TITAN STANDS TO ATTENTION, POSITIONING on all fours as the hair on his back stands on end. He barks as three heavy knocks come to the front door.
When Katie started with a string of urgent texts, insisting we were going to talk, I was uneasy. Her last message, sent twenty-minutes ago, read she was anxious with, “Be home when I get there.”
So I’ve been waiting.
When I swing the heavy wooden door open, Katie stands outside, dripping wet. Not only is her plain, black button-up shirt drenched, she’s also out of breath. Her eyes are filled with tears. The tops of her cheeks are red, angry, and swollen.
“I’m coming in,” she tells me, slapping my stomach to push me aside so she can barge through.
At her erratic entrance, I’m annoyed. Not because she’s here, but because she’s a fucking mess.
“Where the fuck have you been and you ever think to use an umbrella?”
“Not important,” she clips, dropping her bag to her side.
Wet with rain and heavy with whatever she has in there, her purse hits the wooden floor with a loud thud.
“Maybe you could’ve thought to wear a fuckin’ coat,” I continue to scold. “It’s not even forty degrees out.”
Standing straight, she balls her hands to fists at her side, leans toward me, and panics, “Why are you here?”
My brows furrow with my confusion. “Say again?”
She makes no move from her standing spot to clarify, “Here. In this town, Mason. Why?”
Still not clear on whatever the fuck is on her mind, I slam the front door shut and turn to her.
She crosses her arms over her chest. Her hair is plastered against her neck and face and her wet clothes are sticking to her body.
She looks ridiculous, which is more so like the Katie I used to know. To my enjoyment, she’s a lot more flustered.
“Calm down and tell me what happened,” I lead.
“Amelia won’t talk to me,” she explains first. “She found out about Thomas and Grace.”
“Yeah?”
“She hates us both.”
“You know that’s not true,” I placate. “She’s pissed, but she doesn’t hate you.”
“I don’t know how she found out or when, but she knows about us, too.”
“What’s there to know?” I scold. “We haven’t done anything.”
“Well, she thinks she knows something then,” Katie flips back with impatience.
“She’s not a kid anymore, Katie. You expected her to stay oblivious?”
Visibly more annoyed that I have little reaction, she continues. “She won’t talk to anyone—Thomas, my dad, or me. Now she’s refusing to come home, so she’s staying at Connie’s. Averie doesn’t understand any of this, so she’s with Connie, too.”
“Teenagers act out. You’re here to blame that shit on me?”
“Averie won’t stop rambling on about you,” she keeps going, as if I hadn’t spoken. “She talks about you like you’re some goddamn hero.”
“Of course she’d think that. Averie’s a kid. Kids look up to a lot of grown-ups as heroes. Especially those who wear a cop’s uniform.”
Gathering her composure, Katie leans down, grabs her purse, and cuts the distance between us. Once she’s close, she glances up, and the tears she’s been bravely holding start to fall.
One by one. So much sadness. Even more regret.
“You’re not here to bitch at me about the girls, Katie,” I stress, this coming out calmly and evenly. “This is about us.”
With my reply, her anger returns. “This is about my life, Mason. And what you’re still doing in it.”
Callously, I reply, “I haven’t done anything to you or your life since I’ve come back. At least nothing I’ve wanted.”
“You promised you’d stay away,” she marks. “And you haven’t.”
Reaching up, I run my finger along her cheek. I expect she’ll back away. But instead, her eyes close and more tears fall.
I catch each one while noting, “You’re standing in my house.”
“I know.”
“You got in your car and drove yourself to my cabin,” I add to reason.
“Yes. I know. I came to—”
“In the pouring down rain.”
“Yes, Mason,” she replies with agitation.
“You knocked on my door late at night.”
“Oh God,” she whispers.
“Already set to what would happen if you came here again.”
“Wait,” she panics, opening her eyes and staring at my bare chest.
Giving her the truth for all that matters, I explain, “I’m not sure how I can be expected to stay away, when you and your girls are all but running toward me.”
“Mason?” she looks up to question.
