Hutton

When Ally said we can never be, I’m guessing by how handsy she was with me, she means starting tomorrow.

Signals are not just mixed.

They’re completely scrambled.

A table for four turned into two tables for eight and then three tables for twelve until the whole pub was drunk and sharing pitchers all on Everest Media. Bennett and I had become the most popular people in town. Who knew all it took were a few rounds of beer?

We did.

Even though I had no intention of getting Ally and her siblings drunk, it’s been a positive side effect. For me. She’s relaxed and covertly touching me every chance she gets, tempting me to take her into the bathroom and lock the door for an hour. Well, an hour might be my ego speaking because I never could last long with her.

Laughter fills the place as fiddlers and a guitarist enliven it even more with music. “I feel like I’m caught in the middle of Hansel and Gretel.”

“It’s like a fairy tale here.” Her smile fades too fast, though, and she looks at our hands touching on the bench between us. Her pinky lifts and rests on top of mine. It’s the littlest of acts, not one that anyone else would notice, but I know what she’s doing.

I lean over, and whisper, “I miss you.”

She nods but remains quiet, letting inhibitions she never had in Austin creep in. Why does she hold back? Where’s the spirited woman I know her to be? I want to pressure her into saying those three words again in hopes of hearing another three right after. But we’re in a public place, so I know I’m living in my own fairy tale if I expect more from her.

Jakob calls from the other side of the bar, “Hey, Everest?”

Bennett’s been missing for a bit, so I guess that’s me. “What’s up?”

“Now that you’ve been to a proper Bruden bar, what do you think?”

“I like this place.”

Another guy shouts with a thick accent, “Come on. We don’t care about the pub. Share your latest conquest of the female variety.” Holding his hands in front of his chest, he adds, “And tell us if everything’s bigger in Texas like we hear.”

I could go with my standard answer of my package, but I’m not in college anymore, and I don’t need to impress this guy. I just nod, letting the comment pass as the crowd gets lost in their own circles again while laughter rings through the small place. But then I hear Ally ask, “How have you been?”

Seeing those sky-blue eyes on me again gives me a strength that was starting to weaken. It’s such a personal question to ask in the middle of a public setting, but I get it. It’s safe here. No matter how personal we get verbally, physically we’re still countries apart. I say, “The morning you left plays on repeat in my head. Every day. All day long.” While I slept the air has become stale—her scent fading too fast—the warmth she brought gone, leaving the room cold. I pull the covers down and finally face reality. Ally Edwards is gone.

“Hutton . . .” Her head falls forward as her pain sneaks out, and her eyes dip closed. “I’m sorry.”

“Look at me.” When she does, I say, “You don’t have to apologize for hiding this side of your life. I just wish you wouldn’t have let me fall so far, knowing you were leaving.”

“I was selfish. With you, I was selfish.”

Honesty is seen in her eyes and heard in her tone, but we shouldn’t get this heavy when we’ve been drinking, so I rub her leg. Tears sparkle in her eyes, tempting me to kiss her pain away. “Why are you crying? This is what you wanted, right?”

Her hand slips under mine, and our fingers fold together. “Because I still . . . love you. I don’t know how to turn that off, but I can’t have you and Brudenbourg. I want my cake and to be able to eat it too.”

I could crack a joke about that, but this is the most real we’ve been with each other since she left, so I hold the jokes and hold her to the fire. “Why can’t you?”

“Because no one can know about us.”

“What’s the big deal? Will your parents not approve?” I can’t believe I just asked that as if I’m a fucking teenager. At thirty-one, I never thought parent approval would be an obstacle keeping me from the woman I love.

There’s not enough time to tell her how empty my life has been without her—not being able to text her during the day, the loss of our long-distance calls at night, the weekends she used to fill now so lonely. With this trip soon coming to an end, I can’t waste the time we do have together.

I decide to spill my feelings onto the splintering wood table before us. “It doesn’t matter what I say, you have an automatic response. This situation, like us, is unique. I hear what you keep telling me. I understand you want to be queen one day. That’s incredible. So much so that I can’t even wrap my head around your reality. But here’s the thing. I don’t have to wrap my head around it. I just have to support you and what you want, but where does that leave me and what I want?”

With her guard down, I can see the sympathy in her eyes. “What do you want, Hutton?”

“It’s simple. I want to be with you. Again.” I put my hand up to stop her from repeating her canned response. “I know we can’t be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it, that I don’t want you. I guess I’m a fool for feeling so much for you all this time when you had already closed off the option for us.”

