19. Tessa

NINETEEN

TESSA

I set my e-reader on the nightstand. Tonight, I was unable to focus on the words that kept blurring together.

Reading romance was my jam.

I loved getting to experience the tension. The angst. The attraction. The mystery.

I loved the triumph over trauma.

I loved getting to fall in love over and over again, a million different times in a million different ways.

I wanted to experience the beauty of it rather than succumb to the numbness I’d felt lying next to a man I would never love, night after night.

One who would never spark a flame or incite a riot of wings in my belly.

But tonight, I couldn’t fall into that safe haven. Couldn’t settle into the fantasy when I could feel the torment of Milo, who roamed the cabin as if he were lost.

Today had been brutal.

Beautifully brutal.

It had opened my eyes wide to what he was going through. The fight he was up against, and what he was fighting for.

He’d been quiet on the ride home.

Quieter still once we’d gotten here.

He’d been the same way after last week’s visit, but I didn’t think there was a way to understand the full magnitude of what it meant until I’d witnessed it for myself.

The joy.

The love.

The hurt.

The pain.

The harsh hatred from his ex-mother-in-law that’d had me biting my tongue so hard I’d actually made myself bleed.

But the urge to get in her face and demand she look at the damage she was causing had been close to overwhelming.

How she wasn’t only hurting Milo, but her grandchildren, too.

But going all fiery friend on her ass wouldn’t help things.

It’d only make it worse.

I doubted there was anything I could say that would make her change her mind.

The second we’d gotten home, Milo had headed directly outside and begun to work on the treehouse.

I hadn’t followed him because I’d known he needed space.

Time alone to process.

To mourn.

And I solemnly swore that I’d made a real, valiant attempt at not sneaking peeks.

But I’d worried about him.

Truly.

Not that it’d helped the sticky situation when he had to go and peel the shirt from his body when he’d gotten hot and sweaty.

Hot was the keyword here.

Like, how on all things holy could one man be so spicy?

One glance and I caught fire.

It was like the man had become written code in every fantasy that had ever sprouted in my mind. Had become every hero in every book. Every image of what I ultimately wanted.

But tonight?

It’d been more than just the attraction that burned between us.

It was riddled with the harsh desperation that had surrounded his being while he’d worked on the treehouse.

As if his mind had strayed to faraway places while determination had strengthened his movements. He’d stayed out there until long after the sun had set, and my name had been a bare grunt of goodnight as he’d passed through the house to take a shower an hour ago.

I’d retreated to my room, but now, I could feel him moving around the cabin.

That energy potent and provocative.

My care for him too much.

When I couldn’t handle it any longer, I slipped out of bed, keeping my movements quiet as I moved to the door, quieter still as I cracked it open and tiptoed out like some kind of creepy stalker.

I slipped out to the squared archway, and I hung on to the edge of it as I peered out.

My breaths turned shallow.

The only lights on in the cabin glowed from beneath the top cabinets in the kitchen. It was just enough to illuminate the severity of his profile from where he stood at the kitchen sink, though he wasn’t doing anything except staring out the window.

He’d showered, his black hair damp and rumpled, and he wore a fresh white tee that hugged the massive width of his shoulders.

Muscles bulged from his back and arms.

Heck, his entire body was this hulking, monstrous thing.

Every inch of him bristled with strength.

The man was pure, masculine poetry.

A shock to my senses.

Bottled mayhem.

Beautiful Beast.

My lips burned with the memory he’d imprinted there this afternoon when he’d kissed me, and my insides quaked with the way it’d felt to be his for a moment, even when being his was nothing but a farce.

And I guessed it was the reason I felt frozen where I stood. Because I didn’t know how to hide it any longer. What I really felt for him. I hated that it’d come to feel like some kind of dirty secret.

“What are you doin’ over there, Little Dove?”

A buzz slipped down my spine at the sound of his grumbly voice, with the fact that he felt me from across the room.

I stuffed the attraction down because this shouldn’t be about my crush. Slipping out from behind my hiding place, I wrung my hands and whispered, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He shifted a fraction to look at me.

It sent a ripple of his intensity vibrating through the dense air. I almost stumbled into it, but I kept moving closer.

The way his eyes devoured me from across the space was enough to set me aflame.

In an instant, I was burning up.

“It must be becoming apparent that I’m not in the best frame of mind on Sunday evenings.”

I rounded the end of the island and came to stand directly across from him just as he turned to face me. He crossed those massive arms over his chest as he leaned against the countertop.

“That’s understandable. Today was…” I trailed off, unsure how to put it into words.

“Rough.” There was an apology in his voice, and he picked up the bottle of beer he had sitting open and took a swig of it.

My head shook, my voice quieted. “No. It was wonderful, not that there weren’t parts of it that weren’t hard. It was just…worth it.”

