Page 29 of Bride for Keeps

“Sierra…Do-her?”

“You’re missing the point.”

“No. I got the point, but I’m hung up on the nickname. Did people really call you that?”

Sierra shrugged jerkily. “Whatever. I wasn’t exactly picky or discreet. That was kind of the point.”

“We didn’t run in the same circles.” Maybe it was strange to comment on, but he’d had a certain tunnel vision after he’d met her at that party. He hadn’t thought about much beyond how she made him feel. He’d thought about the person in front of him. If he’d known anything about Sierra before that moment it had been that she and the Shullers existed. His mother had made sure to tell him she was ‘wild’ a few times, but Carter hadn’t paid much attention to that. Her past was a mystery, because all that had mattered to him washer.

The thought of any asshole daring to touch her then call her that about made him rage right there, but he supposed that was beside the point. Still, it clawed at him like this new anger he always seemed to be carrying around.

“I mean, even without our age difference, yes, different circles. I didn’t think it mattered, but maybe it does.”

“It doesn’t,” he said automatically, firmly. He’d never believed that was what led them here.

“Carter.” She heaved out a sigh that puffed into a cloud against the cold air around them. She came to a stop and wrapped her arms around herself. “I know you want that to be true, but I’ve had to come to the hard conclusion that the things we want to be true and the things thataretrue don’t match up. We can’tmakethe world do what we want.”

He kept his mouth shut if only because he knew whatever argument he mounted would be met with her immediately dismissing it as his ego.

But he’d made everything in his life work except this, why shouldn’t he have a little ego? Why shouldn’t he believe this—the most important decision in his life—was right and good and this horrible blip wasfixable?

For some reason, he remembered what Cole had said last night. Love was letting people see the cracks.

He inwardly shuddered at the idea. Maybe that worked for Cole and Jess, but Carter couldn’t take it on board. But he could…modify it, for his own purposes. Maybe instead of showing her the cracks, the weakness, he should show her the strength. Why he was here, fighting for their marriage even though she was trying to walk away.

“You didn’t ask why I talked to you when you came up to me at the party. Why I was nice.”

“I don’t need to ask. That’s who you are, but sometimes you letthemtake it away, dim that goodness inside of you. You don’t believe in it enough, and I can’t believe in it for the both of us.”

That felt like an arrow piercing too close to the truth. That weakness. He had to shield it.

“I talked to you, this woman too young and wild for the likes of me, the man who’d only ever associated with women my family would approve of, because you looked at me, flashed that smile I knew meant you wanted nothing but trouble, and my foundation shook. My rock-solid foundation that had never once, in my whole life, ever even trembled. It shook for you and I didn’t want it to stop.”

He expected her to say that didn’t matter too, but she stood there instead, looking a little shaken herself.

So, he pressed his advantage and stepped closer with every word. “You damn wellsparkledwith life, and it was like nothing in my life. Nothing I’d ever seen. Not that close. Not thatright.” Her big brown eyes stared up at him and she swallowed, visibly. Audibly.

He reached out to touch her face, much like he had yesterday, because God it had been so long since he’d touched her right. The way she should be touched. Soft and reverent and his.

She didn’t pull away like she had in the car. She inhaled shakily, and opened her mouth to say something, but he swept his thumb across her jawline like he knew she liked. No words escaped her throat, just a little squeaking sound that had something like power rushing through him, strong and bold.

Her eyes fluttered closed like they always did when he let his fingers trace slowly down the side of her neck, the most featherlight of touches.

He should have tried this before. Should have found this as solace in all that horrible darkness before. Her. Her softness. The way she responded to him. Maybe they wouldn’t be here if he’d only—

But he hadn’t. He only had now, and he’d use whatever he could to make this work.

He slid his hand around her neck, cupping the soft skin and silky strands of hair and pulling her closer.

“Carter…” But she said it on a whisper, and though he drew her nearer without saying a word, she didn’t protest.

So he touched his mouth to hers, light at first. Simple. Like their very first kiss under the stars after talking half the night away at that stupid party. And just like that night, she melted against him and he took more than he should have, drugged by the softness of her lips, the velvet of her tongue when it touched his. That bright pop of something bigger than chemistry or liking each other.

Like they were made from the stars that first night, shaped to belong together, to be each other’s. That kiss and this one sealed that fate. Forever. He’d known then. He knew now. They belonged together.

She had to know it too. Shehadto.

But as he pulled away, his blood pumping, his heart racing, and everything inside of him whisperingSierra,it didn’t matter that her eyes were glittering, or her cheeks were flushed from more than the cold. He knew in a horrible instant that the kiss wasn’t a real acquiescence from her.

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