by Nicole Helm
Which was why he was becoming more and more certain he needed to go for it.
He’d talked about changing, and he meant it. He wanted to change, which meant doing hard things. Not half-assed things.
So he walked with everyone to their lineup of cars saying nothing. He watched as Brandon and Lilly got in Brandon’s truck, Sam and Hayley drove away in Hayley’s car. Tori, Cora, and Micah piled into Cora’s.
Will sat in his Jeep and once everyone drove off, he didn’t. He started his car and drove, but not to Mile High and not to the cabin. Because that wasn’t going to solve anything, and it wasn’t going to get him any answers.
He drove around Gracely. Well past nine, most of the town was dark and tucked away in the faintly glowing dusk. He could almost pretend it was as it had been, because even when he’d partied through this town in high school, the town had closed down well before ten.
Back then, the only lights would have been the occasional house and the Evans Mining Company lights up in the mountains. A shining beacon of all the town had to bow down to.
But Evans Mining Company was gone and so was the past. The future and the present were all that mattered.
After meandering around town for a while, giving Tori plenty of time to be dropped off and Cora and Micah to have settled in at their house, Will pulled his Jeep up to the corner of Hope and Aspen.
He parked his car and stepped out. It was a clear night, the stars winking above. The moon was half hidden behind a row of houses on the street, but it would rise soon enough. So many things would rise.
He walked across the yard, glancing once at Cora’s house. Everything was dark except for a light upstairs. Which was a good sign.
He stepped onto Tori’s stoop and steadied himself before knocking on the door. He knocked, firmly and determined.
It took a few minutes before Tori answered, and based on the wary look on her face, she’d already looked out the window to make sure it was him.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” She didn’t invite him in. In fact, she stood defiantly in front of the door, blocking any sort of entry.
“I thought maybe we should finish our conversation.”
“Boy, did you think wrong.”
She started closing the door, but he put his hand out to block its progress. “Let me in.”
“No. I’m going to bed.” She hesitated for a second. “I’d take a ride up to Mile High in the morning though.”
He should be gratified she was asking him for a favor. But he knew what it was. A distraction.
“I’ll give you a ride in the morning, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave now.”
She sighed heavily. “I don’t want to talk about anything.”
He stepped closer to her, swallowing against all the panic inside of him. All the things he usually listened to, telling him not to do something. He was good at listening to those voices that insisted nothing would end well if he went after something he wanted. Nothing ended well when he tried to do something for someone.
But this was different. It had to start being different.
“You have two choices,” he stated, his voice barely recognizable to his own ears. Low, determined, sure.
She scoffed. “Oh, do I?”
He stepped closer still, their toes touching and only the fact that she leaned away—though he noted she didn’t step away—kept their bodies from touching.
“You can invite me in to talk . . .”
“Or you can leave. So, bye,” she snapped.
“No. Or I can come in for this.” He didn’t grab her like he’d done when he’d kissed her in the yard, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. He lowered his mouth to hers, but he stopped a breath from touching his lips to hers.
Her eyes were wide and she still leaned away, her back curving over his arm, but she didn’t push him. She didn’t fight him.
“So which is it going to be?” he asked, looking her right in the eye and keeping her pressed firmly against him. Her compact body trembling in his arms, as she sucked in a breath and then another.
God, he wanted her.
He watched her swallow, her neck moving with it. She moved her hand to his chest, and though she clearly wanted to push him away, the strength behind the palm against his heart was minimal at best. It just felt like she was pressing her hand to him.
“We’re not doing this.” But her voice was shaky and her eyes were so wide, and she didn’t fight him off. She could, too, she could if she wanted to.
“Then what are we doing?” he asked, because he wasn’t backing down. Not anymore.
* * *
Tori had to say something. No. Go away. Anything. Yet none of the words would come out. Everything was all backed up and stuck in her lungs—her breath, her heavy heartbeat, apparently her brain.
He was holding her against him, looming over her like some sort of . . . She didn’t know. She didn’t know what he was trying to do or prove, and she had to fight it. She had to fight it. She had to fight it.
She couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there and absorb the heat of him, the strength of him. Her hand was on his chest and she could feel his heart beating just as heavily as hers. His eyes never left hers, not for a second, and they were nearly green. Every second was overwhelming.
She couldn’t let him kiss her, good Lord. She couldn’t let him make her talk. She had to stop this somehow. His mouth was so close to hers, and his breath mingled with hers, and everything felt somehow fated.
You’re being ridiculous. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to wiggle out of his grasp. She took a few halting steps away from him, but that only gave him the chance to step inside her house and close the door behind him.
He stood there, tall and broad and bearded and gorgeous and . . .
“What are you doing?” she managed to ask him, breathless and furious. Yes, fury, that was the thing galloping through her chest. “And why?”
“I’m tired of this bullshit. This dancing-around-each-other bullshit. You have to give me something. I gave you something. You have to give me something.”
“Because that’s how life works, huh? You offer someone some part of yourself and they have to give it back.”