In the depths of her contemplation, there’s an erratic mix of pain and release. Being here with me brings back scattered pieces of the girl I used to know. A girl I’ve fucking missed.
Katherine Dyer isn’t standing in front of me. The mother, the wife, the friend.
This is my Katie.
On a chance, I hook my hand around her neck and pull her as close as she’ll allow.
With her hands braced against my chest, but our foreheads resting to each other, I press, “Why did you come here?”
Painfully, as though confessing, she admits, “I lied to you.”
“You lied to me about what?”
“I told you I was still trying to wish you away,” she says, her voice a sad whisper.
“You’re not still trying to do that?”
“No,” she admits. “I stopped trying a long time ago.”
“And you wanted to tell me this?”
“Yes.” Her voice hoarse but certain, she admits, “I don’t have anything that’s mine.”
I don’t understand. I cup her cheek, leaving my forehead to hers and prompt, “I don’t know what that means.”
Shaking her head, as if to clear her thoughts, she explains, “I mean, all these years, I have only what others gave me. My marriage, my girls.”
“That’s a whole life you’re talking about, baby,” I tell her.
“You were mine,” she swears as a pledge. “All mine.”
“I’ve always been.”
Nodding, Katie states through a broken whisper, “Mason, my heart hurts.”
Her words spear my chest, threatening to break my soul. She came here for me. For us. And she’s doing that knowing both the risk and consequence. Her marriage may not be balanced, the love for her husband not completely true, but she’s here.
Finally, with me.
“Fuckin’ kiss me, baby.”
Katie doesn’t hesitate.
At the invitation, her closed mouth crashes to mine, and she wraps her arms around my shoulders. Then her lips part, granting me access to get in.
Her hands roam my chest, down my stomach, to the button of my jeans where she makes quick work of releasing them.
When I tear at the center of her shirt, the buttons fly across the room, landing in scattered pieces. Her chest labors beneath what I feel is her black lace bra.
She works my jeans until she’s found me hard beneath. My cock pulses in her hand. She looks down to watch our connection as I toss the remains of her wet shirt across the room.
Then we’re down on the floor.
“Ten seconds, baby,” I state, climbing above her, forcing her to realize what’s about to happen must be her decision. She can stop this. I won’t.
Her legs part and her tight skirt rides up her thighs at the same time her gaze meets mine.
Nodding, she orders, “Mason, please.”
She whimpers as I move her panties to the side, positioning myself outside her entrance.
She wraps her legs around my waist, her ankles locking firmly behind my back. And I slide in deep.
Fucking perfect.
“Fucking Christ,” I hiss through clenched jaws, holding myself still, exulting in being inside her again.
Katie’s small body rocks with added aggression. Her insides throb, and she lifts her hips from the floor, seeking the brink of what she knows is coming.
“You come here for this?” I question harshly. “Or for us?”
A feral moan breaks from her mouth; her fingernails scratch the skin at the back of my neck. In punishment, I bend to take her lace covered nipple into my mouth, giving it a vicious pull.
She gasps. I suck harder.
Her body jars, back and forth, up and down, grinding with the passion and want of a woman who knows what she needs. A woman who doesn’t give a fuck about the consequences.
“Fuck yeah,” I urge.
“You know me,” she claims on a tumultuous whisper. “You remember who I am,” she adds. “No one does.”
Concerned at her accusation and the tone she expresses it in, I wait for her to keep going. But she doesn’t. Her face finds my neck until her cheek is resting against my shoulder. Every inch of her is pressed against every inch of me.
“I know you,” I tell her to agree. Not to pacify her, but because I do know her. I always have.
Katie tilts her hips gently, as though holding me close and savoring every move. My hands grasp her ass. The smell of sex—the scent of us—penetrates.
Pushing against my chest, she locks her gaze with mine. She holds our eyes until hers slam closed with the power of her release.
Her pussy tightens.
My cock throbs.
Her breathing stops.
Mine becomes labored.
“Fuck yes,” I hiss. “Take what you came here for.”
With a piercing scream, followed by a gut-wrenching moan, she certainly fucking does.