“It was how it worked in his eyes,” she said, sniffling. “And I was so young… so afraid. I was going to be a mother and I could barely take care of myself, you know? But Randy was there, saying he could take care of everything. I could just focus on Paige, be a mom, and he would take care of us both. And I loved him, and it all sounded so nice,” she admitted, and then she bit her lip and let out a bitter laugh. “And it was. Until it was hell.”
This time, I couldn’t resist the urge that overcame me, and I reached for her, pulling her into my chest and folding my arms around her as if I could shield her from something that had already happened. I didn’t even know what it was, what the hell she referred to entailed. All I knew was that I wished in so many ways that I could somehow snap my fingers and go back to high school and grab her in the hallway, pull her into a closet, warn her of the choices she was about to make.
But then, Paige wouldn’t exist.
And Sydney wouldn’t be the woman she was today.
As much as life hurt like hell, those painful lessons somehow seemed to have beautiful ramifications, like everything that happened was for a reason we could never fully see or understand until years down the line.
Sydney was stiff and hesitant in my arms at first, but then she relaxed, exhaling a long breath and letting me hold her. She was so small in my arms, and everything inside me ached to keep her safe.
We laid there with her wrapped in my arms and my chest tight for a long while, the soft sounds of the night surrounding us. I didn’t dare speak, not for the fear of spooking her out of my grasp with the mere sound of my voice. It was just like all those other times I’d sat in that meadow and tried to be perfectly still and quiet so as not to scare away the fauna.
She relaxed more and more into me as the minutes passed, and I held her tight, rubbing my hands over her back to soothe her. Then, out of nowhere, a soft and low hoot, hoot broke through the silence.
Sydney lifted her head, looking at me before she looked up at the trees behind us. “What was that?” she whispered.
It came again, and I smiled, sweeping the mess of hair that had fallen from her bun behind her ear. “I think it might be a saw-whet owl,” I answered, just as soft. “They’re rare, I’ve only ever heard one once before.”
Sydney smiled, laying her head back on my chest, and we listened to the owl until it quieted or left us, though we couldn’t be sure which.
“You know… I had a huge crush on you in high school.”
My eyes shot open at her admission, and I peeked down at her. “You’re shitting me.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Nope. I thought you were soooo cute.” She dragged out the syllables. “My friends did, too. But, you were so quiet, so elusive.”
“You make it sound like I was some broody bad boy.”
“To us, you were.”
I laughed through my nose. “I was just minding my own business.”
“Rare in this town.”
“I had a crush on you, too, for whatever it’s worth.”
“Wait, really?” She looked up at me, a pleased grin on her lips. “I wasn’t sure you even knew I existed.”
“Are you kidding? Have you seen you?” I shook my head. “Besides, you were new in town. You know as well as I do that you can’t be new in town and everyone not find out who you are.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Why didn’t you?” I shot back. She stuck out her tongue, then laid on my chest again, her breaths coming easier now that we’d moved off the topic of her ex-husband.
We laid there silently, the night getting cooler around us. And with her wrapped up in my arms like that, I found myself thinking about the night I promised her I’d forget about, about the kiss we tried to swear never happened.
“I like this,” Sydney said after a while. “Talking to you like normal again.” She leaned up to look at me. “It’s been kind of… awkward, hasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer, though my heart leapt into my throat.
“It’s just nice to not feel like there’s something weird between us,” she continued.
“But there is.”
Sydney stiffened, and my heart beat hard in my chest — once, twice, faster and faster, as if urging me not to stop until I’d said what I’d needed to.
“There is something weird between us,” I said again, leaning up until my chest was even with hers, until our eyes were level and she could see the sincerity I hoped I was conveying. “That’s why you feel it. And it’s not just weird, it’s rare, and unique, and intoxicating and terrifying, too.”
Sydney’s throat constricted, her mouth parting as she listened.
