CHAPTER TEN

 

Brant

 

It felt like my heart was in a vise, squeezing slowly, painfully. My God. What this woman had endured. What she’d survived. I wasn’t a father—had no personal knowledge of that particular bond from the point of view of a parent—and yet I could hardly fathom how she was still standing. I pulled her closer, breathing in the warm, sweet scent of her, wanting to do anything to minimize the pain reliving that memory must be causing her.

“When?” I finally managed to ask.

She pulled in a shaky breath. “Three years ago.” I’d bet anything that she knew how many months, days, and hours came after that simplified answer, but I didn’t ask.

I’d known there was something more going on the second she came bursting into the barn, her eyes filled with such raw agony, it had stunned me. And then the way she’d sobbed into Mona Lisa’s neck when we’d found her baby . . . Fuck. I’d never forget the sight of her body wracked with grief as the rain pummeled the earth all around her. It’d branded me in some way I couldn’t even put into words.

“Did they catch him?” I held my breath as I waited for her answer.

“Yes.”

My breath rushed out on an exhale of relief. At least, at the very least, she didn’t have to fear that her personal monster was still out there somewhere.

“Is he in prison?”

She pulled back slightly, looking up at me. Her face was bathed in firelight, her eyes wide with sorrow, but also with . . . strength. I felt humbled to be in her presence, and so deeply ashamed as well. I’d thought I was the victim and she was my adversary when I first met her. What an idiot I’d been. When did I become that man? When had I become so used to game playing—manipulation—that I’d never imagined her intentions were based solely on kindness, on her own terrible understanding of what loss could do to a person, and nothing more?

“He resisted arrest and was killed.”

“Good,” I said, not intending for the word to come out with quite as much rage. “Did they establish a motive? Anything?”

“No. He was a drifter. He’d been in and out of prison, had drugs in his system. They said it was random.” She shook her head. “Just a random crime.”

The way she said it made my heart squeeze. Just? Had the police explained it to her that way? So . . . matter-of-factly? Maybe the murderer hadn’t picked them based on anything other than the geography of their house, or the privacy of the back entrance, something of that nature. But Belle’s family was dead and to explain it that way felt criminal somehow. How could your whole life implode based on something random?

I moved a piece of hair back, tucking it behind her ear. “I’m so sorry, Belle.” I cupped her cheek in my hand and she leaned into it. “So sorry. What you lost . . . it’s unimaginable.”

She breathed out a shaky breath, but lifted her head. “The truth is, my husband and I hadn’t had a great marriage.” Her lips trembled as she smiled sadly. “It took me a long time to say that afterward, even to myself. I knew it beforehand, but to think about it later felt . . . I don’t know, sort of like I was betraying him somehow.” Her grip on the material at her throat had loosened and I noticed her fingers move under the fabric, wrapping around the chain of her necklace. “I mourned him. I did.” She fell silent for a moment and I waited for her to gather her thoughts. “I was so young when I married him. He worked at a bank in town and my father took me with him to do business one day. I saw him and . . .” She shrugged, her smile sweet but sad. “He was just beginning his own investment company and he’d visit my community. I had so many stars in my eyes. So many dreams. And he promised to make them all come true. He swept me off my feet, and when I discovered I was pregnant, he suggested we get married and run away together. He would start again, he said, for me. And I thought it was the only way. I couldn’t bear the thought of feeling like an outcast every day of my life—of my child feeling like an outcast too, or worse, a mistake. We’d start fresh, somewhere new. I’d learn about the world, about motherhood, about love . . .”

“It didn’t work out that way?”

She stared at her lap for a moment. “No. It was okay at first. There were so many new things to see and explore. We didn’t move far, just a couple of hours away. And I was fascinated by the world outside the community I’d lived in all my life. But Ethan, he . . . changed.” She frowned, looking sad, alone. “He became distant, dissatisfied with everything I did. After Elise was born, he started staying out all night, telling me he was working late. I suspected he was cheating, but by that point, I almost didn’t care. He didn’t love me, but . . . I didn’t love him anymore either.”