He sucked in a deep breath, but he didn’t yield or back off. He stood there, if anything more certain. What was that? Did Gracely just imbue people with it, but not her, because she wasn’t certain about shit.
Except that they were standing on some precipice. She knew she had to jump, but there was no sensible jump to take. If only she could find the jump she’d survive, the one she’d be able to climb back up the wall.
But how did she? When it came to people, she always chose that wrong spot. Wanting something or someone was always the wrong spot. Depending on someone else was always the wrong spot. Wanting someone to choose her and her alone was always the wrong thing.
“There’s something here,” Will said, certain and sure. “Something has to break. Or it just keeps building. If you let it build for long enough, when the break comes it’s . . .”
“What happened before,” she realized aloud. She’d let things with Will build for years back then, and then she’d convinced herself that he had to feel it back. She’d been crushed when she’d been so very wrong.
But this was only a few weeks in the making, this new thing between them, and maybe . . . Maybe he was right. Maybe if they broke things now, there was the hope of getting over it instead of another crash in six years.
“I’m not having sex with you.” Because that would kill her.
His mouth curved, sexy and dangerous. “There’s a lot of room between a kiss and sex.”
Oh God. “We could talk,” she blurted, because that was less scary. Maybe.
He lifted his hands in the air. “I gave you the choice.”
She took a few steps away again. She needed space. Time to think. But he was staring at her with intent in his eyes and sex in his smile. A s
mile he’d never, ever used on her before.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smile this way before. Edgy and threatening, but somehow kind with it.
She was losing her mind.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, still edging to get more space between them. Sarge had trotted in and lay helpfully between them.
“You told me about why you ran away. I want to hear why you came here. Why seven years later, you finally showed up.”
Which would require rehashing Toby and all the ways she was pathetic.
Which was worse: letting herself think he was actually sexually attracted to her or rehashing the whole Toby situation? Which had less likelihood of blowing up in her face?
She honestly didn’t know.
“You don’t actually want to have sex with me, or any of those in-betweens. I am so not your type.”
“I hate to break it to you, but men aren’t that discerning. Sex with a woman they like is sex. You’re gorgeous and you always have been. Huh.” He rubbed a hand over his beard as if he was giving something deep consideration. “Isn’t it interesting that I always gravitated toward the opposite of you?”
“Yeah, so interesting that you don’t like me in that way. No matter how hard up a guy is, he has a type he’d prefer.”
“Everything about you is everything I avoided back then. That’s worth thinking about.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“But here I am. Thinking about it.”
She supposed that was the scariest thing. She couldn’t fight what he thought, what idiotic ideas he was spinning in his head.
How did she fight him when he was offering what she’d always wanted?
Will moved behind her, gently putting his hands on her shoulders. It shouldn’t comfort her, not when he was the source of all her panic, but something about his easy presence and putting a hand on her shoulder and standing behind her . . .
“I don’t want to make things harder on you,” he said quietly, close to her ear. Close to her heart. “But I don’t know how else we move on from this. I can’t pretend I’m not attracted to you, and I can’t pretend I don’t want to know more about you.”
“I can’t go down this road again with you,” she whispered, staring blindly into her kitchen. Hers. She was building her own damn life.
“This isn’t the same though, Tori. It’s a brand-new road. All those years ago we both hid everything from each other and from ourselves. I’m not content to be that guy anymore. So I’m being straight with you. All you have to do is the same.”
His hands tensed on her shoulders just briefly, and she realized then that he wasn’t quite so certain. He wasn’t quite so sure. This was a step for him, and he was trying to figure things out.
He was using her to figure his shit out. Using her. That was it. Maybe she should be angry about it, but . . . She could also just let him.
And she would use him to feel something again. The comfort of someone to share a bed with or to ask if she was okay.
It was twisted and fucked up, but if she knew going in he was just using her as some sort of pawn in his attempt to figure his life out, well, she wouldn’t get hurt this time. She didn’t have to give him anything back. She didn’t have to be straight with him, and she could get some old shit out of her system.
She wouldn’t depend on him. She wouldn’t love him.
She would use him right back. She just had to find the courage to take that leap.
Chapter Eighteen
Tori still faced away from him, but she didn’t move out of the loose hold he had on her shoulders. Something in the way she held herself changed, though without seeing her face, Will couldn’t read it.
He wanted to run his hands down the length of her arms. He wanted . . . Hell, why not take what he wanted? Wasn’t that the point? One way or the other, some piece of this pressure between them had to be let out.
So he let his palms run down the length of her arms, then back up. A little tremor went through her, barely noticeable, but there nonetheless.
She took a deep breath as if stealing herself for . . . something, then she turned to face him. Her eyes weren’t wide anymore, and her mouth was set into a determined line.
She jerked her hand up, but then paused, before slowly inhaling and lightly placing her fingers against his face. She traced the edges of his beard down across his cheek, then back up again.
