After Judge left town, I waited. Waited for my life to start with him. Then, for it to continue without him. I had been waiting for years for him, even if I lied and said otherwise.  I dated of course. I tried to move on. I mean, I tried to try, at least.

If they didn't have green eyes I didn't trust them at all. If they had anything but sandy hair, too long on top and silky in my fingers, I didn't like how they talked to me. None of them could compare to the man from my past.

Judge was more than my past. Once, he was supposed to be my whole fucking future. For years he laid next to me in bed, whosever we were snuggled in, and promised me that. Maybe at first it wasn't about us getting married or having babies. It was just about us being together. Judge protecting me from my family and from myself.

Me soothing the rage that erupted so often in him. Something little would set him off and he would lose it. I was always there. To hold him, to let him hold me. Cry if he needed to. Because he wouldn't cry with anyone else but me. Just like I stopped crying after the shit my father did to me. Until I knew it was okay, that Judge would take care of me. Then I cried whenever I needed to. He always put me back together.

As much as Judge saved me, I had done the same for him. That anger that he couldn't control was soothed only by me. We never tried to figure it out. Or wondered what it meant. It just was fact. I was all that could calm him and that was okay. Like it was okay that he was the only thing that made me feel anything.

Sometimes, walking down the halls, he would see me and shove me into an alcove. I wouldn't even see him before he was crushing me against him. Telling me he needed me to calm him down. Sometimes I would just take him to the fields we laid in. Or to the springs where we swam for hours. Others I would just hold him right there and tell him it was okay.

"Look at me, baby,” I cooed one day when a teacher had set him off, “Focus on me, Judge. Know what?" Judge smiled immediately and touched his nose to mine.

"What, baby?" His big hands combed through my hair as he calmed himself down.

"You smell like the woods. I like it. I love it. We should go camping tonight. Take your dad's tent and look at the stars. Catch lightning bugs." Then he smiled at me, bright and beautiful and just like that, he was back.

We were all the other needed for so long. I don't even know if we realized we were in love before we were. I don't know when the love happened. But I know when the want started. I can remember the moment I knew. It was before all those nights in the field, where he let me know he wanted me and I let him know I wanted him, too.

One warm Saturday afternoon we were lying in the shade by the springs. Judge had his back against a smooth boulder, no shirt on. Jesus, he was beautiful even then. I lay at his lap in a bikini and shorts, letting him play with my hair. Before those nights in the fields, things had already started changing between us.

But that day, I really felt it for the first time. Felt what it was like to be burned by need for his touch, for that heavy look he got when he looked at me. After that day, we weren’t the same and it wasn’t long before those nights in the field let us explore that change.

"You're so Goddamn pretty, Bug." I didn't feel like I was, but Judge looked at me like he didn't see anything else.

"Stop it." Judge smiled at me and slid his big hand down my front, between my breasts to flatten at my tummy.

As we sat in the sun that day, he touched me gently. Smoothed his fingertips over the curves of me. Gently. Possessively. Like I belonged to him. Which we both kind of knew I did. Looking down at me in the sun, he touched my mouth. Traced it with his thumb as he licked his own lips.

He leaned down and I knew he wasn't going to kiss me. Even if we both wanted it. Instead he pressed a kiss between my breasts, right where my heart was. Whispered something that took me a moment to really hear. Mine. Mine.

And I was. His. Even when he left and those phone calls broke my heart. Even when I let those men at the bar hit on me and slap my ass. Especially when Beau offered to try me out. I was always his and nothing and no one could change that. Not even me. Not even Judge telling me he didn't want me. Which it felt like he tried to do by staying out of my life for six years. Thing was, I knew he couldn't. Just like I knew I never would.

"No one else does what you do to me,” Judge had whispered one of those nights in the field, “I don't know...Bug you do everything. Make me feel everything. You scare the shit out of me. I want to touch you and I shouldn't. I want to take care of you and I can't. I want to give you anything you could ever want. Take you anywhere you want to go. I only feel complete, like I can be calm, when I have you with me, Bug." That night he was hungry, needy and I gave him whatever he needed.

"It's you or no one else for me too, Judge." I don't know if we meant it the way we eventually would then. I certainly did. I loved him.

We laid in the sweet-smelling fields, and he kissed at my skin and my tits and filled his hands with them. Touched me between my legs as we both moaned into the night skies. Let me work his hardness until he came on my belly, breathless and hard in seconds again. And then we did it all over again.

