I sighed and closed my eyes as I listened to the screen door creaking open. Wes’ steps were steady as he crossed the cabin toward the bed. He came to a stop and began to shift me in his arms, preparing to set me down.
I didn’t want him to.
So, I pressed my lips against his neck and felt his entire body tense tighter than a bowstring.
His spine went ramrod straight as my tongue slipped between my lips, gently tracing the pounding vein in his neck. I worked one of my hands up into his hair as I pressed light, wet kisses against his skin. His arms tightened around me like steel bands and his voice cut through the air like glass.
“Faith. Stop.”
I didn’t stop. Instead, I nipped at his skin with my teeth and was rewarded when he growled in response.
Before I knew it, my hands and lips were touching nothing but air as he tore my body from his and tossed me, none too gently, onto the bed. My whole frame bounced with the force of it. I glared up at him hotly, pissed off by his rough treatment, and saw his face was set in stone, his arms muscles bulging into cords as his hands clenched in tight fists by his sides.
He stared at me for a long moment, sprawled on the bed looking up at him with a haze of lust and liquor in my eyes. He said nothing but, as I watched a muscle tick in his jaw, I thought he looked like a man pushed to his breaking point and forced to hover there for far too long… like someone on the verge of snapping.
He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring with each labored pull of oxygen. His eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them. His mouth tightened, his lips holding in words I was sure he wanted to scream at me, but he was silent as he simply turned on his heel and walked away. I heard the distant, splintering sound of wood as the screen slammed closed. Normally, his anger would’ve concerned me. Right now, though, my eyes were already drifting shut.
I fell back against the pillows and consciousness faded once more.
***
Shit.
Total mortification consumed me before I’d even opened my eyes.
I had a raging headache and one hell of a hangover, but that was nothing compared to the pain I felt when I thought back to my actions last night.
I’d called him beautiful.
And I’d licked his neck like some kind of sex-crazed, whiskey-fueled hooker.
Jesus Christ. I was never drinking again.
At least, not until I was out of this cabin and far, far away from this man who made all my common sense flee faster than my self-control.
I fell back against the bed, pressed a pillow against my face to muffle the sound, and screamed until my breath ran out.
“So, you’re awake.”
Shit.
I pulled the pillow away and lifted my head to peek at the man who’d just walked inside the cabin. I tried to gather my composure as I sat up and ran a hand through my hair, but it was hard to feel composed when I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes and my mouth tasted like day-old whiskey.
Perfect.
“Advil,” he said, nodding toward the small bedside table where he’d placed two tablets and a glass of water.
“Thanks,” I whispered, reaching out a shaky hand for them. Within seconds, I’d swallowed the pills and drained the glass, my hangover improving almost instantly.
He nodded. “Next time you plan on being an idiot, getting piss-drunk, and falling asleep outside, do me a favor and tell me first. By the time I got to you, you were half-frozen.”
“I didn’t plan it,” I muttered, feeling a blush rise to my cheeks.
“The passing out part?” he asked, his voice dropping to that dangerously soft tone. “Or the trying to kiss me part?”
My eyes fell to the quilt and I felt my stomach clench. “I didn’t plan any of it,” I snapped. “But thanks so much for throwing it in my face and affirming, once and for all, that you’re not even remotely a gentleman.”
He scoffed. “It took you this long to figure that out?”
I raised my eyes to his. “Sorry, it’s a little hard to keep track of what’s real and what’s fake when it comes to you and your ever-changing identities.”
His eyes narrowed in anger. “I was never a gentleman and I never pretended to be. Even back then.” He took a step closer. “That’s what you liked about me. And, if you were honest with yourself for a goddamn minute, you’d realize it’s what you still like about me.”
I threw a pillow at him. “I don’t like anything about you.”
“You’re a shitty liar.” His cocky grin made me scream.
“Don’t pretend you understand me.” My voice was dark as I scrambled to my feet. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know you’re a fucking minx who drives me up a wall.”
“Well, you’re a bastard! And a liar!”
“Find a new insult, Red. That one’s wearing thin.”
I fought the urge to throw a lamp at his head. “You… You’re an arrogant, domineering prick.”
“And you’re a royal pain in my ass who’d rather fight with me than admit she still cares.” He stepped closer and I backed away until I felt my shoulders hit the wall. He kept coming, until only a foot or so separated our bodies. My chest heaved with anger as I glared up at him, daring him to close the distance between us. If he tried, I’d punch him.
“I don’t care about you,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “I never cared about you.”
“Now who’s the liar?” he asked, his eyes glinting darkly.
“Still you. Always you.”
“Fine, you don’t want lies. Let’s see if you like the truth any better. I have a feeling you won’t.” He stepped closer, and the space between us dwindled to inches. I inhaled sharply at his sudden proximity. Though he wasn’t touching me, I could feel the heat of his body and his breath ghosted across my lips when he spoke.
“Truth number one: I want you and you want me. I’ve wanted you from the minute I first saw you in Budapest, and I know you feel the same. You might hate me, but your body doesn’t, Red.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off.
