Chapter Four

Cohen

Fate just kept seeming to hand me opportunities to get through to Vi—sorry, Vienna—but I kept ruining each chance as it came.

Or rather, she kept blocking me.

She wouldn’t let me in, wouldn’t give me the chance to fix this. Our story might have imploded ten years ago, but it may as well have been only yesterday with the walls and armor she’d protected her heart behind.

However, given the choice between having to call her parents to come and pick her up, or letting me boost her car, she chose me, which had to count for something.

But that didn’t mean she was going to give in and talk to me. She’d remained mostly silent for the first half of the drive, offering me only a muttered “Thanks, by the way,” after she’d climbed in the passenger side and buckled her seatbelt. And for that first ten minutes or so, I let her have the silence she wanted.

As I took the exit for Garrison and pulled off the main highway, though, I knew I only had about another ten minutes left with her to myself. And who knew if I’d get the chance to talk to her like this again?

“What brought you back home?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road and my tone even. “I knew you’d been in New York at one point.”

She didn’t turn toward me, didn’t give any signal whatsoever that made me think she’d even heard me, and I didn’t think she was going to answer. Finally, her voice came out over the radio station that played low. “I left my job,” she stated simply. “I’m surprised there aren’t fifty different rumors flying around Garrison about why I’m back. Or, is that why you’re asking? To confirm which one is true?”

“Easy,” I gave her a sideways glance. “I didn’t even know you were back until you crashed into me yesterday. It was just a question.” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why, of all places, she ended up back here, when she spoke again.

“It seems I don’t handle drama well,” she explained. “In the workplace, or in my personal life.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a dig at me, but I didn’t get a chance to call her on it. A shrill electronic ringtone sounded, and Vienna pulled her cellphone out of the front pocket of her purse.

There was no mistaking the hesitant look on her face. She didn’t want to answer that call in front of me, but with a resigned sigh, she pressed the button on the screen.

“Hey. I was going to call you soon.”

So, she knew who it was, and knew they’d be expecting her call. I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but it was kind of hard not to in the front seat of a Ford Escape. Besides, her tone had piqued my interest.

“My car broke down. The battery’s dead, I think. I’m just getting a ride to—”

She stopped, obviously cut off. I knew what was coming.

“Cohen offered me a ride,” she admitted. A pause, then, “Stop it, Garrett. I’ll call you when I get back from picking my car up.” Another pause. “I said I’ll call you, okay?”

It took me a moment to realize he’d hung up on her. “Still friends with Garrett Hunter, huh?”

“Some things never change,” Vienna muttered.

“I take it he wasn’t too thrilled to hear you were with me.”

She turned to me, the dashboard lights glowing back at me in her eyes. “If the roles were reversed, would you be?”

I pursed my lips, letting silence fall again. I hated that this was what we’d become. Cohen and Vienna, the young couple that were going to set out into the world and take it all by storm, had become only a vague memory of what we’d once been, shallow husks of the vibrant, passionate team we’d made.

“If I could take it all back, Vi, I would. You’ve got to know that.”

“I know,” she sighed, her gaze focused somewhere outside the passenger window. “That doesn’t change what happened, though.”

“I don’t even remember it—”

“And that doesn’t make things better, either,” she snapped.

“Fuck, I know, Vi!” I banged the steering wheel, immediately regretting it when she flinched beside me. “Christ, I’ve spent ten damn years trying to figure out what the hell happened, but it just doesn’t make any sense!”

“You were drinking, Cohen—”

“Yeah, I was! But you know me better than that, Vienna. When the hell did I ever drink to the point of blacking out? Never.” I swallowed down the bile in my throat, sickened with myself all over again for what I’d done to her. “Never,” I repeated.

“Well, that night you did!” She barked back, shifting in her seat to face me more squarely. “You don’t get to be angry at me for this! Do you hear me?”

“I’m not angry with you!”

“You’re yelling at me!”

“Because I fucking love you!” The words tumbled from my tongue, as necessary as a breath of air. “I’ve always loved you, Vienna. I never stopped.”

