SANDRA
Heat shivered up her spine when Trace’s eyes darkened. He’d been staring at her with that familiar heat since he walked in the door. She felt it echoed in her stomach, her chest, her legs, her core. She felt trembly and shaky. Their meeting hadn’t gone how she thought it would. It wasn’t full of heated accusations or poisonous words. She was so afraid that Trace would be angry with her for not telling him about his son. She’d made a call, the right call. He left. He chose a life of rough living, danger, and crime over a life with her. Maybe everything would have ended fucked up anyway, like most relationships. Maybe- maybe not.
That ember burning in her heart hadn’t died out. It burned as hot and bright as ever. Hotter. Brighter. Because Trace was right there. Standing right in front of her, looming over her, larger, more powerful, more- more male than she remembered. Her fantasies were a poor substitute for the real thing.
God help her, she wanted the real thing. She might be able to try and rationalize it away with her brain, but the dampness between her thighs made her a liar.
He was inappropriate. He belonged to a dangerous club. Who knew what he’d done over the past years? He was wrong. All wrong. He left her, broke her heart, dashed her hopes. He’d also given her the most precious gift anyone ever could. He’d made her a mother.
And now he was looking at her like they were all but kids again, two young people in love, like nothing else mattered, like not a single second had passed and they were right back where they started.
“I should- I should probably go. I’ll- send you money. Every month.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. I promise I won’t do anything more than that. I gave up that right. I get it. Thank you for taking care of him. He looks like a beautiful boy. Thanks for meeting with me. You didn’t have to. You don’t owe me a single thing, Sandy. I want you to know that.”
His dark eyes were fathomless pits, expressive, filled with emotion. He didn’t even bother to disguise his sorrow or his desire. The use of his old nickname for her fanned that spark burning in her belly into a roaring flame. Sandy. Only he got away with calling her that.
Trace swallowed hard, his throat bobbing with the movement. Her mouth watered. She wanted to put her lips there, to taste him. She wanted to challenge her memory. Would he still smell the same? Taste the same? Sound the same? Could he still make her body come alive like no one else could?
He frowned, and a deep furrow appeared on his surprisingly unlined brow. No one would ever know he was five years away from forty. “You deserved better, Sandy. That’s part of the reason I left. Even if I hadn’t patched in, you still deserved… better.”
Anger rushed through her, making her bold. She shoved off the couch and suddenly she was standing right in front of him. Her head barely came to his shoulders, but she looked up and placed her hands on her hips. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to stand there and tell me I deserved better than you. You didn’t have the right to make that decision for me like I was a kid who didn’t know better.”
Trace rubbed a hand over his jaw. She wanted to trace the same pattern, to make the tips of her fingers burn with the feel of that dark stubble. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I would have brought you down. Guys like me- I’m not good for anything. Anyone.”
“That’s bullshit,” she ground out. “Fucking stop. Stop saying those things. If you want to stand there and tell me you’re a coward who took the easy way out, then go right ahead, because that’s the only thing I’ll believe. You don’t get to tell me how I feel or what I did or didn’t deserve.”
“I am not and never have been a coward,” Trace growled. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
“Well- it- it wasn’t about what I deserved and what you deserved and you know it. And now you’re just going to walk out and pretend that this never happened?”
“That’s what you want isn’t it?” he growled. He took a step forward and leaned in close, so close that their faces were mere inches apart. His lips parted, and god, she wanted to grasp his face and slam his mouth against hers. She wanted to taste him, stroke his tongue, find out if that fire still burned as bright as it once had. At least for him. She was currently burning up on the spot. She’d burned all damn weekend.
Sandra inhaled sharply and had to swallow hard. Her mouth had suddenly gone bone dry. Trace smelled like he used to, raw, dark, masculine. The leather, gas and oil, the fresh air that clung to his hair and skin- that was new. He hadn’t owned a bike when she’d known him. Or, he hadn’t told her that he did. He hadn’t told her anything, really. Not anything that mattered.
Suddenly, annoyingly, she had to blink back tears The bridge of her nose burned and her eyes prickled. I will not cry. I will not fucking cry. She pinned him with a hard look as she tried to steel herself, to wall her wayward heart back up. God, she’d been fine, able to hold it together for nearly a decade, and one chance encounter now threatened to undo everything.
“What I want? You actually care about what I want? That’s new, because you didn’t nine years ago.”
He reached out slowly and gently set his hand on her cheek. The warmth of his touch undid her, those rough fingers so gentle on her cheek and jaw. He broke her with a single, sorrowful, regret filled look.
“I did. Believe me, I did. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“We can argue about wants and needs, what I deserved and what you did all day. I guess it won’t matter. It’s not going to change what happened.” She exhaled hard. “Just tell me that you’re happy.” Her voice wavered as the pad of his thumb skimmed across her bottom lip. She barely refrained from suckling his finger into her mouth.
“Happy?” He forced a smile and the lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. They were beautiful lines, though they hadn’t been etched there from years of smiles.
“Happy,” she whispered, heart aching. “I thought about you. Every single day. Every single night. All these years. I wondered where you were, where you’d gone, if you were happy or not.”
Trace slowly shook his head. He kept his thumb on her bottom lip and his touch burned all the way into her soul. “Happiness isn’t exactly in the cards for me. I think I’ve always known that. Since I was a kid.”
“You could be if you wanted to be. You could make it for yourself. Give your life meaning.”
“Meaning.” He smiled wistfully and the pain in his eyes was obvious. “That’s a nice sentiment. It’s too late now. I can’t leave the club. It’s the kind of thing you patch into and don’t leave on the right side of the turf.”
He dropped his hand and turned to go, but she stopped him. Her hand flew out before she thought better of it. She gripped his arm, her fingers biting into the butter softness of his leather jacket. The jacket with the club’s symbol. Snakes and scythes.
“That doesn’t have to be your future.”
“It does. I made my choices years ago. If this is my bed, then I definitely have to fucking lay in it. Regrets or not, my life isn’t my own anymore.”
She shook her head, unsure of what exactly the fuck she was doing. She’d lost him once. She’d let him go. She hadn’t fought for him. She didn’t think she deserved better like he said, but she didn’t want to be a part of the life he was making for himself. She realized now that she should have, because he wasn’t happy. His eyes were haunted. Her life, simple and hard as it had been, was filled with love and meaning, with purpose. She couldn’t say the same for him. The story of a broken heart was chiseled into his features, laid bare for her to see and judge.
She’d let him leave her nine years ago. She’d done nothing to find him, to get him back, to change his mind or fight for him.
Can I fight for him now? Can I change his mind? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. She should have let him go. Should have let him walk out that door and out of her life, but she leaned in instead. She wrapped her arms around Trace’s thick neck, twined her fingers in his dark soft hair and tugged his face frantically down to hers.
She’d spent a decade missing him. Longing for just one more taste.
Even if she couldn’t change their destiny or reshape their future, she’d have these moments with him, stolen moments, moments that would have to last for the rest of her life.