“We’re both trying to pretend like I didn’t kiss you when I did,” I said, though my heart was so heavy in my ears I couldn’t be sure I’d actually said it loud enough. “Like I didn’t want to kiss you. But I did.”
Her eyes flicked between mine.
“Like it was a drunken night or a mistake,” I continued. “When we both know the truth is that I kissed you because I wanted to, because I needed to, because it felt like the only thing I could do in that moment.”
“Jordan…” Sydney whispered, but it wasn’t a warning — more like a plea.
“And I’ve wanted to kiss you every day since then, too.”
Her lips trembled as she pressed them together, and I hadn’t realized her hands were on me, not until I felt her fist twist in the fabric of my jacket, like she was in danger of falling off the hood of my truck if she wasn’t latched onto me.
“Sydney,” I said, soft and low. “It wasn’t a mistake for me. It wasn’t an accident. And I don’t want to keep pretending like it is. But,” I added, swallowing. “I will respect if that’s the way you see it. If you truly want me to forget it ever happened, I… well, I’ll find a way. But only if you can look at me, right now, look me right in my eyes and tell me that’s what you want.”
Her face crumpled, and for a moment I was worried she was about to cry, that I’d pushed too far, that I’d listened to my baby brother’s advice like a fucking idiot and was about to pay the ultimate price.
“Was our kiss a mistake?” I asked again.
And with her eyes still welled up, she shook her head.
My heart slammed in my chest. “Do you want me to forget it ever happened?”
She shook her head again, and already, our hands were reaching for each other, our lips parting, closing the distance between us.
“Can I kiss you again now?” I whispered.
She nodded, and I tilted her chin up, taking her mouth with mine like it had always belonged to me.
And in a snap, all the energy in that forest rushed to the point where our lips met.
Sydney
Everything that had been dead inside me came to life when Jordan Becker’s mouth claimed mine.
It happened in a rush, in an instant, in a shock so violent and powerful that I felt it like an earthquake in my soul. Desire that I hadn’t felt in years pooled heavy and hot in my gut. My heart that had only beat in fear and suspicion began to beat in urgent want, instead. My hands that I thought had forgotten how to touch a man reached for Jordan like he’d always been mine.
And in the midst of it all, the way he kissed me made me realize I’d never really been kissed before.
I’d never had strong hands holding my face like that — in a way that commanded I was his but also ensured I was cared for. How was it possible that his lips were hot on mine, that his teeth sent sharp pangs of pleasure and pain through me each time he bit down on my neck, that his hands gripped me hard enough to leave bruises and yet still he was somehow tender, somehow hesitant, somehow gentle and sure all at once?
I pressed my hands into his chest as the night came alive around us, feeling its energy as I straddled him on the hood of his Bronco. The more we moved, the more we both became covered in the fresh mud he’d conjured up on our ride out to the meadow, but I couldn’t find it in me to c
are.
My kisses grew harder, more insistent as I rolled my hips, and when the heat of me met his growing erection, I smiled in satisfaction.
In two quick and fluid movements, I broke our kiss and stripped my hoodie over my head, letting it fall somewhere on the ground behind me. I already had my long-sleeve shirt up and over my head when Jordan’s hands gripped hard on my waist, stilling me where I was grinding against him.
“Sydney,” he panted just as I lowered my mouth to his again.
I stole his next words, and he moaned, holding me tighter as I kissed him and rubbed the seam of my leggings against the growing bulge in his pants.
He cursed into my mouth, breaking our kiss with his hands grabbing my wrists and holding me away from him.
“Syd,” he said again, and for some reason, that little shortened version of my name made the urge to kiss him even more intoxicating. “Maybe we should slow down.”
“Shut up and kiss me,” I said, breaking the grip he had on my wrists and wrapping my hands around his neck.
My fingers gripped at the base of his head, pulling him into my kiss, and he bit down hard on my lip, releasing it with a pop before he held me away again.