We were just outside the town limits, but I’d made the mistake of holding her gaze for more than a second. At the first sign of her bottom lip beginning to quiver, I did the only thing I could.

I pulled over.

There was no way in hell I could concentrate behind the wheel with even the slightest possibility that Vienna might begin to cry. Not only would her tears break me from the inside out, I’d end up driving off the goddamn road.

I pushed up on the gear shifter, throwing the SUV in park. “Vi—”

“Why didn’t you come after me?” she whispered.

In the neon glow of the dashboard lights, I was sure my puzzlement was clear. “I did, Vi. I went to your parents’ house the next day, and I—”

“I don’t mean the day after. I mean—”

“If you’re referring to when you found me with…her,” I couldn’t even say Jenny Arnett’s name in front of Vienna. “I swear to God, Vi, I didn’t know what happened until Garrett told me when I woke up. I must have been completely passed out when you saw me. Or close to it, at least.”

Her jaw was clenched tightly, but she didn’t move. “I mean when I left town. You didn’t come after me.”

My puzzlement immediately transformed into incredulousness. It would have been so easy to tell her that I didn’t know she’d wanted me to. Or, I could’ve gone so far as to lie and say I’d tried to track her down.

But I couldn’t lie to Vienna. Not when I’d thought about going after her a thousand goddamn times over the years. And not when the truth was already on my tongue, tasting bitter and tart. “Because you deserved better,” I admitted, letting my shoulders lower slightly. “Better than someone who did what I did to you. You deserved more then, and you deserve more now.”

Vienna’s hands reached up into her own hair, and she clutched it as though she might tear it out. “I didn’t want someone better, Cohen! I wanted you!” she exclaimed. “Damn you! I still want you!”

Panic coursed through my veins as she fumbled with her seatbelt, undoing the buckle.

Fearing she was going to bail from the vehicle, I reached a hand out, grasping her wrist. Not tightly, but firmly enough for her to know I was serious.

Heat seared through me. Her flesh under my fingertips ignited a frenzied blaze within me, molten desire that had sat smoldering for a decade, waiting for the slightest touch of her body against mine to make it burst into flame again.

Her wide eyes stared at my fingers on her wrist, like she didn’t understand. But as her gaze came up to find mine, I understood completely.

She felt it, too.

I didn’t care how frightened and confused she looked. The only thing that mattered to me was the flicker of desire that sparked amidst that fear and confusion, flashing in her eyes like a green light.

Suddenly, my seatbelt was off and I was pushing the middle console out of the way, the only thing that separated me from her.

Vienna gasped, but it was cut off by the force with which my mouth crashed onto hers.

Her body was rigid, and even with my fingers still gripping her wrist, she pushed against me, fighting me.

And I’d have obeyed her—hell, I’d have apologized up and down for reading the signals wrong—if her attempt hadn’t been half-hearted at best, and her tongue hadn’t met with mine, causing a low moan of primal need to come from my own throat.

Within seconds, Vienna wasn’t resisting me at all. Instead, she leaned back between the passenger door and the seat, letting me push my upper body against her. Her head tilted back, panting as I kissed and nipped down the side of her neck.

There’d never been a more beautiful, erotic sound.

“Vienna…” I breathed, completely and utterly intoxicated by the taste of her, and the feel of her body beneath mine.

“Oh…” She was caught somewhere between rationality and letting go completely, and I wondered what kind of touch, or kiss, or lick would make her tumble over that edge of reason.

“You s-should go home, Cohen.”

Her words halted me, my mouth hovering dangerously close to the tender skin of her neck. I pulled back slightly, my breath coming out in ragged puffs as I fought to regain control.

She was right. Home. That’s where I needed to go.

But her reasons might differ slightly from my own.

If she was going there only for booster cables—to boost her car, to help her put distance between us again—she was sorely mistaken.

We’d get to that. But if this kiss, this heat and electricity and desire, was any indication, those wouldn’t be the only sparks flying tonight.