut feeling is telling me I’m missing so much of the complete story. I want so fucking badly to rip her clothes off and claim her body and her mind and her soul but I know that’s not what Rae needs right now. It has to be her move.

  Come to me baby, I mentally plead with my fingers brushing against her cold, damp skin in short passes. She inches closer.

  “Please,” she breathes moving further in to me, her brilliant blue eyes somehow more beautiful shining with secret wounds. She slips her cold hands around my back and presses her body fully against mine.

  Thank god.

  Ten years of desire and emotion have my body shaking and my breathing shallow and choppy. I nod and take Rae’s face in my hands and kiss the hell out of my girl. I coax her to open for me and I dive in without hesitation. She tastes even better than I remember. Minty and sweet and full of passion. She whimpers against my mouth and it drives me insane. My tongue writhes firm and slow against hers in a kiss that speaks a thousand words.

  I missed you.

  I need you.

  I can’t let you go.

  I may not know the entire story, and I may be pissed as hell that we both screwed up what we could’ve had but I’ll do my best to make us both forget it all at least for a while. I’ll take what I can get and give my all to figure out if there’s anything of my Raegan left. I won her once before. I stuck around long enough to convince her to give me a shot. I was her Gabriel Oak a decade ago. I can be her Gabriel Oak again.

  My Rae. My Snow.

  Chapter 13

  Raegan

  17 years old…

  “You’re gonna marry me one day,” Sy says almost absently as though he’s merely thinking out loud about the grass or the sky or the water in the bayou.

  “Last I checked, a person has to ask an
other person before they can count on them actually marrying them.” I say poking him in the side.

  “No need. We’re the real thing. A done deal. See, you were made for me and me for you so we don’t actually have to ask or accept we just have to… be.”

  “Wow that’s deep, Plato.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Okay Romeo, but there’s also the issue of school. We should really be considering schools together,” I say a little shyly hoping he agrees.

  “Yeah, I know but who is to say that we will end up in the same place?” he asks quietly.

  “Are you joking? You can get into whatever school you choose. I’ll be the one worrying myself to death until an acceptance letter comes in.”

  “No way. You’re a shoo-in. Rae, what if we aren’t in the same city?” He asks louder this time with a serious expression that tugs at my heart.

  “Sy, no matter where you are, or what happens in the future, I am stuck with you. We’ve already established this,” I joke in an effort to lighten the mood.

  “Damn right,” he nods. “But let’s make a deal—a pact,” he says, his beautiful eyes searching mine.

  “I’m listening Broussard,” I say with a faux grimness injected into my voice.

  “Promise that if we end up apart, no matter the circumstances or how it happened, we will meet back up, here and get married, no questions asked.”

  “Okay. By… say year twenty-eight of our existence on this marble, if you haven’t already conned me into it, I’m all yours Gabriel Oak.” I choose twenty-eight years old as a joke knowing full well that Sy and I will be lucky to graduate college before we can’t wait any longer to begin our lives as husband and wife. Sy scoffs and rolls his eyes like I’m ridiculous.

  “Twenty four,” he counters.

  “Twenty eight, final offer,” I fold my arms as a show resistance.

  “Fine. I’m draggin’ you down the aisle well before that anyway, Snow but promise me none the less.”

  “Have you even considered that the woman I am at twenty eight may suck? What if my eyes go crossed and one leg grows longer than the other and I get big as a house? What if I turn into a vile hag? What if you hate me?” I say it to tease him but there is a vein of truth to it. People change and I don’t expect us to be the same people we are now over a decade from today.

  “Then we’d start a travelling circus since my wife would be a sideshow,” he smiles and chokes back his laughter.

  “Seriously though, Sy. People change. What if I’m not the one when I’m twenty-eight?”

  “Rae, you’ll always be the one,” he huffs displaying an extremely rare show of exasperation.

  “So serious,” I mock in a deep voice.

  “Promise me. Say it,” he orders.

  “All right, all right. I promise I will marry you by the end of the twenty-eighth year of my life if you haven’t already dragged me down the aisle by then,” I vow and kiss him gently, sealing the inane deal in the best way I can think of.

  We trip over ourselves and tears leak down my face. They’re tears of relief, fear, anger, and need.

  So many emotions are gathering in furious, deep purple clouds in my chest. They heave, showcasing their power and superiority over little, naïve me. I was stupid to think I could control this thing with Sy. Too many years manipulating everyone and everything around me in the political world has rendered me over confident. I over played my hand and now Sy owns all the chips.

  He kisses me deeply his tongue plunging expertly into my mouth caressing my own. I moan and arch into his large frame needing so much more—needing all of him. “Sy,” I moan pressing my hips against his front while digging my fingertips into his back.

  “Right here baby,” he reassures in a lust-thickened voice that makes wetness slip between my thighs. God, how long has it been since I’ve heard that bedroom voice of his. It’s deep and throaty and so expressive. He’s always been that way though. An open book, with me.

  “I need you,” I say pleadingly and it seems to drive Sy mad. He growls as he picks me up and holds my thighs securely around his waist. A moment later my back is pressed against the wall and Sy’s muscular frame has me pinned, his hips rolling against my center, making me delirious with need. He kisses his way across my jaw, to my neck and down to my collarbone sending little zipping sensations ricocheting through my body.