“I’m sorry about that too, Belle.” Something about what she’d said—about feeling as if she was betraying her husband to think of him in negative terms—poked at an old bruise deep inside. Something I’d think about later, but not now when the woman in front of me was baring her vulnerable, scarred heart.

She played idly with the necklace between her breasts, something she’d been doing since we’d begun talking about her husband. “Did he give you that?” I asked, nodding toward where her index finger wrapped around the delicate silver chain.

She glanced down as if she hadn’t even realized what she was doing and frowned. “No. This key, it was in the pocket of the coat he’d been wearing the day he died.” She stared off behind me for a moment. “I carried so much guilt where my husband was concerned—not just to admit the truth about how I’d come to feel about him, but for the fact that the crippling grief I experienced wasn’t for him, but for my daughter.” She gave her head a small shake, looking at where her fingers held the chain, rubbing it between her thumb and index finger. “I found this key afterward and for a long time, I just carried it with me in my pocket. It felt . . . I don’t know . . . like a sort of tribute to him. Penance. A way to keep him with me, even when my mind and my heart were somewhere else. It assuaged my guilt so I could focus on my grief in the way I needed to. Later I bought a chain and started wearing it around my neck and I suppose it became habit to put it on each morning. I always wear it.” She gave a small laugh. “I suppose that doesn’t make much sense.”

“It makes sense to me. Do you know what the key is for?”

“No. It’s probably nothing very important. Just some random key he had in his pocket.”

I nodded. I guessed we all had odd keys lying around here and there. I had one in my gym bag that went to my locker at the gym . . . there was one in a kitchen drawer that went to the storage space assigned to me in the basement of my building. “It was more about the symbol than its use. I get it, Belle.”

I looked to the key, the metal glinting in the firelight. There was a small logo of some sort almost completely faded away on the top and I picked it back up between my fingers, bringing it closer to my eyes, familiarity niggling at my mind.

“You know what this looks like?”

“Two horses? I never could figure out what that might be—a club of some sort maybe? A racetrack?”

I shook my head. “This looks like the logo of a storage facility off Legendary Run. I used to think the sign made it look like some fancy place when I was a kid and we’d drive by it, but then it was really just a big lot of silver sheds.” I looked closer. “Might not be it, but it reminded me of that just now.”

I watched her for a second as she looked at the key, her eyes lingering on it for a second and then letting go of it. “Do you still hurt all the time, Belle?” How could she not?

Her lips trembled into a small, beautiful smile. “I’m usually okay, you know? I didn’t think it would, but the pain has dulled over time. I’ve never talked about any of this . . . and maybe I needed to. No, I . . . I definitely needed to. Thank you for”—her eyes shifted to the side for a second and she bit at her lip—“being here. Thank you for everything tonight.”

I leaned in and kissed her once on the lips, but chastely. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“You should get out of those wet clothes too. You’re getting me wet again.”

I followed her glance to the tarp and cringed. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I stood. “I’ll just step over here and get these off. I think if we hang them up, they’ll be at least mostly dry by morning.”

I grabbed another tarp, stepping out of the firelight and quickly discarding my wet shoes and clothes, wrapping the tarp around my waist and rejoining Isabelle. Her eyes lingered on my chest for a moment, and though it was dim, I could see the flush on her cheeks. I cleared my throat, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable, seeking to distract with conversation. There was nothing much I could do about my state of undress if we were going to dry out our clothes.

I needed my hands free to hang our stuff. I started moving the available furniture closer to the fire, draping our clothes on it. I swallowed as my eyes snagged on Isabelle’s bra, the knowledge that she was mostly bare under the tarp causing my body to infuse with heat that had nothing to do with the blaze jumping and crackling in the fireplace. I cleared my throat, tamping down my own internal flames. “That’s how you first came here then? The equestrian therapy program?”

Isabelle smiled, staring into the flames again. “Yes. My grief counselor suggested it when I had trouble even speaking about what happened. It’d been six months since . . . it’d been six months, and those horses, they were the first things that really made me feel alive, you know? Maybe they reminded me a bit of home . . . maybe they just spoke to my heart in a way nothing else had for a long time . . . I don’t know exactly.”