“Truth number two: you and I drive each other crazy. We fight constantly, we push each other’s boundaries, and we’re probably more likely to kill each other than go more than a day without screaming our heads off. But that fire between us — it’s hot and it’s real and I couldn’t fabricate it if I tried. Neither could you. The only time you’re not yelling at me is when your mouth is pressed hard against mine, which seems to piss you off but, frankly, doesn’t bother me a damn bit.”
I huffed.
“Truth number three: I don’t know where you’ve been for the past three years because, if I did, we’d have been having this conversation a whole lot sooner. I don’t know who you’ve been with or what you’ve done to occupy your time, but I do know one thing.” He leaned closer and made sure to annunciate every word so I couldn’t possibly tune him out. “You’ve been hiding, Red. But not because you were scared I’d come looking for you. No — you were scared of what you knew would happen between us when I did.”
Every bit of saliva evaporated from my mouth as I processed those words, recognizing the truth in them even as I tried to conjure a denial. I pulled in a shaky breath.
“That’s not true…” I muttered weakly.
He paid me no attention.
“Truth number four: I didn’t give a damn about you when we first met. It wasn’t personal — I’d never really given a damn about anyone before. But from the moment you fell into my arms in Heroes’ Square and started talking a million miles a minute, you began to change me into someone different. Someone better.” His hands came up and he braced himself against the wall, his arms caging me in. Still, not an inch of his body touched mine. I pressed my eyes closed, hoping it would help me stay in control.
“Truth number five,” he whispered. A tremble moved through my entire body. “This is my last one, Red, so pay attention.”
I somehow managed t
o open my eyes and look up into his, which were so full of passion and candor, I couldn’t doubt his feelings were genuine. I’d called him a liar, but here he was — finally telling me the truth. I had no idea what my own expression held in that long, breathless moment as I waited for his last confession.
He leaned closer, eyes locked on mine.
“It might’ve started as a lie, Faith, but it sure as hell didn’t end as one. I might not have been real to you, and that’s fine. But you have to know… you were real to me.” His voice dropped so low, I could barely hear him. “It was real for me. It’s still real. The realest fucking thing I’ve ever felt.”
My eyes started to water and I felt pressure building inside my chest, like my heart was about to burst. I didn’t think I could take much more of this without falling to pieces.
His gaze scanned my face as he spoke.
“I was alone, for twenty-five years. And I didn’t give a shit, because I didn’t know what I was missing.” His eyes went soft around the edges when he saw mine filling with tears. “Then, this stubborn, beautiful fucking brunette came barreling into my life and shoved her way through all the shadows. She lit up my whole world, even when I told her not to. Even when I warned her to stay away. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake her.”
I stared into his eyes for a long, frozen fraction of time as he waited for me to say something.
“She sounds a little overbearing,” I whispered finally, my voice breaking as the first tears escaped down my cheeks.
“Oh, she is,” he said gently. “It’s one of the things I love most about her.”
I felt my jaw drop a little as those words — words I’d been dreaming about hearing him say for years — escaped his mouth. A flood of fresh tears flowed down my face as I stared up at him with love and longing in my eyes, waiting for him to lean down and kiss me. When a few long seconds passed and he didn’t move, I finally realized that he wasn’t going to.
He was leaving it in my hands. Giving me the choice.
I was the one who’d have to close that final sliver of distance between us.
“I still think you’re an arrogant ass,” I said, stretching up onto my tiptoes.
“That’s okay,” he breathed across my lips. “You’re still spoiled brat.”
I grinned as I hurled my body forward and slammed my mouth against his.
Chapter Fifty-Three: FAITH
A VOW
We collided, the impact of my body against his sending shockwaves through us both, like two planets crossing paths mid-orbit, causing casualties on both sides. An embrace of mutually-assured destruction.
His mouth crashed against mine, a kiss three years in the making, and it destroyed us both.
It was devastating.
Our lips clung and gasped and parted and devoured until I felt little pieces of myself stripping away like useless, crumbled debris. He kissed me and I wasn’t Fae Montgomery, the girl I’d fabricated from the tattered wreckage of my hopes and dreams. The facade I’d spent three years building split wide open and crumbed into dust until all that was left behind was me. The real me.
Faith.
His hands lifted me roughly, hurriedly, like he couldn’t find control enough to keep himself in check now that we’d finally collided. My legs wrapped around his waist and his body pressed mine into the wall so hard, ripples of pain shot up my spine.
I didn’t care.
When it came to loving Wes, pleasure and pain were always wrapped up in one. We hurt each other; we healed each other. Screamed and seduced, built and broke each other.
It wasn’t a normal kind of love.
It was unsafe. Undeniable. Unhealthy. Unforgettable.
It was a contradiction.
And it would take more words than there were stars in the galaxy to describe it.
Luckily, I didn’t need a definition. All I needed was this.
Faith and Wes.
Wes and Faith.
His arms around me, his mouth on mine.
His hips pinned me to the wall, as his fingers found the neckline of my t-shirt and tugged sharply. I heard a ripping sound and before I could even process it, my shirt had been torn clean down the middle and was fluttering to the ground in pieces. Flush against him in just my jeans and bra, I felt suddenly exposed — especially when he pulled his mouth from mine and stared into my eyes.