  “I need to be inside you,” he says roughly against my neck.

  “Yes,” I breathe and roll my pelvis forward in offering. He doesn’t even bother to look where he’s taking us in this cabin. His molten chocolate gaze just soaks into me and it spawns a fresh lump of emotion in my throat. I attack his lips once more in an effort to keep the emotions at bay. I want to see his body, hear his voice in my ear, touch him, taste his skin, smell his unique scent, and feel him deep inside my body. Maybe this time I’ll be able to hold on to the memory so that when we are back to reality tomorrow, I’ll have a vivid, fresh memory to cling to. I’ll keep him with me on the flight home and well after that.

  “Say it again,” he orders.

  “Yes. Please. I need you,” I repeat. He sets me to my feet at the foot of his bed. Sylas attacks my clothing, peeling the sodden fabric away from my skin. I don’t even care if he rips it all. I just need him now. He peels away every thread leaving me bare to him then he steps back. If I weren’t so needy for him right now, I think maybe I would be shy about standing here for him, completely nude.

  “Fuck, Rae,” he hums appraisingly. His eyes trace over my body like he’s physically touching me. It only makes the knot of need in my stomach double.

  “Trying to,” I mutter, sitting down on his bed then lying back. I wriggle my body against the bedding needing some source of stimulation against my heated flesh.

  He picks up one of my feet and begins kissing his way up the inside of my leg while keeping his intense gaze locked on me. My breathing comes out in choppy little gasps. My body snakes against the mattress pleading him come to me. And he does. I watch Sy free himself from his clothing, baring his body for me to peruse. He’s magnificent. I knew when we were teenagers that he’d grow up to be a stunning man and I was right. His skin is golden from time spent in the sun. He’s muscular, with wide shoulders and a trim waist. His chest has a dusting of hair where it once didn’t. The V shaped muscles leading to his impressive manhood brackets a trail of hair extending south from his navel. The stubble across his cheeks and jaw are definitely a new development and I love the rugged look on him. He has several tattoos… and scars. Seeing them makes my heart turn in on itself. Sylas joins me fully on the bed and kneels between my knees, urging me to spread myself for him. Without fear or hesitation, I find my body responding to his commands easily. Sy leans down over me, his beautiful face wearing an expression I can’t quite name. Relief, happiness, rapture? Maybe all the above. Sy kisses me deeply then trails passionate kisses down my chest, taking his time to squeeze my breasts, licking, nipping gently and sucking on both of them. His ministrations cause a tight knot low in my belly to pull tighter still. My hips lift from the bed of their own volition and rise toward him invitingly. Hot kisses and subtle nips from his teeth trail all over my torso, hipbone to hipbone, to sternum and back again. His calloused hands run down my ribs and grip my waist. He hauls me closer to the headboard and lowers his delicious mouth to my center. I gasp as a thousand butterflies leap forth and take flight in my stomach all at once. I hiss and roll my hips against his tongue as it softly, slowly laves my slick core. “Sy,” I pant.

  His lips seal over my most sensitive spot and he hums approvingly in response sending baritone notes of pleasure echoing through my womb. “Ah, yes,” I moan, running my hands through his glossy dark brown hair. His tongue and lips alternate between long leisure licks and tightly sealed suction. He slips one finger inside, and then another, stroking me inside and out and it’s my undoing. My legs tense, my hips rise off the bed and my body quakes against his perfect mouth as release washes over me
.

  I’m weak and breathing heavily as I watch Sy through leaden eyelids reach into his nightstand, producing a condom. He prepares himself, slowly rolling the condom down the thick length of himself. He takes one more head to toe look at me then leans forward over my body. He holds my face in his hands and kisses me with intensity. Every swipe of his tongue against mine gifts me with the taste of my own arousal and it leaves me needy for more. He keeps his mouth on mine and drives his cock forward, fully sheathing himself inside me. He swallows up my yelp with his own rumbling moan. The wide tip of him finds the very depths of my body and the slight bite of discomfort coupled with the exquisite fullness I feel is a powerful combination of sensations. He breaks away from my mouth as his length withdraws from my body, slowly stroking me inside. The moment he’s withdrawn nearly all the way, he thrusts forward in one precise, measured stroke. Again and again and again. He owns every square inch of my body in and out.

  “Rae,” he whispers with his forehead pressed to mine, his eyes closed. His hips piston forward with merciless power, and my body is helpless to resist the pleasure he conjures in me. My womb tightens, my vision dances, my lungs ache, and muscles tense. “That’s it baby, give it to me,” he urges, his own voice tense with impending release.

  “Sy,” I gasp. With the suddenness of a gunshot, I unravel for him. My body pulses repeatedly, muscles quicken, wringing out every ounce ecstasy. Sy chases down his own release with abandon, drawing my pleasure out for several moments longer. Finally, with muttered swear words mixed with words of adoration, Sylas physically comes undone. I watch, rapt and can’t help but think while his body has come undone his eyes look as though he is coming together.

  I know the feeling well no matter how fervently I refuse to acknowledge it.

  Chapter 14