My hand was still in her hair, brushing it back. Stirring that energy. That connection that didn’t belong.
We were opposites.
All wrong.
But I couldn’t shake the sense that I was supposed to be there. Right then.
“You miss him?” Why I couldn’t help from asking it, I didn’t know. But it was out there in the air. A stumbling block that was sure to trip me up.
Old affection whispered through her words, broken and real. “I always will.”
Had to end this right then. I was in way over my head. There was nothing I could do to compete with that kind of love. That kind of devotion. That kind of loyalty.
Knew full well that’s what she needed.
I started to push back and stand.
Eden scrambled to keep me there, her hands on my cheeks and that look on her face. The one that connected us in a way that it shouldn’t. Bond so fierce but destined to break.
Her words filled the room. Wonder and a plea. “He was my best friend, Trent. I loved him. After he died, I thought I would never feel anything again. I succumbed to being numb. A prisoner to the vacancy that I thought was a life sentence.”
Get up. Get lost. Get gone.
Was chanting it while I knelt in front of her, every rational part of my brain telling me to go. Rest of me?
I was stuck.
Tied.
Bound.
Her features twisted in the same confusion they’d been watching me with from the beginning.
“Then I met you...I met you and I felt something for the first time. How is that, Trent? After all these years, after all this time, I meet you and something inside me lit? Something dead for so long, and the sight of you sparked it, this piece of me alive again for the first time?”
My insides twisted with her confession. A mangle of emotions swept up in a storm.
“Eden, fuck, don’t wanna hurt you.”
“I think I’m already past taking that chance. When you didn’t show today…”
She trailed off.
The implication hung in the air.
Her true fears and anger coming to light.
No doubt, waiting for me had brought all those bad memories spiraling back.
A groan rumbled in my chest. “Eden, baby, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too…for the way I reacted.”
“Don’t apologize. I get it.”
“Do you? Do you get what I’m feeling? Do you feel it?” Eden tipped her face to the side.
My throat felt like the Sahara. So dry. On fire.
Could barely nod as I brushed my fingers along her jaw. “Is he the last man that touched you?”
There I went, flying down a hazardous, perilous lane.
But I needed to know.
She tucked her chin, the pants ripping from her lungs hard and haggard, her voice rough when she returned her eyes to mine. “He’s the only man who’s ever touched me.”
Air heaved free on a ragged grunt, and my hands moved to her knees, cinching down tight.
“Fuck…Eden.”
“I don’t know how to stop this. Fight this. What I feel from you. What I want from you.” Need and desperation fueled the words. “It’s…different from anything I’ve experienced before. This…want. This ache I feel all over when you’re near. It’s more, Trent. More.”
My laughter was low. Dry. Close to being unhinged. “You think it’s any different for me, Eden? Fact I never told a soul about how I ended up here? How I ended up with Gage? What’s it about you that makes me feel safe for the first time in my life?”
Trust her when I’d sworn I’d never trust an outsider again.
“It’s this…this feeling.” Frantically, she gathered one of my hands and spread it against her chest. Against the boom, boom, boom that thundered manic at her ribs. Uncontained. Reckless and out of control. “It’s this. Do you feel it? Tell me you do, too, because I’m so tired of being alone.”
“I’ll fuck it up.” Didn’t need to answer it straight. Admit it. Fact this girl had me on my knees made it clear enough. But she needed to know one thing. “I’ll ruin you. Don’t fuckin’ mistake it.”
It was a growl. A warning I already knew this girl wasn’t going to heed.
Because neither of us were immune to this.
She pressed my hand down farther. “It’s okay because it’s the loneliness that hurts the most.”
For a few minutes, I was going to take it away.
Greed rumbled up my throat, and my hand she had pressed against the raging of her heart spread wider, pressing tight up against all that gorgeous, honeyed flesh before I was pushing forward, my face pressed to her dress, against the fabric that covered her stomach.
“Eden.”
It was a grunt.
A plea.
A warning.
Because I didn’t know how either of us were going to come back from this.
Should walk.
Hell, I should fuckin’ run. Get on my bike and put a state or two between us. End this before it got any more complicated.