“Woman,” he warned, but he was smiling, panting. “I’m serious. I don’t want this to be just…” He frowned. “I want to court you, get to know you, take you on a date.”
“You can take me on a date later,” I said, rolling my hips against him. It was the only place he wasn’t holding me still, and his eyes rolled up toward the full moon above us with the friction I created. “Right now, I want you to touch me.”
I couldn’t believe those words came from my mouth, that the desire breaking free had been bottled up in my cold, lifeless heart. It was like I’d been broken and sewn together with a thin piece of yarn, and all Jordan had done was tug one end of it, but it’d been enough to unravel me completely.
With my request, Jordan gave up resisting, and his mouth claimed mine again, both of us panting and moaning, licking and tasting, rolling and flexing until the need inside us was so fierce we nearly died beneath the weight of it.
“Wrap your legs around me,” Jordan said, lifting my ass like I weighed nothing. I did as he asked, and in a feat of strength that he made look easy, he held me to him as he hopped down from the hood of the truck.
His lips were still hot on every inch of me he could reach, kissing my lips and neck and chin and jaw as he walked us to the back door of the Bronco. He felt for the handle blindly, and then the door was open and I was on my back, Jordan sliding into the space between my legs with the door still open behind him.
When he lifted to take off his jacket, he thunked his head hard on the ceiling, and I laughed, loving the smile that bloomed on his face, too.
“Think it’s funny when I get hurt, huh?”
“No,” I answered, leaning up on my elbows. “Think it’s funny that we’re about to fuck in the backseat of your truck like a couple of high schoolers.”
“How do you know I’m going to fuck you?” Jordan asked, slowing his movements as he tugged his t-shirt up and over his head.
I didn’t even try to hide my hungry gaze as I devoured every newly exposed inch of him, remembering when I’d seen that chest and abdomen speckled with mud in the park.
“What if I’m just going to touch you?” he continued, trailing a fingertip over the swells of each of my modest breasts where they were pushed up in my bra. “That’s what you want, right?”
He made a path with that finger up my neck and over my chin, running it along my bottom lip before I sucked it into my mouth and released it with a pop that had his eyes rolling.
“If you can resist fucking me right now, I’ll wash your truck tomorrow.”
He smirked. “Is that a bet?”
“I don’t know,” I asked, sitting up fully. I reached back to unfasten the clasp on my bra, letting my breasts spill out as I tossed it on the floor of the truck. “Is it considered a fair bet if you know you’re going to win?”
I tilted my head, leaning back on one hand and tracing my nipples with the other. They each puckered under the touch, and Jordan watched with his mouth parted, stormy eyes snapping to mine.
In an instant, he was on top of me again.
His kisses were slow but hard, purposeful and breathtaking. He sucked the skin on my neck on his way down to my chest, and then he palmed my right breast in his hand, appreciating the weight of it with a groan before his lips closed over the peak.
I arched into the touch, into his mouth, into him, and slowly, subtly, as if we were in a movie or the pages of an epic novel, time slowed, and every sense awakened to that man and that moment.
His pace softened, and he took his time with each of my breasts, sucking and licking and kissing and touching. I was so heavy with need when he finally backed off of me to stand again, and he kept his eyes on mine as he unfastened his belt, slowly stripping out of his sneakers and then his pants.
The bulge in his boxer briefs had me biting my lip, and I fell back into the seat, lifting my hips until I could shimmy out of my leggings, too. I pooled them at my ankles before I tugged off my sneakers and socks, then I peeled the leggings the rest of the way off — just in time to watch Jordan grip the band of his briefs and tug them down in one swift motion.
Then, he stood, his erection springing to life between us.
My lips parted as I squeezed my knees together, suddenly shy. It wasn’t that I was naked physically in front of my boss, it was that he’d already stripped me bare emotionally before a single article of clothing had been removed.
