Release

by Aly Martinez

  Get in. Get out. Take a cold shower. And then consider narcing on someone from the inside so I could secure a spot in the witness protection program. STAT.

  Bending at the hip, I deposited her on the yellow-and-green floral bedspread that I hated almost as much as those damn skirts she insisted on wearing to work.

  That should have been the end of it.

  But this was Thea and the shitshow was just getting started.

  “You have to talk to me at some point,” she yelled, scrambling off the bed after me.

  “No, I really don’t.” Long, heavy strides carried me to my room, but she was hot on my heels, so I didn’t have time to lock her out.

  Goal number two was to beeline to the bathroom.

  Oh, but fucking Thea, she charged around me, ducking under my arm and stopping me dead in my tracks.

  “Move,” I rumbled.

  She rested a hand on my chest and I swear it singed my skin. “Look at me, please.”

  Nope. Not fucking happening. She was still wearing that tank top and I did not have the strength to see her nipples—or look her in the eye­­ without kissing her fucking face off.

  “Get out of here. I need to take a shower.”

  I realized my mistake the minute I’d said it and it was only one of many for the morning. I’d told Thea how beautiful she’d looked on her knees when I was in the shower. It was not a lie. She was a mythical beast I couldn’t tame or bring to fruition.

  “I could take a shower with you?” she suggested, stepping in so close it was suffocating.

  I jumped away before my cock had the chance to sprout arms and claw its way from my boxers. “Jesus Christ, woman. You are so fucking stubborn. There have to be at least five hundred men out there willing to…” I shook my head, unable to finish the thought.

  That was mistake number two.

  “Willing to what, Ramsey?” She pushed up onto her toes. “Fuck me? Date me? Marry me? What?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, swearing I would give her no reaction. But every single word out of her mouth was a lash from a whip. “Yes.”

  “But not you though, right? You want nothing to do with me.”

  “Why the fuck are you so desperate?”

  She sank back to her heels, the mere inches giving me infinite space. “Well, that’s an easy question. I’m glad you asked.” She trailed a finger down my chest and my cock jumped as though it were the flute of a snake charmer. “Because when I was ten years old, I met a boy. I hated him. But I needed him like my veins needed blood. He broke my leg. He broke my patience. And eventually he broke my heart. But there hasn’t been a minute that’s passed that I haven’t loved him with every single broken shard.”

  My throat closed and I staggered back from the impact of her words. She followed me forward, allowing me no reprieve. Thea. Fucking, fucking Thea. She peeled her tank top over her head. I silently gave thanks to the god of bras, regardless of how see-through the damn thing might have been.

  Sexy and wild, her long hair, which I ached to wrap around my fist, splayed across her shoulders. She took another step toward me. “We promised we’d be there for each other. We swore to it. But I was the only one who kept that deal. You, on the other hand, have lied to me with your every breath. You inked words onto paper that you weren’t brave enough to say to my face. You blamed me for things that I had no power to change. You robbed me of twelve years of my goddamn life. And at some point this week, you were with another woman while I lay alone in my room, my fingers in my panties with your lips sucking my clit on the backs of my eyelids.”

  Oh.

  My.

  Fucking.

  God.

  My mouth fell open as all the oxygen was sucked from the state of Georgia.

  She canted her head, and her eyes sparkled with defiance. “And guess what? I still fucking love you. So yeah. Maybe I am desperate.” Her hands suddenly snaked around behind her. I tried not to look. I deserved a fucking medal of honor for that effort. But when her bra fell to the floor, there wasn’t enough guilt or hate in the world to keep my gaze from dropping with it. “But I can live with that, because there will never be anyone other than you. I was ten when I fell in love with you. Nothing you say right now is going to change that.”

  There was so much I should have said to her.

  I love you too.

  I’ve always loved you.

  I’ve been rotting away from the inside out for years knowing someone was going to take you from me.

  You’re my Sparrow, and that will never change.

  My brain had it on lockdown though, because that shit was never coming out. However, mistake number three was opening my goddamn mouth.

  “I wasn’t with anyone else. I’ve never been with anyone else. I’ve never even wanted to be.”

  What. The. Fuck!

  She blinked at me for several beats. And then, slowly and triumphantly, her lips curled into a blinding white smile.

  Oh, yes. I. Was. Fucked. I prayed like hell that I’d survive, all the while preparing myself not to.

  Running her thumbs beneath the waistband of her pajama pants, she never tore her gaze from mine. “Tell me to stop, Ramsey. Tell me I’m making you uncomfortable. Tell me you don’t want to make me come. I’ll walk out of this room and give you your space. One hundred percent, your call.”

  My mouth watered as her breasts swayed with her hips as she inched her pants down one side at a time.

  I clenched my jaw and fisted my hands at my sides. It was my final stand. Completely and utterly worthless too. It was a seriously lackluster effort.

  Her eyes filled with heat as her thumbs hooked with the little pink strings on her panties, dragging them down with her pants. “All you have to do is say no.”

  Mistake number four also came from opening my mouth. A-fucking-gain.

  My voice shook and my chest heaved. “I’m not sure I can be gentle, Thea.”

