Page 61 of Reclaim Me

She’s not sorry. It’s clear by the way the corners of her mouth twitch, but I let her believe the lie because correcting it will just lead us to a door neither one of us can walk through right now.

“Me too,” I say, dropping her hand and giving her the bag of food. “Food and desserts are in there. Let’s go home.”

The ride back to the house is quiet. Mainly because I don’t feel like talking, and I don’t think Rae knows what to say. When we arrive, I put the car in park and sigh. Rae, who has already unhooked her seat belt and opened the door, pauses, turning to look at me.

“You wanna talk about it?”

I shake my head. “Nah, I think I’m just gonna ride around for a bit to clear my head.”

She closes her door. “I’ll go with you.”

“You’ve already endured enough of my bullshit for the day. I’m sorry, by the way. I shouldn’t have let Indigo come. I shouldn’t have put you in the middle of my shit.”

Rae shrugs. “You don’t need to apologize. That’s what happens when you love people. You have to deal with their triumphs and their mistakes.”

I glance at her, keeping my eyes trained on her face even though they want to know everything there is to know about the expanse of her skin being exposed by the dress riding up her thigh.

“You think Indigo was a mistake?”

“I think she wanted you to be someone else when the people who know you love you for exactly who you are.”

I consider her words for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

Silence descends on us. Thick and suffocating because it’s weighed down with all the things we won’t say. “Are we ever going to talk about the kiss?”

My pulse quickens at the idea of letting everything I’ve felt and thought since the first time my lips met hers out into the open. It sounds like heaven. It sounds like hell. It sounds like a risk I can’t take tonight.

“I don’t think there’s anything to say.”

Rae shifts her body around, folding one leg up in the seat so she can face me head-on. “Are you serious?”

“Look, Rae?—”

“Because I have plenty to say about it,” she says, her voice taking on a low, sultry tone that only exists to unravel me. “Let’s start with the fact that ever since we kissed, all I’ve wanted is to do it again.”

“Rae, please,” I beg, needing her to stop talking because, on a night that’s all about acknowledging self-control, I’m surprised to find that I have very little.

“I think about kissing you all the time now, Hunter,” she whispers, a confession meant for my ears and my ears alone. “When I fall asleep at night, I dream about you coming into my room and kissing me again, not just on my lips but—” She pauses, reaching over to grab my hand, and I’m weak, I’m so fucking weak because I let her take it. I let her place it on the inside of her thigh and guide it up, up, up, until the tips of my fingers graze the warmest, softest part of her. Rae pants, and my dick twitches. “Here,” she says finally, rolling her hips into my hand.

“Sunshine.” I’m pleading with her, advocating for my sanity and the last shred of my restraint. “We can’t.”

“Yes, we can,” she assures me, pushing up onto her knees and climbing across the center console into my lap. Her hands go to my shoulders, and her pussy is perfectly aligned with the growing bulge in my pants, and her titties, those perfect fucking titties, are right in my face.

“Jesus,” I groan, my hands finding their way to her ass. My fingers are rough as they clutch two handfuls of her flesh, and I curse because nothing has ever felt as good in my hands as she does.

Holding Rae is like holding a firecracker, a burst of sunlight. She’s strong; I know that because I’ve seen her strength, but she’s also precious. I have to remind myself of that fact because I know the things my hands can do. These hands have been bloodied and broken, beaten a man within an inch of his life, demonstrated life-saving maneuvers to the women in my gym, held destruction in the form of powder, pills, and needles, and welcomed them like old friends, but they’ve never held perfection.

They’ve never held anything like Rae and what she’s giving me at this moment, and I don’t know if I can be gentle. I don’t know if I can be patient and loving. I don’t know if I can be the man she looks at me and sees.

She comes down, ghosting her lips over mine as she grinds into my lap. “I want you, Hunter. I want this. I want you to be my first.”

Fucking hell.

I close my eyes, pushing out breaths that are meant to restore some of my calm. They don’t.

“You haven’t—” I swallow even though my throat has gone dry. “You’ve never?”

---