Page 56 of Rewrite Our Story

“You were my entire fucking world that summer. I wanted to spend every goddamn minute I could with you. How can you not trust me when I say I was madly in love with you?”

Her eyes go wide, her body jolts with my last words, as if I’ve stunned her. “After I left, I cried myself to sleepsomany times, wondering where things went wrong. I obsessed over the idea of you being my world and I was nothing to you. You can’t tell me years later that you loved me.”

My nostrils flare. She’s not getting out of this easily. I should’ve told her then, but I was scared if she knew how I felt, she’d never leave. She’s older now. She’s capable of knowing what she wants out of life. Mare doesn’t get the same luxury of not knowing how I really felt—how I still feel.

“I can’t keep it a secret any longer.” I grab her arms, pulling her closer to my body. “I fell for you so hard and fast, it was almost like that love had always been there. I loved you, Goldie. I loved you so fucking much that it killed me to watch you leave.”

Her eyes get wide as her bottom lip begins to tremble. She almost looks horrified by my words. “No, no, no,” she chants. “There’s no way. I would’ve known.”

My fingers tighten around her skin. “I think you did.”

Mare shoves against my chest. “No! I didn’t. If I did, I wouldn’t have left.”

I pull her all the way against me. She pushes me away for a few moments before her body melts to mine. “You knew I loved you, Goldie. But you still fucking left. Worse, you knew and you never came back.”

Fire rages in her eyes. She can be angry with me all she fucking wants. I’m done beating around the bush. I want her to know everything I kept quiet because I thought it was best for her.

When her gaze drops to my lips, I do something completely fucking stupid.

I grab her by either side of her face and pull her lips to mine. The kiss is angry and untamed. Mare’s fists grab the fabric of my shirt as she yanks on it in an attempt to mold our bodies together.

We suck at using our words to communicate what we’re feeling.

But the kiss says it all.

Mare and I are unfinished business.

30

MARE - PRESENT

There’sa reason I haven’t been able to wipe the feeling of Cade’s kiss from my memories. A reason why nothing has ever felt even remotely comparable with anyone else like it does with him.

He kisses me like he owns me. I kiss him back in hopes that I own him.

Our lips are starved for one another, even though we just felt the press of them together last night.

This kiss feels heightened. It’s like we’re throwing our anger—our love—into it.

When Cade slides his hands underneath the sweatshirt I’d pulled on this morning, I let him. His fingertips brand my skin. He touches me like he’s trying to memorize every single inch of my skin all over again.

My fingers brush over the exposed buzzed sides of his head underneath his hat. It feels so much more different than it used to. Before, his hair was long enough for my fingers to grip on to. Now I just guide my palm along the sides of his head and get used to the new feeling of the scratch of cropped hair against my skin.

Cade pulls his lips from mine. Before I can protest, he grips my hair and pulls, bearing my throat to him.

His teeth rake against the tender skin of my neck. “There’s so many reasons I’m pissed at you.”

My hands move to his shirt, fisting the fabric to keep myself steady. “I could say the same thing to you.”

I’m so mad at him. There’s so much he didn’t tell me. I guess we’re angry with each other. We were so young back then that a lot of hurt probably could’ve been avoided if we both had been more honest with each other.

We can’t change it. All we can do is move on from it and try not to let the anger destroy any hope for a future between us.

Cade pulls away. The look in his eyes has me clenching my thighs together.

He grabs me by the chin, holding my head in place with the tight grip of his fingers. “Take that anger out on me, baby. Because I’m sure as hell about to take it out on you.”

He’s pissed, his fury only turns me on. Iwanthim to take his anger out on me. I want to be punished, to feel everything I can from him. His hands aren’t gentle as he grabs the bottom of the sweatshirt and pulls it up, ripping the fabric off my body.

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