  She stopped the descent of her pants and stared at me with trust sparkling in her eyes. “I’m not scared of you.”

  Based on nothing more than my brutal need to bury myself inside her slick heat, I thought she should have been terrified. I licked my lips, guilt slashing me as I glanced at her neck. “I won’t bite you again though. I promise.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, shimmying her pants down another inch.

  Blood thundered in my ears as she came perilously close to revealing herself completely.

  “Last chance,” she murmured.

  She could have stood there, holding my gaze, until we both wasted away into the Earth and I never would have said the word stop.

  Her smile grew, and then brazen and beautiful as only Thea could be, she dropped her pants to the floor.

  Oh, fuck me. Her pussy was bare. Oh, fucking fuck me.

  A growl rumbled in my chest.

  Do not be rough.

  Do not be rough.

  Do not be…

  I charged forward, our bodies colliding only a split second before our mouths. Her hands went straight into the back of my hair while our tongues tangled in a fiery reunion.

  She moaned down my throat when I palmed her round ass. And then she climbed my body, linking her legs around my hips, pinning my straining erection between us.

  “Thea,” I groaned, using her ass to slide her up and down my length. Fuck, why was I still wearing boxers? I set her on the edge of the bed, planting my hands on either side of her head when I followed her down, frantic to keep our mouths fused.

  Our teeth clanked, sweet pain pinching at my bottom lip when it became trapped between them. With a frenzied slant, she took the kiss deeper, sealing her mouth under mine, air and breathing becoming an afterthought.

  Her tongue swirled and she rolled her hips in the same rhythm. Each time she found friction against my hard length, her whimpers crashed into my groans, creating an erotic symphony of lust and longing.

  “Off,” she ordered, sitting up and tugging at my boxers, all the w
hile shifting her focus to my neck.

  My head fell back and I panted up at the ceiling as she licked and teased her way up to my ear.

  “You’re mine, Ramsey. You can try to fight me. You can hate me. You can lie to yourself for the rest of your life.” She raked her fingernails down my abs before diving into the front of my boxers and wrapping her palm around my shaft. “But wherever you are, however long you are there, you are always mine.” She punctuated it with a hard pull that weakened my knees.

  This. Fucking. Woman.

  It had been eighteen years since I first saw her at the base of that tree.

  And she was right. She had owned me every day since. Maybe that was why I’d never been able to convince her to leave. She wasn’t my Sparrow to free.

  I was hers.

  Feelings far more dense than sexual desire splintered inside me, making my hands rougher than I intended as I pushed her flat on her back.

  She cried out as I hunched over her and sucked at her nipple while I shoved my boxers down.

  I wanted to do a dozen things to that woman. Lick and explore her every curve. Taste her. Kiss her. Memorize her. But that could wait.

  Lifting one of her legs over my shoulder, I spread her wide. My stomach tightened as I stared down at her fucking glistening and ready. I trailed my finger up her opening, spreading her wet over her clit.

  She threw her head back. “Oh, God, Ramsey.”

  I repeated the process. “If I’ve always been yours, Thea. What does that make you?”

  “Yours.”

  My cock twitched in jealousy as I dipped my finger inside her tight heat. “Say it again.”

  “I’m yours. I’ve always been yours. Even when you didn’t want me to be.”

  My eyes jumped to hers and something deep inside me stirred. It was the truth, the dark and dirty truth I’d been wearing like a straitjacket for my soul. “There was never a day when I didn’t want you to be mine, Sparrow. I just loved you enough to hope you wouldn’t have to be.”

  The color drained from her face, but I was done talking.

  With devastating control, I entered her slow and steady. A growl ripped from my throat and her mouth formed the most incredible O as I disappeared inside her.

  “Fuck, baby,” I rasped, raking my teeth over her calf when I bottomed out.

  I told myself I was giving her a second to adjust, but that breather was as much for me as it was for her. I’d only been inside her once, and while I’d tried to cling to those memories each time I wrapped my hand around my shaft, it was only similar in the sense that my cock was involved.

  She was so damn perfect—tight and hot.

  But most of all, she was perfect because she was Thea.

  Finally.

  I forced myself to start short and shallow. But each time she moaned my name, the urge to claim her grew.

  I wanted to hear those two syllables tumble from her lips as she came.

  I wanted to empty inside her.

  I wanted to spend the rest of that day fucking her over and over again until I physically couldn’t get hard again.

  And then, when my body gave out on me, I wanted to taste her. Lick her and suck her, feeling her pulse against my mouth.

  I wanted to shower with her.

  I wanted to fuck her again.

  But really, I just wanted to keep her.

  Before I knew it, I was riding her hard, driving into her with a desperation I couldn’t quell.

  “Thea?” I rasped through labored breaths.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged, “I’m okay. Don’t stop, baby. I’m close.”

  An aching tension built, and I closed my eyes to delay my inevitable release. It didn’t work; the sight of her breasts bobbing with my every thrust was burned into my retinas. I bit the inside of my cheek and licked my thumb before dropping it to her clit. “Come on, Sparrow. Give it to me.”

  “Oh, God,” she cried.