Clothes hung, I sat on a crate next to her. “What about your family, Belle? Surely they took you back after that.”

She paused for a moment. “I didn’t ask them to. They warned me about marrying Ethan. They said I’d come to regret it, that a marriage built on sin was bound to be punished by the devil.” Pain flitted across her face, and I wanted to throttle someone, but I wasn’t sure who. She swallowed before meeting my eyes. “Some days I think maybe they were right.”

“They weren’t right. No one deserves what happened to you, certainly not an innocent child.”

She took a deep, shuddery breath, but nodded. “In any case, I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t bear . . . I couldn’t bear to hear that what happened to Elise was my doing.” She took in a sharp breath. “Couldn’t bear to feel their judgment.”

“So you dealt with it all alone? Something so horrific?”

“Didn’t you as well?”

I stared into her eyes and then away, running my fingers through my now-dry hair. “It isn’t the same. I . . . grieved my mother, was angry at . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Everyone, I guess. But still, what happened to you . . .”

Belle gave a small smile. “We’re not comparing traumas, Brant. All I’m saying is that we both found our own coping mechanisms because we had to.”

“I guess.” I felt uncomfortable talking about what happened to me in any sort of reference to what happened to her. I had come to Graystone Hill with a suitcase full of pain and anger—not that it didn’t still exist, not that I’d unpacked it—but now . . . now what? What did I feel? I was suddenly confused. I rubbed at my temples. In any case, none of this was about me.

“So how did you remember so much about this place?” Belle asked. “The matches, the tarps.”

I smiled, pushing away the doubts pinging through my mind. Those were for another day, perhaps.

“This here used to be my love shack.”

She laughed and the sound caused a rolling sensation in my chest as if my heart had lifted and then settled back into place. “Oh God,” she groaned. “Do I even want to know?”

I laughed, picking up the poker and stoking the fire a bit. “Well, more accurately, it was my would-be love shack. I had big plans for me, those tarps, and Hadley DeGraw.”

She laughed again. “Didn’t end well?”

I sighed. “Sadly, no. I only got to second base underneath the football stands before she cheated on me with Kent Baker.”

She gave a mock wince. “Ouch. That hurts.”

“It did. But that summer I saved up and my dad helped me buy my first car.” I was quiet for a moment remembering the day we’d gone to pick it up. I’d been so damn excited . . . “Anyway, after acquiring a love machine, I no longer had the need for this old place. The rest is history.”

Her lips twitched as she nodded. “Too bad. The romantic potential is seriously off the charts.”

I laughed, raising my eyebrows. “It wasn’t exactly romance I was looking for.”

She rolled her eyes, but it was accompanied by a soft laugh. And sitting there, watching her smile after sharing her desolation, her slim form clearly defined beneath the linen she had tightened around her, the fire warming the room and creating moving shadows all around us, I thought maybe this place did have romantic potential. Or maybe it was just Isabelle who carried light within her. Magic. I cleared my throat, slightly uncomfortable with my own wandering thoughts. “Yeah.” I sighed. “Hadley really missed out.”

“Poor girl. No way Kent Baker offered her anything better.” I knew she was kidding back with me, though her expression remained serious as her gaze focused on the shifting flames once again. “I know this is the old bourbon distillery run by your grandfather, but was it operational at some point when you were a kid?”

“Yes. But my grandfather had a stroke and retired. My dad took over the farm.” I shrugged. “I suppose my father was more interested in the horses. He put his heart into that side of things and this place has been empty all these years.”

She hummed, looking around, though it was difficult to see beyond our small circle of firelight.

“Did he ever tell you the story behind the name of the bourbon once made here?”

She shook her head, looking at me with interest. “I don’t even think I ever knew the name of it.”

“Caspian Skye.”

“Caspian Skye,” she repeated. “I like that. And what’s the story?”

“It started with a feud that turned to love.”

“A Romeo and Juliet scenario?”

“Sort of. Only this one took place in the highlands of Scotland where whiskey was first invented. The clans of Caspian Skye had been feuding for centuries with the clans of Glasblair. It most likely started over a disagreement about territory lines, but no one remembers specifically. Glasblair was a prosperous land, rich in natural resources including a certain type of timber used in the barrels of the fine Scotch they made and sold. Meanwhile the people of Caspian Skye lived simple lives, their livelihood relying on the herbs and medicinal flowers they grew.”

