Page 145 of Catch the Sun

My T-shirt is tossed beside the bed, my sweatpants tented. I settle between her legs and grind against her, only a thin layer of clothing between us. We both moan.

“Max,” she whimpers, gently grazing her nails up and down the planes of my bare back. “We could go further…”

My throat rolls with trapped desire. Fuck, I want that more than anything.

No…that’s not true.

More than anything, I want us to go back to what we used to be. Before the accident. Before she started looking at me like I was a stranger.

Like someone she fears.

Those are the most debilitating moments. The times when I catch her off guard or accidentally startle her. She’ll flinch, her gaze locking right on mine as genuine terror sparks in her eyes. It’s fleeting, just a flash. But it’sinstinctand that’s what murders my fucking heart and has it drying out like concrete inside my chest.

And then there are these moments.

The too-short nights in her bed, a cool midnight breeze sweeping in throughthe window, moonlight setting her aglow while she unravels beneath me. I banish her fear with my tongue and execute her demons with my soul-deep kisses. She’s mine again. She’s mine until the sun crests and dawn shines new light on her darkness.

I frame her face with both hands and sprinkle more kisses across her face. “I can’t move forward, Sunny. Not until we go back.”

Her eyes fall closed. “We can’t go back.”

“Then this is where we’ll stay.”

“I want more,” she murmurs, lips quivering.

“So do I.”

Every night, I stay a little longer. A half an hour, an hour, two hours. Daybreak lingers on the horizon and I wonder if tonight will be the night I fall asleep in her arms and wake up beside her, her hair haloed across the pillow, our limbs perfectly entangled.

“Hold me, Max,” she says, pulling me close.

I inch up and settle beside her, tugging her to my chest. My heart pounds with hope. With desperate, foolish hope that this is that night.

“I need to tell you something,” she whispers, dragging her index finger down my chest.

Tension infects the small gap between us, but I focus on her finger making lazy designs near my heart. “You can tell me anything.”

Anything except that it’s over.

Anything but that.

She inhales deeply and it falls out with a noticeable shake. “God…I don’t even know how to say this. I still haven’t processed it.”

My muscles lock up as I find her eyes, nerves racing all the way down to my toes. I wonder if she’s going to tell me about the fall. Tell me that some motherfucker pushed her, that someone tried to kill the girl I love. I swallow. “Tell me.”

“It’s…about my brother.”

A frown bends my brows. “Shit,” I murmur. “Did they schedule his execution already?” That can’t be right. It’s hardly been three years—even I know it can take decades.

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Then what?”

“He…” Ella moves away and rolls onto her back, rubbing both hands over her face and through her hair. “He’s free, Max. Jonah’s sentence was overturned. The charges were thrown out and he was released.”

What?

Her words freeze me.

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