Those nights were the sweetest, most erotic nights I had ever shared and they had been perfect. They were what I knew of love. Of need and desire. Judge marked my skin with his teeth and his tongue and I bit marks into his chest and his shoulders. Still, we never kissed. Not really. Until he finally kissed me, I didn't understand why.

But, once he did, I knew why. Because nothing else tasted like Judge. Sweet and hungry and all I would ever want again. It was like putting a key into a lock that had been tightly closed until just that key fit. The moment his full lips touched mine, I was done.

When he took me days later, holding me in the hot springs and watching me as he thrust into me, I knew nothing else would feel like that. I was foolish. Barely a teenager but I knew I loved Judge Walker. Knew I wanted his touch for the rest of my life. Wanted to feel him moving inside me, kissing at my mouth and claiming me as his. Wanted him to lose control inside me like he did that night.

"I fucking love you, Cress,” Judge had grunted after he emptied himself inside me, “so much. I need you baby." I was a mess, knowing he was leaving but holding onto the promise that he would come back for me.

"I love you too, Judge. So much I can't breathe knowing I'm losing you." Judge had lifted us from the water, taking us to the very rock we used sit by under the sun.

"Never. I could be gone a year or ten, Cress. Doesn't change what this is. You're mine,” Pinning me to the ground, he drove inside me again and I cried out, “Only mine. You don't let another man touch you. Ever again. If you do and I find out..." This was marked by some hard thrusts and I moaned, loving how possessive he was with me. I needed to feel like he wanted me as desperately as I wanted him. Like I truly belonged to him, because I needed to belong to someone.

"Don't you give this to someone else then." I rolled my hips and took him deeper inside my little body and he growled.

"I won't. I won't ever see anyone else but you, baby. " I believed him. I gave him every part of me and expected him to hold onto it. Like I held onto him.

For too long I had held onto those memories. The feel of the warm water as he made love to me. Of the sun behind his head as he told me over and over he loved me. That he would be back for me. The smell of the air and our sweat. The sounds of our bodies meeting, his growls and my breathy moans filling the hot air.

I can remember the way he kissed me slow and deep every time he came. Which that day, was plenty. I could still taste the sweet cherry Coke flavor that I always associated with Judge. Now he tasted like whisky and coke and smelled like the woods and sex. And me.

My mind is spinning now. Partially because Judge had just made me come more than I had in weeks. Mostly because…Judge. I’d waited for him for so long, even when I pretended I no longer was. Every sandy-haired, green eyed man who crossed my path reminded me I was lying. I was always waiting.

Now here he was and he expected me to let him have all of me again. Did he intend to give me the same in return? Or would he walk out and break the promises my foolish young heart had so long hoped he'd keep?

What blows my mind more—I feel no hesitation. I want him just as fiercely as I did six years before. I want him to tell me he’s here to stay. To keep those promises. Nothing else would matter to me if he says those words. That he’s really mine. To keep. For fucking good.

We lie in my big bed, his rough hands feeling so good on my skin. Restless and hungry, moving over the swell of my breasts, the curve of my hips. Learning me. Touching me just like he had those nights in the field.

Except this feels different. Because my hands roam too. Touching the tattoos that spread over one side of his body. Seeing song lyrics and little designs that hit me right in the chest. Because I think maybe he’s been waiting too. I kiss each curve at his chest, his shoulders, nip at his neck. We lay like that for what feels like hours. Learning one another again.

I trace his beautiful face and the lines of the muscles that led to his cock. Which bobs towards his stomach and urges me to touch it. So, I do. I wrap my little hand around him and he groans, peering up into my eyes with need. Just like the hungry boy I knew so long ago.

"Judge..." My body bows to his touch, like he knows just how to play it. I know we should be talking. I can't speak, though. 

"Bug, I missed this. Holding you in bed. Even though it was never like this." My giggle cuts into a gasp as he spreads me open to him. Finds me wet and needy.

"Oh,” God his hands are like magic, “We need.... I need to...oh." I’m soaked as he pumps his fingers into me, making me supple and hungry to his touch.

"Mmm, I need to watch you come for me again, Bug,” Jesus, his dirty talk makes me so hot, “Then I need to tell you everything. Then you need to ride my face so I can taste your sweet pussy. Look at me, baby." Again, I nod because yes, I want that. All of that.

Judge watches me as he makes me come, again. Tells me that I belong to him and he wants to punish me for thinking otherwise. That he made a promise and he never broke a promise to me. Even if it took half a decade to keep. Watching him as he slides into me again, I know I don't care about the time between the first time he touched me and now. I do belong to him.

Even if I tried to pretend otherwise or thought I could convince myself I didn't. I would always belong to Judge Walker.