“Ah, medicinal flowers.”

“Aye.”

Isabelle laughed, a girlish sound that made her seem youthful, untouched by despair. It caused my heart to clench and spurred on my storytelling enthusiasm.

“In any case, not only did the people of Caspian Skye love their home for its herbs and flowers, it was said that their souls were tied to the land and if any of them left, they would wither and die. So you can understand why they would fight tooth and nail to protect the territory they considered their own.”

“Of course,” Isabelle said, drawing up her shoulders.

“One day when the Glasblair clan leader’s son was hunting in the forest, he accidentally went too far and stumbled across the Caspian Skye clan leader’s daughter, bathing in a stream. She was irate—and naked. He was defensive—and enchanted. They fought, then they made up, fought some more, and when the day was done, they had both fallen in love.”

“That quickly?”

“Aye. Some things are written in the stars. Already in existence long before a pair of eyes meet.” I grinned. Winked. Wanting to make her smile.

Belle’s eyes seemed to soften before she looked away. “Why do I sense tragedy on the horizon?”

I settled back in my seat, enjoying this brief foray into fantasy. It felt like we both needed the escape, and given our shared penchant for adventures, this seemed apt. Our portal to the past. “Sadly, yes. The two young lovers risked the ire of their respective clans to be together anyway, sneaking away and marrying by the light of the moon. The groom took his new bride to his castle in Glasblair, intent on giving her everything and anything her heart desired, diamonds that sparkled like her eyes, rubies the color of her lips, and obsidian the hue of her hair.”

“She was a colorful lady.”

I chuckled then grew serious. “To him, yes. Anyway not long afterward, his beautiful wife began to wither just as the legend foretold. They tried everything—potions and tinctures, medicinal herbs, and extracts, but nothing worked to make her better. At great peril to his own life, he visited Caspian Skye where his wife’s mother took pity on him. She told him that the only cure for her daughter—now that her soul had withered so—was to be found in a purple orchid that only grew on the cliffs of Caspian Skye. And if she was given the nectar of this flower in time, she could be saved. But, she must never leave Caspian Skye again or she would immediately die.”

“A purple orchid, on the cold cliffs of Scotland?”

I raised a brow, resisting the urge to smile. “You, a skeptic, Belle? I’m surprised.”

Belle’s lip quirked, and then she went serious. “I shall suspend disbelief. Go on.”

“Finally, even though she was so weak she could barely hold her own head up, her husband put her on his horse and rode her to Caspian Skye. It mattered not that doing so meant surrendering his kingdom, his home, for if she could never leave Caspian Skye, neither would he, whether dead or alive.”

“Did the purple orchid save her life?” Belle asked, and though I’d teased her about being a skeptic, I could tell she was holding her breath, hoping for a happily ever after. I wished I could give her one, I really did. But I couldn’t edit the ending. I hadn’t written the story.

“Sadly, no. They did find the flower, but it was too late for the young bride. The clans people took pity on her distraught husband, allowing him to stay on Caspian Skye, for that’s where his beloved’s soul remained.”

“How sad,” Belle whispered.

“The tragedy brought the two clans together and eventually, they began making a Scotch using the timber of Glasblair infused with the flavor of the purple orchid of Caspian Skye. The Scotch was known for its fine distinct flavor and was sought after far and wide, a vintage that was the result of a love so great it was a thing of legend. A love so strong that it’s said if you stand on the cliff of Caspian Skye, you can still hear the echo of the young bride’s voice in the wind, calling to her love for all time.”

The fire crackled and the wind raced through the old building, a shutter or piece of exterior wood flapping somewhere outside. We were both silent for a moment before Belle finally spoke. “Caspian Skye,” she murmured. “A would-be king who gave up his kingdom for love.” She smiled softly. “This old place holds romance after all, then.”

“I guess it does.” We were both quiet again for a few minutes, Belle looking thoughtful. Her stomach growled, breaking the silence. She looked up at me, laughing softly.

