(Excerpt from AFTER WE BREAK, a standalone novel by Katy Regnery. All rights reserved.)
Instead of waiting for her to ring the bell or knock, Zach opened the front door, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. Violet parked her Prius beside his rental and slammed her door shut, car keys jingling in her hand.
“No hotels?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“Nope. Closest one is an hour away. Or a boat ride. You got a boat, Zach?”
She stood with her arms crossed over her hot pink sweater, looking annoyed. With her green pants and pink polka-dotted flip-flops, she looked like she was headed to a golf club for martinis. It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself. This is Violet. He didn’t give a shit what her clothes looked like. That sort of stuff had never mattered to him. Not with her.
“That mean you’re staying here?”
“I did pay for the privilege,” she observed, her tone salty and her smile fake. “Zach . . .”
“I’ll get your bags.” He didn’t let her finish. He didn’t want her to second-guess her decision. He just wanted her to stay.
He hopped down the two front steps, and she popped open the trunk. It took three pulls to get her massive suitcase out, then he threw the two smaller duffel bags over his shoulder.
“What the hell do you have in here? An anvil? Several small children?” He dragged the suitcase awkwardly over the gravel driveway as she followed behind.
“Two weeks’ worth of clothes and my second laptop and a bunch of books I’ve been meaning to read. Zach, I—”
“Look, the layout is three bedrooms and a sitting room upstairs and one bedroom down here. I took the one down here because I figured the upstairs could be totally yours. Does that work?”
“You knew I’d be back?”
I hoped.
He barely dared to look at her, shrugging as he kept his eyes down. He yanked twice to get the suitcase up the two front steps, wondering how in the hell she’d thought she was going to maneuver the beast by herself, and glad he could be there to help her.
“Okay fine. I’ll take the upstairs. But, Zach—”
“And we can just use the kitchen and deck and living room sort of as shared space. But I promise I won’t bother you if that’s what you want. I’ll be writing. Downstairs. There’s a recording studio. I’ll stay out of your hair, and—”
“Zach!”
He rested her suitcase against the newel post at the foot of the stairs and put her two duffel bags beside it in a neat pile on the floor. She had closed the front door and was standing against it with her hands on her small hips, frowning at him.
“What?”
“I have a room at the White Swan on Tuesday. This is only temporary. Just for a few nights, so don’t worry, I’m not staying.”
His heart sank like an anchor in the harbor. He wouldn’t have much time with her, after all. The disappointment constricted his chest and he clenched his jaw, grinding once, twice. She stood watching him with wide, challenging eyes, not moving from her position against the door. He took a step toward her, brushing his thumb over his lower lip as his eyes connected with hers.
“Violet.” He took another step, then another, until he stood in her space, directly in front of her. She didn’t try to slide away, but her breathing changed and her chest lifted more rapidly. He leaned forward, and she blinked at him once from behind those big old glasses that made her look so familiar, it hurt his heart. Made it ache like something bruised or sprained or sorely out of use. He reached up and tucked one stray hair back behind her ear, and she broke eye contact with him, holding her breath, looking down.
“Stay,” he whispered, his finger lingering on the hot skin behind her ear. “I just want to get to know you again.”
Her mouth formed an O as she let out a soft, unsteady breath. When she raised her eyes, they were glassy, glistening, and exhausted, and he longed to open his arms to her, but he didn’t.
Take it slow. He could hear Cora’s voice in his head, though his whole body rebelled against it after waiting almost a decade to see Violet’s face again.
“Why? What’s the point, Zach?” Her expression tried to be nonchalant, but she couldn’t conceal the hurt and anger that flared up behind her eyes.
And just like that, his strategy turned on a dime. To hell with scaring her away. If her face told him nothing else, it told him that she still felt something for him, too. And if he had only three days with her, taking it slow wasn’t an option, was it?
“This is the point,” he murmured, bending his head to kiss her.
He placed his palms on her cheeks as he had that night so long ago when she returned from the bus station. He pressed his lips against hers and was shocked by the familiarity of her after so many years, as if the part of his brain wired for Violet was suddenly tripped like a circuit breaker, turned on, alive.
To his everlasting gratitude, she stepped toward him, not away, and whether it was deliberate or unintentional, he didn’t care. She flattened her hands on his chest as he parted the seam of her lips with his tongue, tasting the lip gloss he had noticed before. Cherries or strawberries or some other -erries, it was light and sweet, but the inside of her mouth tasted better. Tasted familiar, like College Violet, like the girl he’d loved. His tongue found hers, lightly touching, then swirling around it, as his hands slid from her face, over the contours of her neck to her shoulders, down her shoulder blades to the small of her back, where he locked his fingers, pulling her away from the door, closer to him.
This was exactly how it had felt that weekend, only they were both older now, more experienced, more mature. He’d been a boy kissing a girl that weekend, and tonight he was a man kissing a woman. His whole body responded to having her back in his arms, tightening, hardening, wanting more from her, more from this woman who had haunted his dreams for way too long.
She moaned or sighed or whatever it was, it sounded like fucking heaven in his ears—an unexpected A-flat—and he tilted his head, repositioning his mouth over hers so their lips were flush and he had full access to her, full contact, full—
“No!”
He wasn’t expecting her to push him away, and he was surprised by the amount of force she used.
Her chest heaved up and down, and she covered her mouth with her hand, working her jaw. Her eyes were fierce and furious, churning with emotion.
“Don’t. Ever. Do that again.”
She held his eyes until he nodded once, then she walked by him, up the stairs like a queen, leaving him hot and bewildered on the cold marble landing below.
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