Jordan seemed to sense the shift in energy, too, as he slowly climbed back into the truck with me. He settled between my legs, and each inch of my skin he touched on the way fired shots through my nervous system until he hovered over me, our bare chests somehow hot and slick in the cool night.
For a long moment, his gray-blue eyes searched mine, and in that light, I couldn’t even see the burst of brown around the iris. They were just two icy pools sucking me into his depths.
He swept my hair away from my face, still marveling at me like I was the most beautiful creature in the entire universe. “Where did you come from?”
His voice was just a whisper, and yet I felt it deep within me like he’d screamed to the world.
“Just finished my walk through hell.”
“Does that make this purgatory?” he asked on a smirk.
I smiled, too, reaching up to press my lips to his. “I think that makes this heaven.”
He frowned, leaning into my kiss with purpose, one arm holding him balanced over me while the other gripped my hip with force. I bucked my hips, and with the motion, the slick heat between my legs coated his shaft, eliciting a sharp breath from us both.
“Syd,” he said, panting and pressing his forehead to mine as he stilled. “I…” He swallowed. “As much as you’re right about me not being able to resist fucking you right now, I don’t have a condom.”
My heart stopped for a second, but it kicked back to its quick pace in the next breath. “Are you clean?”
“Yes,” he answered automatically. “But…”
I swallowed, each half of me warring with whether I was ready to expose the next bit of information. But the desire pulsing through me won over the part of me that was somewhat ashamed.
“I can’t get pregnant,” I assured him with a soft shrug. “After Paige, I…” I swallowed. “I had a surgery…”
I didn’t have to tell him what kind of surgery for him to understand.
Those words hung heavy between us, and the fact that no one knew that about me — not even my ex-husband — was written in my expression. I knew it, because without me even having to say it, I could tell Jordan understood that no one else knew. His brows bent in a sad understanding, and he kissed my forehead before his lips trailed to each of my cheeks and back to my mouth.
The tender moment lasted only a moment before it was replaced with urgency ag
ain, and I felt myself open to him — my mouth, my heart, my legs — until the tip of him was at my entrance and all it would take was a nudge of my foot in his backside, or a flex of his hips, to answer all my needs.
Jordan’s breaths were shallow, his shoulders shaking where he held himself above me, and he broke our kiss, his mouth hovering over mine.
Then, on an excruciatingly slow roll of his hips, he entered me, and everything that wasn’t Jordan Becker faded to black.
Pain ripped through me in a flash, the sensation of being spread open after having that part of me empty for so long. I cringed against it, and Jordan kissed me, distracting me as he slowed his movements and made his way deeper inside me as gently as he could.
Each moment brought more ecstasy and less pain, until I was denting his flesh with my nails, bucking my hips to meet his, my kisses hungry and desperate and hot. I reveled in the way his back arched with every thrust, in the way his glutes tightened with each flex inside me. It was animalistic, the way he held me to him, the unbridled passion that flowed between us as he took me in the back of his truck. The rough fabric of his seat scratched my back as I scratched his, and pain danced with pleasure in equal measure with each passing minute.
Before I realized what I was doing, I’d pressed my hands into his chest, pushing him off me long enough to have him sitting in the seat and me climbing into his lap. He was barely out of me before I sat on top of him again, the length of him sliding in deeper, making both of us pause when he was all the way in as if we’d lost all breath completely.
The windows of that old Bronco were steamy and hot, but every now and then, a cool breeze would reach us from the forest, and I’d shiver and shake, the combination exhilarating.
Slowly, I began to move, my thigh muscles burning as I grabbed his shoulders and rode him. His hands were free to roam, and roam they did, gripping my waist and my hips and my breasts before they were cradling my face to his again.
I threw my head back on a gasp when he bucked into me, realizing that when he worked his hips in time with mine, a depth I never knew existed was reached. Each new thrust pressed a spot deep inside me that sparked my orgasm, like two rocks slicked together over a bundle of straw, just waiting to catch fire.
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