His right hand traced the ridges of my ribcage and I inhaled at the sensation of his fingertips on my skin. I flinched when he reached the patch of scarred flesh from my bullet wound — not in pain but in shock at the sheer intimacy of it. His fingers were unbearably gentle as they explored that most vulnerable part of me, that permanent insignia of our past.
His touch was an apology and an assurance.
“Never again,” he whispered fiercely, his lips against mine. “I will never put you in harm’s way again. That’s a promise. To my dying breath, I will protect you.”
“No one’s dying, Wes.” I brushed my lips against his. “But if you stop kissing me now, I might.”
His lips were curved in a smile when he kissed me again. I worked my hands beneath the hem of his t-shirt and started to lift it over his head. Our mouths broke apart as the fabric slid past, and I threw it to the floor next to mine. My eyes, half-lidded with desire, returned to his, then dropped to take in the sight of his bare chest.
I felt my lips part as the breath was stolen from my lungs.
A sound — part sob, part sigh — escaped my mouth as I lifted a trembling hand to touch the thin black rope around his neck. Until my fingers made contact, I’d nearly convinced myself I was seeing things. But as my fingers traced the woven strands, I knew the cord was real.
So was the thin, white loop of rope hanging from its center.
His wedding ring.
“You kept it,” I whispered through a tear-clogged voice. “All this time?”
He bent his head so he could see into my eyes as I skimmed one fingertip around the faded white cord. His tone was gruff, but his eyes were soft. “Of course I kept it. It’s the most precious thing I own.”
Tears began to leak from the corners of my eyes and he wiped them away with his thumbs.
“I love you,” I admitted, looking up at him with a watery gaze. “I always loved you — even when I hated you.”
A long, suspended second passed as we stared at each other.
We both moved at the same time, shifting forward and sealing our lips together. Sweetness and patience were forgotten as desire reared its head once more. Need, sudden and unstoppable, claimed us. Our careful words and caresses were abandoned as hands worked at buttons and zippers, stripping each other bare. Wes kicked the pants free from his legs and somehow managed to peel off my jeans and underwear without once setting me down.
He didn’t wait for permission — I didn’t want him to.
In one long stroke, he drove into me, slamming my entire body against the wall with the brutal force of it. I cried out as he filled me, my head falling back against the wall and my legs wrapping tighter around his waist when he began to move. My nails clawed savagely into his back as he thrust, each harder and faster than the last, and I felt myself starting to fly into pieces.
Our savage pace was unsustainable — too brutal to last for long — but it was impossible to go slow. We’d waited too long, suffered too much to get back to this place. Now that we were here, there was no way to savor it.
With each movement of our hands, of our bodies, of our lips, we goaded each other into a breakneck rhythm that made my heart beat so fast I thought it might simply give out. I could feel Wes’ pulse, pounding just as quick beneath his skin, and knew he was right there with me.
“Faith,” he growled, his head buried in my neck.
I didn’t respond — I couldn’t. I was too far gone to form thoughts, let alone words.
My mouth fused against his once more and together, we climbed higher and higher until we reached the limits of the sky itself. And t
here, at the edge of infinity, our pleasure peaked in one single, unified moment and we both gasped at the sheer power of it.
This, here — it was perfection.
***
Eventually, we drifted back down to earth together, wrapped so tightly in each other’s arms I wasn’t sure which limbs were his and which were mine. Skin slicked with a sheen of sweat, hair damp from exertion, I dropped my forehead against the hollow of his throat and listened to the beat of his heart as it slowly returned to normal. Neither of us moved or said anything — we just stood there, intertwined, and breathed each other in and out.
Utterly exhausted, my eyes drooped closed. I couldn’t help myself — a muffled laugh escaped my mouth and broke the quiet.
Wes raised his head. “Something funny, Red?” he asked, his voice a little rough around the edges.
“Mmm,” I murmured, my lips brushing the skin of his neck. “That was so beyond worth the three year wait.”
***
He carried me to the bed and never once loosened his hold as he settled in against the pillows. And for a long time we simply lay there, me curled happily against his chest, with our arms wrapped around each other. I listened to the beat of his heart beneath my ear and he ran his fingers through my hair over and over again, soothing me.
“Do you miss the red?” I asked after a while.
“Your hair could be purple, it wouldn’t change the way I feel about you.”
I giggled, picturing myself with magenta locks — not a flattering image. “I had to change it. It was too hard to look in the mirror and see it without also seeing you.”
He resumed his long strokes through my hair. “I know. But the hair was only part of the reason I called you Red in the first place.”
I pivoted my face so my chin was planted against his pectoral and looked up at him, eyebrows raised in question.
He brushed back a strand that fell across my eyes. “You reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood, lost in the forest, making friends with a wolf. Thinking she could redeem him, even though he was dangerous. A lost cause.”
I snorted. “And I suppose you’re the irredeemable Big Bad Wolf in this equation?”
Erasing Faith Page 29
