Chapter 29

I look up at Cole, who is working diligently and avoiding my eyes as if he’s being paid to.

“You saved Vera?”

His brow furrows. “I mean, hardly. I told some asshole to go away, that’s it. And the other time I ran and got Mom. Not exactly hero behavior.”

I flip through the book to be sure there’s nothing left, but that’s it. “There’s so much we still don’t know,” I say sadly. “Whoever wrote the letters must’ve thought there was more in her journal.”

“And we still don’t know who that is,” Cole says, setting his screwdriver down. “But we’re about to.” He turns the camera around and makes his way to the door.

“We have to point it toward the gate,” I tell him, remembering. “With the code changed, that’s where they left the last letter.”

I follow and watch as he stands on the porch, scanning the yard. Eventually, he mutters, “That might work.”

Without explanation, he crosses the yard, heading down toward the gate and stopping when he reaches the large tree in the front yard. He uses his drill to screw the camera’s base into the bark of the tree, testing it for stability before he attaches the camera and points it toward the gate.

I always thought Vera was old-fashioned about safety out of personal preference, but now I’m realizing it must’ve been because she could never chance having video proof of who was at her house.

She put her own safety at risk for the women she saved. Even if I never get the logbook, even if I never get to know their names, it still means something. It’s a reason to be proud of her, a reason to look deeper at every interaction we ever had.

He finishes with the camera quickly and turns to face me with a grin, but when he does, I’m standing too close. He nearly runs into me, but he steadies himself with a hand on my waist. Heat erupts under my skin surrounding his touch, as if I’m an icy window and he’s placed a warm palm against it, melting the frost.

“Sorry,” he says, his eyes soft.

“Don’t be,” I tell him, my eyes locked on his. “And thank you. For this and for everything you’ve done for me this week.”

“Don’t mention it.” He still hasn’t taken his hand off my waist. “Bridget, I?—”

“Listen—” I say at the same time.

We laugh. “You go first,” he says.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I hate that you had to learn the truth about your dad this way. And I’m sorry that Vera did what she did. That she took away the chance for you to ever have him in your life, if that’s what you wanted.”

His eyes are serious as he stares at me. “I’m not upset at Vera. She saved my mom. And me, I guess. I wish I could’ve thanked her for that, eventually. It sucks that it happened, yes, but would I want it to have gone any differently? I don’t think so.”

I swallow, and his gaze moves to my neck. Then my mouth.

“Thanks for being here for me.” His thumb circles on my hip. “Even though you hate me.” There’s nothing teasing about his tone; instead, it’s as if he’s tempting me to confirm what we both know.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Oh yeah?” He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, scraping it with his top teeth. “Care to prove it?” Heat swoops through me, pulling somewhere deep in my core.

“How would I do that?”

He pulls me closer to him until our bodies are touching. “I have a few ideas.” I roll my eyes, trying to regain my composure, and he laughs. “You should know, Vera wasn’t wrong before,” he says gently. “She may have taken some liberties about me saving her life, but…when she said I had a thing for you when we were kids, she was right.”

Lightning zips from my fingers to my toes and everywhere in between. “She was?”

“I had no idea what I was doing when it came to you back then, B, and I regret it every day. But when I told you the other day that I had a crush on someone a long time ago, that I thought I loved her…”

There’s so much meaning hidden behind his eyes, so much weight in the tone of his voice that I feel his emotion in my chest. His gaze rakes over me heatedly, and I can feel it, soft as a caress. “Yes?”

He sighs, cocking his head to the side. “Come on. Of course it was you. You knew it was you.” His words land in my chest, spreading warmth everywhere.

I blink at him. “You never said anything. How would I have known?”

His hand lifts slowly to cup my cheek. “I couldn’t say anything. Believe me, I tried. You were the one girl I couldn’t…I don’t know. Whenever I was around you, I lost it. You have no idea how many times I stood outside your bedroom door with this whole speech prepared, and…every single time, I chickened out. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I wanted you, even back then.”

My chest tightens as my gaze falls to his lips. He runs his tongue over the bottom one. “Do you still feel the same way?”

There’s a release of breath that sounds as if he’s been holding it in, like he couldn’t let it out until he finally told the truth. “I never stopped.”

Without thinking, I lean forward, wrapping my arms around his neck. I pull him in for a hug, simple and sweet, until it isn’t. Every part of my body feels every part of his. I can’t breathe. Our skin is fused, our hearts racing. He’s so close and smells so good, and suddenly, I’m forgetting everything else.

When we pull back, he doesn’t let me go far. His eyes fall to my lips and this is a mistake, but it isn’t, and I’ve never wanted anything so much.

His lips take mine gently at first, and then everything flips. His hand goes to the back of my head. It’s possessive and crushing. He backs me into the tree until my body scrapes against the bark, his hands smoothing down my sides and back up like he can’t explore fast enough.

