Like I still want to.
I press my lips to her hair, a growl rumbling in my chest. “No one will ever put you in a place like this again.” It’s not a promise. It’s athreat.
She plants her chin on my sternum and gazes up at me. “What did you want to show me?”
Lacing my fingers with hers, I pull her out. Just like I used to. “This way.”
Maybe I could continue to hate her and fester in that knowledge of what a snake she is. Should probably protect myself from the inevitable downfall of my heart. But I want to pretend it’s only us again. She and I.
My first and only love.
Can I pretend she never stabbed me in the back?
For tonight.
We reach the old, hollowed oak in the north woods, now split from lightning storms and years of turmoil from the erratic weather. I nod toward the base. The place that used to hold treasures no one knew about.
“Do you remember what you buried here?”
Ashlyn tilts her head, the gold of her hair almost white in the moonlight. “No— Oh! My diary! I couldn’t return to get it because that last summer, I…” She grows quiet. “Well, you know.”
Because she’d just given birth…tohisbaby.
“Before we packed up, I stole the key for it. The one you kept in the lining of your bunk chest. The only place to hide things. Quite unimpressive.” The memory hits me until the bruises of the past throb deep in my chest. “I came herethatnight, the one… Anyway, I found it.”
She flips her hair over her shoulder. “You found my diary. D-Did youreadit?”
“Every word.”
Shaking her head, she’s ready to wave it off. “It was a bunch of childish ramblings?—”
“About me,” I cut in, rougher than I intended.
She crosses her arms, my coat hanging low on her thighs. “Mainly, I wrote how much I hated you.”
“You did, but…things changed.” I can’t help my smile, recalling all her lovesick puppy dog confessions.
When she first broke my heart, it was a constant source of comfort…and a way to rip the bandage off and remember the searing misery. She’d lied. Even to herself. Even among the pages.
How could someone who loved me that much betray me?
“I think Aiden Cardell might be the air in my lungs, because when he’s gone, I can’t breathe right.” Eyes on hers, I recite it back from memory. I’ve never forgotten a sentence of what she had to say within those pages. “That’s what you wrote. Just one of many.”
She gasps, staggering back a step, the color draining from her face. “I mean?—”
“You knew how I felt about you.” My hand shoots out, fingers brushing hers before she can retreat. “I loved you with everything I had, Ashlyn.” I don’t stop, even as my throat tightens. “And you—you wrote I was your air. And still, you suffocated me.”
Fuck. Maybe I still love her. Maybe that’s the cruelest cut of all. That someone who soaks in apathy like a sponge only experiences pain around the woman he loves, the one he chooses.
Pulling her in, I ghost my lips over hers, enough to make her tremble against my chest. Her fists clutch my shirt like she’sdrowning. “Pretend with me,” I whisper against her mouth. “Remember.”
She nods, and I dive in without holding back. Our kiss is molten—tongues tangling, breaths stealing. I crush her against me until she’s molded to my body, no space left to breathe except through each other.
Then I scoop her up, carrying her through brambles and shadows, straight to the car. The back seat groans under us—ceiling too low, cushions too narrow—but I press her beneath me anyway. Her dress hikes up high on her thighs as she rips off my coat and flings it onto the front seat.
I tear my belt free with a hiss, leaning down to capture her mouth again—hungry, relentless. “I can’t get enough of you,” I growl into the kiss. “I swear to fuck… Youownme.”
She answers by biting my lip, unzipping my trousers, tugging them down with eager fingers, freeing me into her palm.