Page 87 of Waking Olivia

“No,” I reply, my voice far too harsh. “Don’t even think about it.”

60

Olivia

I’m bruisedand my heart is still beating fast enough that I can’t believe it doesn’t just explode as Will lowers me. He’s going to yell at me for climbing after he told me not to and he wasright, damn it. It was unbelievably stupid.

As I approach the ground, I brace myself for the coming onslaught, but instead, I find him silent and panicked, wrapping his arms around me before I’ve even hit the ground. His front is pressed so hard to my back that I can feel his heart racing just as fast as mine.

He buries his face in my hair, holding me so tightly I can’t quite take a full breath. “Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” I begin, turning toward him. “You were right and I—”

Something in his eyes makes my stomach clench, the way a flower contracts before it bursts open. His mouth lowers and captures mine, silencing my gasp of surprise. It’s a heedless kiss, one that holds nothing back and shuts down my brain entirely.

His hand runs from my waist to the outside of my breast, cradling the weight in his hand and his exhale shudders against my lips, making me arch against him in a silent demand for more. More pressure, more contact, more skin.

“I thought you were going to die, Olivia,” he growls. “If you ever do that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

His hands cup my ass to pull me tight against him. Desire for him coils in my belly, makes me strain to be closer to him as his hands slide into my shirt, spanning my back, pressing fingertips to overheated skin.

“We’ve got to stop,” he groans, but his mouth is still on my neck, his hands sliding up, beneath my bra.

I reach between us, snaking my hand into his waistband. He inhales sharply as my hand slides down to wrap around him, and not that I’d expected any differently, but there’s a lot to grasp. “Olivia,” he hisses. “I …”

I run my hand over his length, loving the way his whole body jolts when I do it, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Oh fuck,” he says. “Stop. We have to stop.”

I ignore him, running my thumb over the tip of him, slick and swollen and ready.

The air catches in his throat even as he grabs my wrist to stop me. “Please,” he begs, resting his forehead against mine, his voice a harsh whisper. “I’m not sure I’ve got enough self-control to stop if this goes any farther.”

“Good.”

“Liv … Jesus, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he says, pulling back. “If things were different … but they’re not. Nothing’s changing. Nothing’s going to make this okay. We both know that. I’ve tried so hard to do the right thing and then this shit happens, like you falling and Brendan kissing you, and I just lose my fucking mind. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Based on what’s happened, I should be driving straight to Peter and handing in my resignation, and I can’t even do that.”

I want to be angry at him right now but I can’t. He looks so torn, so guilty. Will wants to help all of us. He wants to save me, he wants to see Brendan get through school, he wants to save the farm and give Peter a winning season and do the right thing by everyone, and I’m the one making it impossible, making him put it all at risk.

I tell him I understand. I ignore, for the time being, the part of me that doesn’t.

That nightI climb into bed knowing that it’s my last night in this house for a long time, possibly forever. It has to be that way, if only for my own sanity. Dorothy, Brendan, the farm—none of these things are in my future. Nor is Will, and that’s the part that kills me. The fact that he doesn’t care about me enough to wait.

My chest aches, my throat goes tight. “Don’t you dare cry,” I hiss. My heart races, but I manage to push it back down, that sadness. I’m not going to cry over Will.

I’m not going to cry about anything.

My mom callsme her early bird. “Please go back to sleep, baby,” she’ll murmur when I climb in her bed in the morning. So it’s weird to find Matthew up before me, perched at the end of my bed.

“Dad’s home,” he says quietly.

“Oh.” My stomach drops.

My father was gone for a while this time, long enough that I started to feel like I could take a deep breath again. Long enough that I almost forgot this moment of trepidation we have when we wake in the morning, wondering how things will go when we get downstairs.

We walk into the kitchen together, sitting at our places in silence while my mother finishes putting breakfast out. I know immediately when I sit that this is not one of the days that will be okay. He has that look, that awful stillness. Today, the solid ground we use to edge around him will be a tightrope.

We begin to eat, silent and tense. My mother’s face is drawn, but he ignores her, ignores all of us. He doesn’t eat, but instead, opens bills, one after the other, growing angrier and angrier. I feel a tightness in my arms and chest as if I’m being squeezed in from all sides.

---