I’m not sure what this woman has done to me. I suddenly sound as pathetic as I feel. Fuck this. I start to stand, but her hand tightens around mine, her plea creating a line between her brows I’ve never seen. “Hutton, please.” I sit back down and wait to hear what she has to say as if I’ve waited my whole life. She says, “It’s not been like that at all for me. I’ve cried myself to sleep every night we’ve been apart. It’s a reality I struggle to accept. You once asked me why I didn’t show up for our weekend in Houston.”

That she’s still holding on to me so tightly makes me want to give her this chance to cleanse her soul of the sins she needs to free.

“If I had come—”

The cracking of wood ends the conversation abruptly. A chair is broken when two dudes start throwing punches. I jump up and lift Ally to her feet, standing to protect her from the chaos. “This way.” I wrap myself around her, covering her from the flying glasses and anything else being thrown as the entire pub joins in the fight. When we reach the far wall, I use my body as a shield until we reach the door and I can get her out of here.

The quiet street and late hour stand in stark contrast to the bright light streaming through the open door as we hurry to a doorway and hide in the shadows. I press her against it, using my body to protect her from harm.

“You’re my hero.” Her arms come around my middle, and she holds me from behind. She feels so good.

“Not a hero.”

“You are to me.”

“Where do we go?” I ask, turning around when it seems we’re at a safe distance from the fighting.

She remains wrapped around me but now has her cheek against my chest. “Back six months, so I can tell you how I feel about you sooner.” Looking up into my eyes, she says, “When I said I love you, I meant it. But—”

“But when you said you can’t be with me, you meant that too.”

Ally nods, her gorgeous face grief-stricken under the confirmation. I hate seeing her in pain, especially if I’m the cause of it even if it is at my expense. Caressing her soft cheek, I say, “We don’t have a future, but we have tonight.”

“Do we?”

“That’s up to you, princess.”

Her arms tighten around me. All the signs I used to notice when I knew she wanted more than she was getting, more than she could voice she wanted, are bubbling to the surface.

Heavier breath, causing her chest to push against mine.

Lips licked and bitten with such an innocence that we never were.

Pupils widening, the lighter blue being taken over by darker thoughts.

Hands that slide under my clothes without hesitation, journeying to their final destination without a road map.

“If you’re offering . . .” she starts. Words are spoken standing on the cliffs of breathlessness. “I want tonight.”

My lips are on hers like time will turn to ash if I don’t. If our relationship is doomed to go up in flames, we might as well be the ones who start the fire. There’s no slow when it comes to us. We were never into foreplay because we’d rather fuck instead.

We were flames to ashes in a flash.

My jeans constrain my cock, which is hard as a fucking rock. Holding this woman again, kissing her, thinking about the possibility of being with her again doesn’t just sober me, but energizes every part of my body.

I press my body to hers in the corner of this closed shoe shop. Her fingers tangle into my hair, pulling me closer. Keeping her mouth against mine, she whispers, “I want you so much. I missed this connection, your touch, the feel of your body controlling mine.”

Control.

Her body is mine to play, to tweak, to bend to my will and elicit the perfect pitch of an orgasm. She’s my playground, my fever, my every wild day tamed from my lion ways. I don’t pace the cage when she’s near. Bars can’t keep us apart, only her obligations.

Closing my eyes, I take in her soft floral scent as I kiss the delicate curve of her neck. Her lips at my ear urge me for more, her murmurs little kitten purrs. Her hands lower from my back to my ass as one diverts to rub the front of my pants. “Careful,” I warn, my restraint not as strong as the denim of my jeans which is currently cutting off circulation.

“Or what?” There she is. There’s my spitfire.

I pull back to let the light from the lamp across the street brighten the dark corner we’re in. “Or we’re going to be fucking right here.”

Her eyes are fixed on mine. “Would that be so bad?”

“You’re a very naughty princess.”

Her tongue dips out and wets the corner of her mouth. “I may not want to own it, but I earned my reputation.”

Shaking my head. “I don’t think so, but you’re about to.” I’m about to turn her around and tell her to hold the wall, but Bennett’s obnoxious whistle fills the air. It’s a call into the night we always used to use to find each other in our party days. “We need to go.”

“What? No,” she says, desperation manipulating her fingers to fist my shirt and hold me in place.

A chuckle escapes, echoing along with the sirens arriving on the scene down the street. I take her hand and kiss her wrist. “We’re going to leave, but I’m not leaving you tonight.” I run my hand into her hair and hold her head so her eyes stay on mine. “Not until I’ve tasted every part of you, inside and out.”

“We can’t—”

“We can, and we will, because I see how you look at me, how you want me. I feel how you touch me. You gave me no choice before, but now that I’m here, I’m not walking away without a fight, because no matter what I thought you meant in Austin, I’ll never be done with you either,” I reply, dropping to my knees before her. “My princess.”