  My rhythm never slowed and my release all but shredded my skin as it fought to find a way out. But there was no fucking chance that, the first time I had her in over twelve fucking years, I wasn’t getting her off.

  Clenching my teeth, my thrusts got harder, faster, more frantic. Leaning forward with her leg still draped over my shoulder, I practically folded her in half, but she made no complaints as I drove in deeper.

  “Oh, God, Ramsey.” Like a rubber band, my Sparrow finally snapped. Bucking beneath me, she pulsed around me while her nails scored my back.

  And as I followed her over the edge, time finally stopped. There was no distance or years spent apart. We weren’t broken or beaten down by life. I wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t a victim. No. In that bed, naked and drenched in sweat, we were just two halves of one whole, the way it was always supposed to be.

  I’d be damned if I didn’t want to wage war with the entire fucking world—including myself—in order to hold on to that.

  My heart hammered in my chest as I stared up at the ceiling. After Ramsey had moved my leg off his shoulder, he’d promptly collapsed on top of me, burying his face in the curve of my neck while he caught his breath.

  I should have been smiling. I’d just had incredible sex with an incredible man, that resulted in an incredible orgasm.

  Yet I was only seconds away from a full-blown panic attack.

  What the hell happened now? Would he stay? Would he leave? Would he go back to hating me? Could I handle it if he did?

  No. The answer was a resounding, blinking neon sign of No.

  I was going to crash and burn in that bed if and when he lifted his head and he wasn’t my Ramsey again.

  I could barely breathe under his heavy weight, but I made no effort to move out from under him. I wasn’t ready yet. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.

  His hips made slow circles as he began to soften inside me. Another minute and I’d lose him completely.

  More panic.

  What if that was all I got?

  What if I’d seduced him into sex, tempting him with my body in a way a man could never refuse?

  He’d called me Sparrow. He’d told me he’d always wanted me. He’d kissed me like he’d never let go.

  But what if nothing had changed?

  My breathing shuddered and he immediately shifted to my side. The loss was staggering, the reality unbearable.

  His heart pounded in time with mine, and I wished like hell I’d been wearing my watch so I would have known how long I’d had him. It would have given me something to obsess about later when I was alone in my bed.

  “What are you thinking?” he rumbled into my neck. “You’re so tense it’s freaking me out.”

  Shocker. Ramsey could still read my body language.

  “Nothing,” I choked out.

  He gave me a squeeze. “Don’t lie. Whatever you’re thinking, just say it. I can handle it.”

  I swallowed hard and then cleared my throat. “I guess I’m wondering if this is the part where you kick me out of your bed?”

  His head popped up and his thick brows pinched together. “Not unless you want to fuck me on the floor.”

  It was a joke—a funny one at that. But I burst into tears.

  “Hey,” he breathed, rolling to his back and taking me over with him so my head was on his chest. “Easy now. There’s no crying allowed while I’m naked.”

  I half laughed, half sobbed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now, and I’m so damn scared you’re going to go back to pushing me away.”

  “Would it work?”

  My head snapped back as I peered up at him. “What?”

  He tucked a stray hair behind my ear and trailed the tips of his fingers down my jaw. “Would it work? If I got up right now and told you to take a hike, would you actually do it?”

  I didn’t have to think before answering. “No.”

  The side of his mouth hitched. “Then what’s the point?”

  My chin quivered. “I can’t answer that. I’ve never known the point in
any of this.”

  He let out a loud sigh and wrapped me in both of his strong arms. “I know, Sparrow. I know.”

  “I don’t think you do.” I tried to sit up, but he held me tight.

  “We’ll talk, okay? I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. It’s been almost thirteen years. You haven’t moved on. I can’t keep my hands off you and my heart is sick and fucking tired of trying. We have a lot of things to talk about, some of which are going to be an absolute dumpster fire. But I don’t know how to stop loving you, Thea. I’ve tried. And tried. But here we are. Fucked up and in love.”

  My lip quivered. “Fucked up and in love. That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  He grasped my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my head back and pressing a lingering kiss to my lips. “That’s sad. And only serves as further proof to how fucked up we truly are.”

  We.

  There was a we again.

  One word. Two small letters. And the debilitating weight of losing my soulmate ebbed from my system.

  Gripping the back of his neck, I kissed him, deep and long. I kissed him like we were kids again and a world of suffering didn’t exist between us. Our mouths moved with a practiced ease, but our tongues danced and explored like we were strangers.

  And in this life, I supposed we were.

  My heart beat for him.

  My lungs filled for him.

  My veins bled for him.

  But this was new and different. And, God, did I need it to be different.

  “Shit,” he whispered against my mouth. “We probably should have used a condom.”

  “It’s okay. I’m on birth control, and unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think you can give yourself an STD.”

  He chuckled. “Birth control, huh?”

  “I started it when I found out you were coming home.”

  Turning into me, he slid a hand to my ass and dragged me flush with his front. He was hard again, long and thick. The tears were still wet on my face, but sparks ignited between my legs. “You were that sure we were going to end up here?”

  I half shrugged. “I’m persistent.”

  “That you are.” Rumbling with approval, he kneaded my ass and rocked me against his length. “You are also fucking sexy as hell.”