I grimaced. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything to eat. Except maybe some old spider bodies in the corner.”

She laughed again and shivered. “I’ll survive one night.”

“We’ll plan to head back at dawn’s first light.”

She nodded, yawning. It was still relatively early, but she had to be tired after all the spent emotions. I was too, now that I thought about it. “We can make a bed of sorts in front of the fire if you’re tired.”

She nodded. “Here, I’ll help.”

I gathered a few more heavy linen tarps from the old trunk, shaking them out well before bringing them over and in a few minutes we had a makeshift bed on the floor. I grabbed our coats, which were mostly dry, then folded them to form pillows. It would do for one night.

I lay on my back, staring at the black, shadowy ceiling above, feeling tired, but also restless. Awkwardness filled the air between us. I wasn’t sure if I should try to make it less so by talking or whether I should just force myself to fall asleep. But then I heard Isabelle’s soft snore next to me. I smiled in the dark, turning toward her and watching her for a few minutes as she slept, her expression peaceful, mouth parted slightly.

I must have slept for a time too, because when I heard Isabelle crying out softly in her sleep, I opened my eyes groggily, somewhere between a dream I couldn’t piece together and reality. I blinked at the fire, noticing that it was half the size it’d been what I thought was only minutes before. It would burn for another hour, maybe two, but then it would go out. That was okay. We had covers for warmth and it would be dawn soon enough.

Belle let out a tiny sob as if she were having a bad dream and I rolled toward her, pulling her against me and holding her close. “Shh,” I whispered. “You’re okay. Just a dream.”

She stilled in my arms and for several minutes I just held her, whispering words of comfort, her muscles relaxing and her body melting into mine. She turned slowly, hesitantly, until we were face to face. For a moment she simply stared into my face in the very low flickering light. She brought her hand to my cheek tentatively, turning her fingers over and moving them down the stubbly skin of my jaw. Isabelle reached for my hand, bringing it to the naked flesh of her breast.

Every cell in my body went on high alert, and I pulled in a sharp breath, my already half-hard erection surging forward. “Isabelle,” I said, my voice raw, suddenly desperate. My mind felt foggy, my fingers itching to trace the soft, full mound under my palm, but I fought to stay lucid, in control. I did not want her to regret anything about tonight. I didn’t want her to act out of a neediness that stemmed only from what she’d spoken of earlier, need that would be gone with the morning light, leaving only embarrassment and remorse. No, I wouldn’t risk that.

“I’m sure, Brant. Please, I”—she lowered her eyes, her lashes creating dark crescents on her cheeks—“I want you.”

Maybe it was the word want instead of need. Maybe it was just that my control was hanging by such a delicate thread, but at her assertion, I brought my lips to hers immediately, a groan of desire vibrating in my throat and passing into her mouth as she opened, allowing me entrance. We kissed for long minutes, tasting, learning, my body growing hotter, harder, my need increasing until it was pulsing, throbbing in both pleasure and pain.

I moved closer, my erection probing her stomach and she broke from my mouth, a gasp on her lips as she tilted her head back, giving me access to her smooth, sweet neck. I licked and kissed it, moving my mouth to the soft place behind her ear, the spot that made her gasp and press herself against me. Oh Jesus. She was sweet.

I rolled partially on top of her, feeling wild, wanting to taste every part of her, but forcing myself to slow down, to take my time. I would enjoy her because Lord only knew if I’d get a chance to do this again. But I’d also give her the opportunity to halt things if she changed her mind.

Please don’t change your mind.

She gripped my head in her hands as I licked at that soft spot that drove her crazy, moving lower, kissing the dip between her breasts and then taking a nipple into my mouth and rolling my tongue around it once, twice.

She cried out, the sound shooting to my cock and causing it to harden painfully.

