Page 77 of Guilty For You

“You’d rather suffer and struggle working twenty hours a day?” The anger was impossible to miss in his tone and I sighed, because not very often did he aim it my way.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it on my own.” I played with a hangnail on my thumb, refusing to meet his eyes because I knew I’d see the disappointment there. “Taking money from you felt wrong, like it was trying to compensate for stealing my brother from me.” I sighed, “Which obviously I didn’t know the truth back then.”

“Would you have taken the money if you knew I was innocent?”

“No.” I answered quickly, “Maybe, I don’t know. I think first I need to know why you’re innocent, yet willingly went to jail.”

He nodded, but remained quiet as he turned and tossed the veggies in a pan next to the chicken. “I know.” He sighed but didn’t offer up anything else.

“Why didyouchoose Belden?” I asked, trying to change the subject and get back to the present time information I sought so we could leave the heavy stuff until after dinner.

He shrugged his shoulders, “I met Houston in prison. We got along well enough, and he told me about the troubles he was having with his crew here, apparently there was a civil war going on between members, dividing them up and making things sketchy. He said he needed someone to help straighten things out, someone new and from the outside so there wouldn’t be any bias bullshit.” He turned and looked at me, “When I couldn’t find you and had no leads to follow, I figured I’d come out here for a while and help him out. Distract myself and bide my time until I could find you.”

“You were still looking for me?” I questioned.

He nodded, “I paid a private investigator thousands of dollars to find you when I got out of prison. When I moved here and paid another one even more. It turned out you were hiding in plain sight the whole time. Right under my nose.”

“I wasn’t hiding from you.” I said gently.

“It wasn’t like you wrote to me with your forwarding address either.” He countered and flipped the veggies over.

“I thought you were never getting out.” I shook my head. “I wanted a fresh start away from all the death and heartache that town represented for me.”

“I know.” He nodded and then wiped his hands on a towel and tossed it over his shoulder. He turned and stalked towards me with the agile gentleness I’d come to recognize as the stalk of a predator. He had perfected it long before we met, and it made my knees weak every time he aimed it my way. “I believe we both ended up here for a reason. Don’t you?”

“Maybe.” I admitted in a whisper. I licked my lips as he rounded the island and stopped right in front of me. “Yes.” I corrected myself. “I do, I just… so much happened since the day up on the cliff when you ended things.” I shook my head. “I don’t know where to start healing this.”

“We start right here.” He slid his hands around the back of my neck and linked them together, tilting my head back to look up at him. I placed my hands flat on his lower abs and leaned into him. “Just like this, relearning each other and talking about everything that happened and we’ll heal those wounds and the distance between us together. I just need you to tell me it’s what you want.” He closed his eyes and took a calming breath, “Because I won’t force myself on you like this if you don’t want me, D. I need you to want this and want me as bad as I do you. Tell me this means you’re still mine and we can go from there.”

“There’s only you.” I leaned against him further, “I’ve only ever wanted you. I want this.”

“Thank fuck.” He groaned and lowered his lips to mine, kissing me deeply before picking me up and putting my ass on the island. I spread my legs on instinct and he walked straight between them, pressing his hard front to mine and I wrapped my ankles around his ass. He growled into my mouth as I dug my nails into his back, pulling him even closer.

“Your food is going to burn.” I whispered and bit his lip.

“Fuck it, we’ll order in.” He bit mine back and I moaned for him. “Again.” He demanded and spread my legs even wider pushing his erection against my clit. Taking what he wanted. I moaned and let my head fall backward as he buried his teeth into my neck and rocked against me, bringing us both pleasure and torment together. “I missed the way you moan for me.” He growled.

I giggled and sagged against him. “I missed the things you do to me to make me moan.” I licked my lips and pulled my head back. “But if you don’t feed me soon, I might go rabid and start eating things you put close to my face.” I smirked as he chuckled.

“Fair enough.” He pulled back and stared at me as he reached down and palmed his erection growing inside of his sweats. He stroked it once and twice and then a third time as I watched and then rubbed his hand up his washboard abs in such a sexy, manly way. “Sit in a chair or I’ll eat your sweet pussy for my meal.”

“Yes Sir.” I swallowed audibly and slid from the counter onto one of the barstools as he plated our dinners. Grilled chicken breasts, smothered in a cheese sauce with roasted veggies. “This smells delicious.” I said as I cut into a piece.

“Fingers crossed.” He watched me closely as I took a bite. I moaned as the flavors hit my taste buds and closed my eyes, savoring the taste. “Good?” He asked.

“So good.” I smiled at him, “Thank you for cooking for me.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled proudly and then dug into his meal. We ate in silence for a while, stealing glances at each other and occasionally touching. And it felt… effortless.

Right, even.

We were almost done eating when his facial expression darkened a bit, and I knew he was thinking about our time apart and what led up to it. I stayed quiet while he worked out what he wanted to say. “I never wanted to leave you.” He said finally, putting his fork down on his plate. “I wrestled with my decision over and over again, trying to come up with some other way to achieve what I needed to achieve, but there wasn’t one.” He looked at me. “But I want you to know, I didn’t mean a single thing I said to you up on that cliff that day. It was all just part of the plan. There was no way around it.”

“What plan?” I pushed my plate away and washed down the delicious dinner with some water before turning to face him. “What happened? Start at the beginning.”

He nodded and pushed his own plate away. “I never saw Blaine again after he left the club looking for a fight that night.” He clenched his jaw, “I wanted to follow him and make him see reason and calm him down. But I knew you were out there, upset and alone and my need to comfort you won out.” I stayed silent and let him continue. “But when I went to leave to meet you at your place, a fight went down with some of our guys at a bar across county lines. The orders were given, and we were all to show up there. If you didn’t obey, you faced a beat down for leaving our men to defend themselves.”

“That’s why you didn’t show up when you said you would.” I whispered.

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