At first, he seems suspicious. ‘Yeah? What is it?’
‘You’ll see.’
I beckon him to follow me down the corridor. We turn the corner and when I reach our destination, I enter a door code and move inside, switching on the ceiling light. AJ follows me, and I close the door behind him.
He looks around, taking in the shelves of white linen and towels in the linen cupboard, piled high on all sides. I bite my lip as he moves closer to me, placing both hands on my hips.
‘We have a history with closets, you and I.’
‘We do,’ I respond, but I can barely get the words out as he’s bearing down on me, his gaze fixed on mine. A neat pile of towels presses into my back.
‘I should warn you,’ he says. ‘I stink.’
I slide my fingers up under his shirt, his skin warm and moist with sweat, running my fingertips over the ridges of his chest. His breathing is uneven. Right now, I love the smell of him. I hook my fingers into the waistband of his jeans, tugging him closer, aching on the inside for him to claim me with a kiss.
I’ve ached for AJ Callahan since the day I first laid eyes on him.
Except he doesn’t kiss me. He searches my face, his gaze questioning.
‘I wanted to tell you that I forgive you,’ I tell him. ‘For everything that happened in high school. I forgive you.’
I witness his shoulders sag, and the way his eyes shut as the relief thrums through him.
‘I think it’s time we all moved on. Me included. I made peace with Chase.’
This time he doesn’t wait. The intensity of his kiss is better than in my dreams. The way his arms go around me, and he crushes my body against his. The way he lifts me up, supporting me as I wrap my legs around his waist. The way he moans into my mouth, released from his own kind of torment as his tongue pushes against mine.
He’s everything that I want.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AJ
I forgive you.
The moment she says the words, the tension breaks. I feel it deep in my veins. Like the resulting flood if the Hoover Dam ever came down. A tsunami of relief.
She’s still mine.
I didn’t know if bringing the whole motorcycle club here would be enough. I didn’t know if that would impress her.
Holding onto her now, I can’t quite pinpoint the moment when I became a slave to her.
I think it was the night she yelled at me. The night I confirmed shewasthe girl that I’d kissed, and suddenly, nothing else mattered, because I’d never forgotten that kiss, blindfolded in Amber’s parents’ closet. After that night, my whole focus became about her. About kissing her again. I never understood the level of shittiness she endured because of me and my dumbass friends in high school, and the pain it caused her. But I know now.
Mostly, I’m a lowkey kinda guy. I go to work, hang with my friends, drink some beer or whiskey, shoot some pool and hook up with a chick every now and then.
Standing in this laundry closet, with Hollie in my arms, it feels like that was the old me. The douchebag version of me. The guy who ran a mile when shit got real.
Well, shit just got real. And now I’m in love with this girl.
The way she kisses me back, it feels like she’s lost her previous inhibitions. That she’s gained confidence in the time that we’ve spent together. Her tongue meets mine. Her body presses into me. And I know she wants me as much as I want her.
I press my hands into the globes of her ass. Sweep her up and she wraps her legs around me. Kiss her like these are our last few minutes together on planet Earth. When I lower her back down, I know what I need to offer her is more than just an apology. It’s a vow.
‘I swear, I’ll never hurt you like that again,’ I tell her, my hands cradling her face between my palms. ‘And if anyone else tries to hurt you, they’ll have to come through me first. I’ll protect you from anything, anyone. And it doesn’t mean I’ll forget about what an ass I was to you. I plan on taking my sweet time to make it up to you.’
No more hookups. No more random chicks in my bed whose name I can’t recall the next day because I was too much of a selfish a-hole to ask. No more Mom being worried about me turning out like my deadbeat father and not knowing how to love somebody.