I licked and sucked at her nipples, the soft skin of her breasts, over them, under, and then back to her nipples until she was gripping my hair and rolling her hips. “Brant, oh God,” she moaned. “I . . . please don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” I promised, returning my mouth to the place between her breasts. Her husband’s key was a warm piece of metal just above my lips and I leaned up, making eye contact with her as I lifted it. She hesitated very briefly but raised her head, allowing me to remove it and set it on the trunk next to where we lay. I moved my mouth back to her breasts and then lower, trailing my tongue down the middle of her stomach, my hand gliding over her ribs. I felt the smooth but raised skin of a scar under my fingertips and lifted my head, seeing the place where she must have been shot. My chest tightened for what she’d been through and I brought my lips to the place where she’d healed—the proof of her survival—circling it with my tongue, brushing my lips over it and kissing that tender spot reverently. She stilled as I did so, pulling in a quiet intake of breath and letting it out slowly, running her fingers through my hair gently. It felt as though her tender affection communicated thankfulness. That she understood just how in awe of her I was.

After a moment, I moved past that memory of pain, dipping into her bellybutton and then kissing the petal-soft skin underneath. Isabelle’s grip on my hair loosened and she seemed tense suddenly, unsure.

“Brant?” she asked, sitting up slightly, her stomach muscles tightening beneath my mouth.

I kissed downward, pulling at the waistband of her underwear as I did so, using my arm to slide them underneath her bottom and down her thighs.

I thought I felt a hairline scar right before I made it to the soft hair covering her feminine mound and it caused my heart to skip a beat. Oh, Belle. That small line, the proof of her motherhood, another scar she carried. How did she feel when she looked at that one now? Was she glad she still wore that mark, or did it bring her sorrow? “Belle,” I murmured, as tenderness so deep I feared I’d fall into it, opened inside me. That, combined with my raging desire for her was an exhilarating cocktail of need I’d never felt before. It was slightly terrifying, but I didn’t want to stop. If anything, I wanted this to go on and on for as long as this night would last.

I pulled her underwear farther down her legs, gripping her hips as I pulled her legs apart gently. She sat up a little more, leaning on the backs of her forearms, her eyes wide as she stared at me. “You can’t . . . I mean . . . what are you? Ohhh,” she moaned a startled sound of deep pleasure as I licked straight up the seam of her sex, circling the small nub at the top. She fell back on another soft gasp as I sucked gently. Had she never had this done to her? No, that couldn’t be true. She’d been married.

Even the vague thought of Belle with another man made my stomach muscles tighten uncomfortably, and then she cried out, a mingling sound of pleasure and surprise when I gave her a deeper suck. Possessive. Her thighs clamped around my head, and she lifted herself to me slightly, pressing herself against my face, asking for more. A heady surge of satisfaction filled my chest at the mere idea that I could be the first man who’d ever tasted her this way. Pleasured her this way.

I kept working my mouth, sliding a finger gently inside her and groaning when I felt how wet she was, how aroused.

She said my name, her voice high pitched and breathy. It sounded like a question, like encouragement, like wonder all mixed into one exhaled word.

With my name on her lips said that way, something inside me slipped, tumbled, spiraled downward. Falling.

She gripped my hair in her fists, as I moved my finger in and out to the rhythm of my tongue on her clit and after only a moment, she cried out, jerking against my mouth. I slowed as her orgasm shuddered through her, her inner muscles gripping my finger tightly, then releasing as if her heart were beating between her legs.

I kissed her inner thigh and then crawled up her body. When I reached her face, her expression was full of so much joyful awe, I blinked. She laughed, the sound so full of happiness that I leaned in and kissed her, smiling against her laughing mouth. She gripped my face in her hands and kissed me and whispered, “More,” against my mouth, pressing her hips upward into my swollen cock. I broke from her mouth, hissing out a breath. I had just meant to bring her pleasure, hadn’t meant to take my own. But she was asking me for this, and I was lost. There suddenly didn’t seem to be one good reason why we shouldn’t enjoy every part of each other on this rainy night. It was only the two of us finding comfort, finding joy where there was still joy to be found.

I pulled my own underwear off inexpertly, as if I’d never undressed myself before, my movements jerky and awkward, and chuckled softly at myself. Belle smiled, too, and then reached between us, taking my hardened flesh in her hand and sliding up slowly, then down. I groaned, my head falling against her shoulder as I worked to control my breath, my heartbeat pounding wildly with the arousal coursing through my body.

