Page 107 of The Hometown Legend

They made it down to the truck, and he moved toward her like he was going to help unbuckle her pack. She did it quickly herself, even though when it fell off her shoulders, she almost fell backward.

Then she hefted it into the back of the truck on her own and got into the passenger seat.

He didn’t say anything as he took his own gear off and got into the truck, starting the engine.

He drove her back toward his house.

And the silence between them was so thick and painful she felt nearly dead of it.

He pulled his truck up next to her car, and when he turned the engine off, she scrambled to get out, but by the time her boots were on the ground, he was over there.

He looked at her for a long moment, and then he was moving, closing the distance between them, and he took her in his arms, kissing her like a savage thing. Wild and untamed, and beyond the kiss they had shared on the mountain.

She clung to him, to the front of his shirt, her heart beating hard as his tongue invaded her mouth, sliding against hers.

She didn’t know what she was doing, but she knew she wanted this. She wanted him.

The space between her thighs pulsed with need, and she could feel him, hard and insistent against her stomach as he continued to kiss her, deeper and deeper.

When they parted, her lips were swollen, the skin on her cheeks tender from being burned by his whiskers.

“Come inside,” he said.

“I would love to.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

ITWASNEARLYDARK, just the faint outline of pink around the mountains, as he took her hand and led her up the stairs into his house.

Rory felt calm. Not worried. Not nervous. Just resolute. Certain.

She had waited a long time to be with anybody.

She should’ve known that Gideon was always going to be the right one to be the first one.

How many people got to live out fantasies they’d had for so much of their lives?

This was the ultimate in not quitting, she supposed.

None of that really mattered right now, though. She wasn’t worried about what was coming in the future. She had him now. She had this. She wanted him. He kissed her like he was a dying man, and she had the cure. He kissed her like she was special. Like she mattered. His kissing her proved he would keep every promise he’d made. That if he said he was going to kiss her, he damn well would.

He pushed her up against the truck, and she sighed.

It was the way he was desperate for her. The way that this wasn’t about a list. Or parades or diary pages posted all around the school.

This wasn’t recompense for anything. It was just what they both needed. Here and now. It was what they were both desperate for.

And she wasn’t dressed up or made over. She was wearing hiking gear.

She was just...her. She was just her.

And he was Gideon.

But she knew him. Better than anyone did, maybe. He might not be a legend, but right now he was hers. And that mattered more than anything.

He picked her up, lifting her right off the ground like she weighed nothing, and carried her to the porch steps, up through the door. He slammed it behind them and set her down in the kitchen.

“I’m on the pill. Just so you know.”

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