He peppers my neck, jawline, and collarbone with kisses, his body putting constant pressure on mine as if he’s afraid letting me go will break the spell.

“We shouldn’t do this,” I whisper. Even as I say it, my hands slide under his shirt, and he steps back, pulling it over his head.

“Definitely not.” He shakes his head, staring at me as if I’m a mirage or a dream. As if he’s still not sure any of this is happening.

His lips are back on mine in a second, and my heart beats so hard, so loudly, I feel as if I might pass out.

This isn’t the time.

This could all be a trap.

My usual panicked thoughts are there, begging me to stop this, but I don’t want to. I can’t.

He picks me up with force, pinning me between him and the tree again. “Tell me to stop, and I will,” he whispers, “but otherwise, I’m going to take you inside now.”

“What for?” I ask, blinking up at him with desire pulsing through my veins.

He groans from somewhere deep in his throat, looking up toward the sky. “You need me to spell it out for you?” He’s already walking, moving us toward the house.

“Maybe,” I whisper, my voice needy as I drop my mouth to his neck. I kiss him the way he kissed me, tasting his skin. He picks up the pace, pushing us inside through the front door and into the living room. He pins me against the wall, his hands dropping to pull my shirt over my head.

“I want you, B. I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember.” He sets me down on the ground, trailing kisses down my front. “Your kisses, this fucking body—” He stops, pulling the cups of my bra down so he can pull my breast into his mouth. My body arches off the wall, and I cry out, unable to stop myself. He returns to my mouth briefly, claiming it, then goes back down, his tongue trailing a path from my ribs to my stomach, not stopping until he’s reached the waist of my pants.

“Tell me to stop, or I’m not going to,” he utters, lips hardly moving, dark eyes staring up at me. His touch is light and painfully teasing. I can’t breathe. I’m suddenly sure I might die if he stops.

“Don’t you dare stop,” I say, running my hands through his hair. The air around us is electrified as I pull his dark locks through my fingers.

A wicked smirk crosses his lips as he drags my pants down. “That’s my girl.”

A hot ache grows in my throat. “Then shut up and prove it.”

“My pleasure.” The words on his lips are pure sin.

My core is molten liquid as he eases my underwear aside and presses his mouth right where I need him. My heart races, dancing in my chest in an erratic rhythm. My knees go weak, and he’s holding me up, his hands under each of my thighs as I cry out, holding his hair, prepared to direct him though he clearly needs no direction.

Our eyes lock, and my body ignites, half ice and half flame. The world seems to spin out of control, careening on its axis. Everything, everywhere, stops existing all at once. It’s only us and this feeling.

We are all that is left.

I’m nothing but pure lust in his hands, against his skin, his mouth. All too soon, I cry out, my body going rigid with the kind of pleasure you feel in every nerve ending as it spirals through my body. He grins against me, triumphant and unrelenting, as the tremors pass through my every muscle, not stopping until the final bit of liquid fire vibrates from my body.

He stands up, crushing his mouth to mine, as he lifts me up again and carries us toward the stairs. With savage intensity and impressive concentration, he refuses to stop kissing me even for a second as we make our way upstairs.

In his room, he places me down on the bed and undresses quickly, his lips meeting mine with a dreamy intimacy. As he eases himself onto the bed over me and sinks down between my legs again, I can’t help wondering why the hell we haven’t been doing this all along.

* * *

Later, we’re still lying in his bed as I run my fingers over the hair on his chest, tracing swirls in it, my mind dizzy with thoughts and emotions I can’t quite process yet.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Cole says with a sigh.

“Oh? Do tell.” I’m thankful for the distraction.

He grins, one hand propped up under his head. “We should stay.”

The idea makes me sad in a sort of nostalgic way I don’t understand. There are so many bad memories here. How can he even consider staying?

“It’s the only way to save Vera’s secret. And Mom’s.”

“Stay forever?” I ask. The idea is both confusing and terrifying. This place is one giant mystery, much like the woman who once lived here. “What if it’s dangerous? So many bad things have happened here, Cole. I don’t know if I could do it. This place feels cursed.”

“No one dangerous has any reason to come here anymore. Vera is gone. Besides, we’ve got the camera and the gate. We can get an actual security system. I know this place has bad memories, but it has some good ones, too. It brought us together, and…it protected us in ways we never knew. We could make it something special, you know? And keep the secrets safe.”

I tap his chest thoughtfully. “There’s a lot of ‘we’ talk going on right now.”

He takes my hand in his and kisses my knuckles. “I’m not saying we have to live together as a couple or anything serious. I don’t know what any of this means for us. All I’m saying is”—his eyes flick down toward mine—“I don’t hate being here with you, and I don’t want to give up the house Vera gave so much for. The house that protected the people we love.”

“It wasn’t the house,” I say, though I know what he means. “It was Vera.”

Before he can respond, we’re interrupted by the sound of a doorbell.