I’d never had the chance to use this empty building as a horny teenager, but I imagined this was what it would have been like. I was a grown man and yet with this woman, somehow I’d reverted back to an inexperienced boy so turned on he was practically coming apart at the seams.

Belle didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, there was a joy emanating from her I’d never experienced during sex. With her, there was nothing feigned, no artifice, only an innocent candor that was both beautiful and arousing. It allowed me to let myself go in a way I didn’t know if I’d done for a long, long time, if ever.

Belle guided me to her opening, and I kissed her as I entered her body, groaning at the tight clasp of her, the way she squeezed me from the inside, her legs wrapped around my hips. For a moment I just breathed, willing myself not to come the moment I started moving. She felt so fucking good.

I thought I said her name, but I couldn’t be sure it made its way past my lips. Then I started moving, slowly at first as she gasped, tilting her hips so I could go deeper. “Oh God,” I grunted. “Belle, sweetheart, you feel amazing.” I thrust faster, our skin warm and slightly damp, not with rain, not anymore, but with the exertions of our bodies.

I brought my hand between where we were joined, finding her swollen bundle of nerves and rubbing it gently. She ran her hands up and down my straining biceps, her breath coming out in small pants. She came again a second before my own orgasm hit me with the force of a freight train, stars bursting before my eyes as complete bliss ran through me in waves, our mingled moans of pleasure echoing through the room.

In a pleasure fog, I found her mouth, kissing her as I came down. She was smiling and it caused my heart to gallop faster in my chest. I broke from her lips, surprised at the joy I felt. “What’s so funny?” I whispered, teasing.

She laughed as I pulled out of her, her laugh turning into a small, disagreeable sound.

I grinned, falling onto my back and reaching for her, bringing her with me. She lay half on top of me, running her fingers lazily over my chest. “I didn’t know it could be like that,” she said dreamily.

“Like what?” I asked softly, yet in truth, I didn’t either. At least . . . not anymore. That was the unbridled sex of youth, of two people who had nothing to prove and nothing to lose. Tomorrow that wouldn’t be us . . . No, it couldn’t be. We had two very separate lives, intertwining for such a short window of time. It was just this night, these circumstances, and the all-encompassing need for a release after the emotions of the day.

“Like . . . that place you took me to in the woods.” She tilted her head back, and God, she was stunning. That smile. That . . . exhilaration. “Like magic.”

I ran my fingers up the silky smooth skin of her arm, learning her, even as something inside warned me it wasn’t particularly wise. I’d remember later, wouldn’t I? Lying alone in my bed in New York? The feel of her body beneath my own, the sweet taste of her most intimate skin, the way pleasure made her laugh with joy, the memory of all those things fading, but not enough.

But I’d never lost sleep over a woman. Frankly, I was too damn busy. And so I’d lose myself in my work as I always did and sooner rather than later, this night with Belle would be a sweet, sweet memory but nothing more.

“What are you thinking so hard about up there?” she asked, running a finger around my nipple, tickling me. I laughed, grabbing her hand and holding it in my own over my heart. “I’m thinking I’m glad you called me last week.”

I felt her smile against my skin. “Has it only been a week?”

“Hard to believe, right? That life can change so quickly.”

“No. Not for me. Not anymore.”

I bent my head and kissed her forehead. Of course, who knew better than Belle that your whole world could change from one day to the next?

“How long will you stay?” she asked softly.

I paused for a moment. “I can’t stay much longer. A couple of days.”

“And will you . . . be back? I mean before—”

“I don’t think so, Belle.”

For a moment she was quiet, and then she nodded, laying her cheek against my chest. “You haven’t made up with your father.”

I sighed, lifting a lock of her hair, rubbing it between my fingers. “I don’t know if that’s possible. But, I think we came to a truce of sorts. Maybe it’s too late to hug and make up, but we spoke for the first time in many years, and that counts for something.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It does.”

I continued playing idly with her hair and after a moment her breathing changed, becoming deep and even. For a few minutes I lay in the quiet, listening to the snap of the dying fire, thinking about what we’d talked about—how quickly life could change. Wishing I could hold on to this—her—for a little bit longer, and knowing there just wasn’t a way.