Page 156 of We Redeemed the Rain

“Us?” She squeaked.

“Yes.”

She blinked and heavy tears streaked her cheeks. My hands gently slipped around the sides of her neck, my thumbs brushing the tears before they fell from her cheeks.

Emotions jammed up my throat, and I swallowed against them. “I told you why I stopped writin’ you, but there’s more to it.”

Her gaze bounced between my eyes, like she couldn’t see all of me fast enough.

“By the time I turned nineteen, I was hungry for you the way a man is hungry for a woman. I was gone for you. I craved your words, craved hearin’ your heart on the pages. Just writin’ was agony because I wanted more. I wanted toseeyou. I wanted to hold your hand and kiss you. And even though I knew in my head what we shared was real and innocent and built on something pure, it wasn’t the right time for you. So it was wrong for me to carry on as if it were.”

She nodded like she understood.

“Lettin’ go of you is still one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I thought I’d get over it, but I never did. You have tortured me for years, Bea.”

She drew a sharp, shaky breath, her exhale collapsing her shouldersand sending a fresh torrent of tears downward. My thumbs caught them again.

“When I sprayed all the mud off you, and realized who you were that night…I was terrified. ‘Cause I knew my fortress of solitude would come crashin’ down. You alone—of all the people in the whole wide world—had the power to destroy it. I tried not to let us happen and keep my distance, but you”—I huffed a grateful laugh—“are impossible to resist.”

I looked deep into her dark brown eyes, and spoke with my soul. “What I’m tryin’ to say is…Iloveyou.”

She closed her eyes, letting the words wash over her.

“My heart has been yours since that day in the hayloft, Strings.”

She repeated her nickname with a breathy exhale. Like she couldn’t believe I’d said it out loud. “Say it again.”

I leaned toward her, bumping the hat. Pulling it from her head, I blindly chucked it like a frisbee toward the bed of the truck. My hands slipped up her jaw and into the hair behind her ears. Directing her chin upward, my mouth hovered over hers. “Strings.”

She wet her lips, her gaze riveted to my mouth. Her breath bathed my face in uneven puffs, her hands clumsily raising to fist the front of my t-shirt for stability.

I whispered my confession again, my lips grazing hers. “Iloveyou.”

With feather light softness, I came in easy, sweeping my lips over hers. Instantly, she moved, eager and ready.

Our exhales mingled together.

I groaned with relief.

Her palms flattened on my chest, feeling me. Heat exploded through my body as she touched, her hands traveling over my front and around the back of my neck. I let go of her face, letting my hands feel her in return. I slipped my right arm around her waist as my left trailed forward, dragging down to her chin, then her neck and shoulder, blazing a trail down to her hand.

When both of my hands were on her spine, I pulled her in, pressing us together.

She broke out in song.

In an overflow of her heart’s music, she hummed against my lips. My guess was she had no idea she was doing it. Her soft humming stirred hunger in me, fierce and greedy. I angled my face to hers, parting my lips in invitation. An invitation she accepted.

When we got our first real tastes of each other, I groaned and reflexively squeezed her closer. The fire within us stoked, licking up our pretenses of proper. What was gentle turned desperate. In minutes, our kiss was consuming, a frantic competition for more, closer, deeper.

I devoured her like the starving man I was, channeling the hunger I’d suffered into each movement of my lips, hands, and body.

Dumbfounded, I wondered how relief and unsated longing could inhabit my chest simultaneously. The blend of the two had me hauling her closer, pulling her curves into my forward tilt. Her footing faltered as she whimpered and clutched for me. I directed her backwards a few steps until she was leaning against the door of the Ranger. Pressing my knee to the slick metal between her legs, I held her steady there.

Her tiny, quiet song was undoing me, draining any resolve I’d brought to the table. It made me want to do a hell of a lot more than kiss her.

I hadn’t meant to kiss her quite like this.

For long minutes, we left the world behind.

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