“You didn’t have this in Boulder,” she muttered, and he didn’t know if it was accusation or some uncomfortable memory or what.
So he went with a joke. “I’d offer to shave it off, but it’s like a Mile High cornerstone now. It makes us look very mountain man-y.”
Her eyes met his, serious and studying. She clearly found no humor in it, but her fingers were delicately moving across his face. Gently. Tori gentle.
Her gaze drifted to his mouth, and she was still so close he’d only need to shift for their bodies to touch, only need to lean forward to rest his head atop hers.
There was a panicked beat to the way his heart was pounding against his chest, but that was the kind of panic he’d always listened to, always believed in. He was trying to change, not let the worst parts of himself lead.
“Did you make your choice?” he asked, because one way or another . . .
She didn’t say anything, but she stepped forward and slowly wound her arm around his neck. It meant getting up on her toes, and it meant her body grazed his as she arched to get the leverage.
She didn’t look him in the eye, which bothered him for some reason. That she was holding him, pressing against him, and looking at his nose or mouth or beard or anything that wasn’t actually . . . him.
He slid his arm around her waist, tipping her upper body back with his chest so she was just a little off-balance. But he held her up, and he would.
Then finally then her eyes flicked to his, and he supposed she meant it to be brief, maybe a little censuring, but—featherlight, he pressed his mouth to the corner of hers, gratified when he felt her shaky exhale across his face.
“Not like last time,” he said close to her ear, still holding her basically still.
No, this kiss would not start in some angry space, it wouldn’t be driven by some wild thing inside him he didn’t understand and couldn’t control. This would be slow, soft, careful so he could figure it all out.
He brushed a kiss across the soft skin of her cheek, indulging himself in a deep breath of the faint smell of shampoo or soap. Something clean and fresh, simple.
He kissed the underside of her jaw. He lingered there in the smell of her, in the hope of her.
Her breathing was shaky and uneven. Every inhale in, every exhale out, she shuddered with it. But she didn’t hold on to him, though her arm was around his neck. She leaned back against that arm holding her up, and she didn’t kiss him.
“You want to talk instead?” he asked, scraping his beard purposefully down her neck.
“Oh, shut up,” she said, probably not sounding quite as tough as she wanted to, but the arm around his neck tightened and then her mouth was on his—fast and hot, and yeah, a little angry.
He wouldn’t fall victim to it. She might have the choices here, but she wasn’t leading him where he didn’t want to go. Not anymore.
So he used his free hand to tangle into her braid, thus controlling the angle of her head, her mouth, and how much pressure she could wield against his mouth. He nibbled at her lower lip, grinning when she huffed out a breath of irritation.
Tori, something like at his mercy, and wasn’t that . . . something. He held her there, head and body tipped back, lips slicked, eyes half closed as she glared at him. And since she was giving him eye contact, he pressed his mouth to hers, eyes wide and right on hers.
He dragged his tongue across her bottom lip, absorbing every little shiver that went through her.
She squeezed her eyes shut trying to press closer, harder, but his fingers were tangled in all that thick hair a
nd he simply wouldn’t let this be something she could write off.
“I’m not going to let you forget it’s me,” he murmured against her mouth, loosening his grip on her enough so he could splay his hand over her back, feel the strength in her slight frame.
She sighed, something exasperated more than the dreamy he would have preferred, and her now open eyes were like cloudy storms. He could all but picture lightning there. “Like that’d even be possible,” she muttered.
He grinned again and she rolled her eyes, but her arm hooked around his neck was tight, and her other hand now clutched his shirt.
Yeah, he couldn’t say he minded Tori holding on to him, and funnily enough he liked being in the driver’s seat. He’d never been one for leadership any more than he’d been one for taking orders, but he liked leading this woman who’d always seemed infinitely un-leadable.
He glanced around the kitchen, wanting more leverage, wanting more her, but his gaze landed on Sarge, who was sprawled in the corner of her kitchen, watching them with his head on his paws.
He’d helped her bring Sarge home from some shelter she’d wandered into. Sarge had been part of the team, so to speak. If he’d been looking for a family outside of Brandon, he’d found it in Sam, Tori, and Sarge.
But mostly the two in this kitchen. Tori and Sarge, his peace, his comfort, and he hadn’t had it since she’d walked away.
“I guess he’s a voyeur,” Tori said after he’d been standing there for probably too long.
When his gaze returned to Tori, cheeks flushed and mouth wet from his, she looked . . . speculative.
Of him. Maybe of the position they were in. But speculative wasn’t disapproving. Of course, it wasn’t eager enthusiasm either, but it was a step.
A step . . . which he needed more of. More steps until he slept with her—something he was beginning to think was definitely an until—to make sure he was on the right footing. To make sure he was doing this right and that he could change his usual track record when it came to important things.
He’d stepped up for Mile High. He’d stepped up for Brandon, and now he had to right this past wrong. He had to build, and that wasn’t done with ultimatum sex with a woman who still looked at him like she wasn’t sure if he’d kiss her or slap her across the face.
