Until I saw her review.
I’ve known about her YouTube channel for a while, and sometimes, when I couldn’t help myself, I’d watch her videos. She gives solid advice, but that’s not why I watched. I watched because I was starving for her, and that was the only way to see her.
I’ve watched every video at least ten times, and one of them probably fifty. She held eye contact the whole time, and I know every word of it.
And yeah… I’ve gotten off to it more than once.
I close my eyes briefly at the memory. It felt pathetic the first time, worse the second, and I told myself I wouldn’t do it again, but I did. Again, and again.
I’ve kicked most of my vices, but Sierra Leon is the one I can’t kick.
So, when she reached out about visiting the retreat—without realizing I was one of its owners—I knew I should say no, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, not when she was suddenly within reach again.
I’ve been imagining her arrival every day since, and I need to pull myself together before I see her, because after all these years this isn’t going to be a happy reunion. She almost certainly hates me, or at least holds plenty of contempt, assuming she feels anything at all.
Still, part of me wants her here because I want to help her. When we first met, we bonded over the dark places in our pasts, and while I’ve spent years coming to terms with mine, I don’t know if she’s done the same, and suddenly I need to know.
I open my eyes and check the clock, realizing too much time has passed and she should be here by now. I wonder if she’s backing out or if she’s lost, and I hope she followed the map I sent instead of the GPS route, because the new road isn’t on Google Maps yet but it’s far safer than the old mountain pass. If she didn’t take it, she could be in trouble.
“Jeez,” I mutter as I pace out of my office, unable to shake the urgency building inside me, the sense that something’s wrong.
Did she break down on the mountain?
Meditation classes are underway, soft voices drifting through the halls while water trickles in the courtyard and bells chime faintly, but none of it calms me as I push outside into the bright daylight just as the compound gates begin to slide open.
Relief hits first, then drops away when a familiar red truck rolls through.
Luke.
But he’s not alone.
Through the windshield, I catch a glimpse of blonde hair, a familiar profile, a smile I’d know anywhere.
Sierra.
My chest tightens as everything else fades, leaving only her. She’s here, after five years, and I can’t believe I lasted this long without seeing her properly. She looks almost the same, her blonde hair longer, her skin warmer and sun-kissed, her body fuller and healthier, her tank top revealing slender, toned arms that tell me she’s taking care of herself.
And she’s smiling, laughing, and something inside me eases at the sight, even as a flicker of jealousy threads through it, because I’m glad she’s smiling, even if it’s not at me.
I’ll have to warn Luke to back off. He’s flirty by default, but he usually knows better than to go near someone vulnerable, and Sierra may not look it, but she is. I just have to make sure he understands she’s off-limits.
I wait on the steps as they pull up, watching as Luke hops out to open her door while I stay partially hidden behind a pillar so she doesn’t see me yet. She’s still focused on whatever she’s telling him, animated and bright, and he’s hanging on every word.
I watch her face, her hands, the way she moves, and then the memory hits me—Sierra on white sheets, that teasing smile tugging at her lips as she pulls me down, her breath, her voice, the way she said my name?—
“I can’t wait, baby. Fuck, I have to taste you.”
I snap out of it with a sharp shake of my head, forcing myself back to the present.
Fuck. Get it together.
I clear my throat, and they both turn, but it takes her a second, then another, before recognition lands. Her face drains of color, the smile vanishing as her jaw drops and her eyes widen, shock hitting first, sharp and raw, before it twists into something worse.
Heartbreak.
It punches straight through me, and even though Luke says something, I don’t hear him, because all I can focus on is her, on the heartbreak turning into fury.
“Is this some kind of joke?” she snarls, and Luke actually jolts.