Page 38 of Fractured Trust

Summer studied him, her face carefully expressionless. “We had a few good years, and I grew to care about him—to love him, I suppose. Or at least, the person I thought he was.”

Noah didn’t let his expression change, even though hearing that twisted his stomach. He kept his tone even. “Did you ever try for more kids?”

Summer looked down at her lap, smoothed a finger up and down her thigh before looking back up at him. “We said we would. We discussed it, and decided when the time was right, we’d try again. Except, the time never seemed to be right, for either of us. And then, after a few years, nothing was right. It took me too long to realize that as hard as I was trying to make the marriage work, it was never going to. We were two wrong halves trying to force ourselves to make a whole. We should have divorced a long time ago.”

He couldn’t seem to help his morbid curiosity. “Why didn’t you?”

“For me, I think it was fear. The person I used to be was gone. The person I thought I’d become had never eventuated. College, dream job, the future I’d imagined”—her eyes cut away from him for a moment before she met his gaze again—“everything… gone. And I felt guilty anytime I thought about it because I believed it was my bad choices that had gotten us there. I didn’t want to abandon him after he’d been so good to me.” She didn’t seem to notice his flinch. “So, I tried, so hard. I tried to be the best wife I could be for him. But I know now what he wanted wasn’t me. Not the real me. He’d married the person he imagined I was. And I was miserable trying to be her.”

Noah asked one more question. “You never took his name?”

She shook her head. “I thought I might one day, but there was always something holding me back.”

“What was that?”

“Too many memories of writing Summer Taylor in the back of my school notebooks, I imagine.” She laughed, but the sound didn’t hold the slightest trace of humor.

Silence fell between them as Noah attempted to absorb everything she’d said—tried to sort out his emotions. Tried to figure out what to say that might ease the pain they were both feeling. Summer had always been the balm to soothe his hurt. He didn’t know what to do when she was the cause of it. He hadn’t eleven years ago either.

She reached up, her fingers barely skimming his cheek. Her voice when it came was uneven. “I hate this. I hate knowing I did this. And I understand if you want to go—”

She didn’t get another word out, because his muscles tensed, rejecting her suggestion before his mind could even process his response. His heart and mind might be in turmoil, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still want her. And his body wasn’t in any doubt about whatitwanted.

When he replied, his voice was hoarse but resolute. “I’m not going anywhere. I told you before I left the other night that this was inevitable. We have all the cards on the table now. No more secrets. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of talking. I want to touch you. I need you to touch me. Please tell me you want that too.”

A breath shuddered out of her. “I want that too,” she said.

Chapter 17

Summer’s heart battered against her rib cage. The stark hunger in Noah’s gaze had an answering heat pulsing through her veins.

“Come here, Sunshine,” he growled, reaching for her hand, and drawing her toward him until she was straddling his lap. He skimmed his nose along her throat, his inhale as he reached the crook of her neck, sending goose bumps rippling over her body.

“Wh-what are you doing?” her voice was thready.

“I’m breathing you in.” He said, his lips moving against her skin making her shiver.

“Noah…”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this; I’m not rushing it.”

She restrained the whine that wanted to escape, and instead buried her hands in his hair. Her fingers flexed, nails scraping lightly against his scalp.

Noah groaned, then nipped at her neck. “Patience was never your strong point,” he muttered.

“I’ve been patient, but I need you, Noah. I need you to fill all the emptiness that’s been inside me for so long.”

He raised his head and stared at her, pupils dilating until his eyes were almost midnight blue. He reached up and wrapped a handful of her hair around his fist, tugging her head back so her neck arched. “Don’t worry, Summer. I’m going to fill you over and over and over. I’m going to fill you so hard and so fucking deep, you’ll never feel empty again.”

This time, she couldn’t stop the whimper. He let go of her hair and gripped her throat gently with his hand. Summer let out a shaky breath, tilting her chin up toward him, and Noah growled again before slamming his mouth down on hers.

His tongue traced along the seam of her lips, and she opened them on a moan as the taste of him filled her. She’d tried so hard to never let herself think about how much she’d missed him, missed his taste, the feel of his skin under her fingertips. And now she could let go, because at least for tonight, he was hers again. She wanted to map every familiar line of his body, to taste every inch of skin she hadn’t pressed her lips to in so long, to relearn the shape of him now that he was a man instead of a teenager.

And just for tonight, she wanted to forget about the guilt that had filled her for such a long time. First for what she thought she’d done to Deacon and now over what she knew she’d done to Noah.

Her hands slid up under his shirt, her fingers tracing the hills and valleys of his abdominal muscles, feeling them flex under her palms. All the while his mouth moved against hers, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip before he soothed the sting with his tongue.

When he skimmed his lips along her cheek, then down her neck, she shuddered against him. “Noah…” Her voice trailed off.

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