Devotion carved itself deep into his expression. “They’re worth everything to me.”

Emotion thickened my throat. “They’re truly amazing. The sweetest things.”

“You did good, Tessa. Really, really good.”

I forced lightness into my shaky laugh. “Well, I’ve been told I’m a great actress. I might have missed my calling.”

He surprised me by stepping forward.

That big body filled the space to overflowing, the man stealing the breath from my lungs.

I stumbled backward with the force of it.

Energy flashed as he eased even closer, and I shivered when he angled down so close to my face that I could taste all his yummy deliciousness.

“That wasn’t acting, Tessa. That was your kindness. Your gentleness. Your care. The way you made my kids feel like they were the center of your world. There is no faking that.”

“No, that part wasn’t acting.” The confession breezed out in a thin wisp from my lips.

I swore he inhaled the words.

“Remy liked you.” He muttered it low, a pain seeded so deep in his being when he spoke of her.

“She misses you.” I prayed he could feel my belief as I gazed at his unforgettable face. At the stark, defined angles of his jaw and brow. At the softness of his mouth.

He gave a tight nod. “She remembers livin’ with me. What our life used to be like. Felt the trauma of it being ripped apart.”

I shouldn’t have, but I reached up and gently scratched my nails through his beard.

Everything about Milo Hendricks made me want to crawl right inside.

Hold him.

Maybe let him hold me, too.

Because there was no missing the way our emptiness ached, and maybe those vacancies wouldn’t hurt so bad if we let each other fill them.

“I can see that she is also fiercely strong, like her dad. Quiet and insightful. Kind and gentle.”

He breathed out a harsh breath. “That’s what you think of me?”

“I do.”

A rough laugh curled from his throat. “That’s me trying to control who I really am.”

My head shook. “Don’t you see that in your daughter? All of those amazing qualities?”

His brow pinched. “Everything about her is amazing.”

My nails kept scraping through the prickly hairs of his beard. “And she is so very much like you.”

“Tessa…”

“It’s true.”

He blinked like he wanted to believe it but didn’t know how.

“And Scout…” I murmured with a smile pulling at the edge of my mouth. “He’s a perfect little handful, just like you said.”

“They’re my world. The meaning of this life.”

I nodded. “You’re a great dad, Milo.”

“I’m tryin’ to be.”

“There’s no trying to it. It radiates from you. It’s powerful and all-consuming, and I promise you that your kids feel it. I promise they know your love for them. Even from across the miles. Even when they’re not here with you. They know.”

Torment moved through his expression, and I let my fingertips slide up his face until my palm was on his cheek.

Did he feel the connection? Did he grasp this same feeling that I had for him? The one that kept growing stronger each day?

His hand slipped over mine, and he pressed my palm firm against his face. “And you have given me the chance to erase those miles, Tessa.”

A flood of warmth washed across my skin, and my tongue swept out over my lips.

The energy was so thick between us it’d become the oxygen.

Flames crackled, and his eyes flashed.

“They deserve to be with you, Milo. They love you and you love them, and it is clear that you would do absolutely anything to protect and provide for them. This is right, what we’re doing.”

He could barely nod. “And dealing with Paula?”

“She’s horrible, Milo. Her aura, what radiates around her? It’s not just broken, it’s ugly, and it makes me sick, what she’s putting you and the kids through, but I’ll take her ugliness on, too.”

His gaze flashed with anger. “Don’t want to put you through that.”

“We’re in this together. Remember?”

He warred for a beat before he nodded. “Yeah.”

Then something that was close to a grin flitted over his mouth, and somehow, he drew me even closer as he studied me.

“Her aura?” He quirked a brow, somewhere between a tease and true curiosity.

A self-conscious giggle slipped free. “I just…see things about people in ways I’m not sure anyone else does.”

“That why you treat people like you’ve always known them from the moment you meet them?”

Heat flushed my cheeks. “I usually can tell if someone needs a friend. Support. A person there to encourage them.”

He hesitated before he asked, “And what is it you see when you’re around me?”

My fingertips went back to scratching through his beard, my words soft rasps of affection that I couldn’t keep contained. “I see a warm glow that wants to bleed out, but it’s shuttered in pain. I see this goodness that got twisted in some kind of guilt that holds you hostage.”

A low grunt left his mouth, but he didn’t move. He just stood there, swaying with me, the two of us caught in a moment of understanding.

But I thought it might be more than that, the energy that whispered and lured and pulled between us.

Hungry eyes searched me in the shadows, and I could feel the intensity steadily building between us with each second that passed.

“What are you thinking right now?” he finally demanded, words a rugged caress over my face.

And crap, I should lie, keep up with this charade, but the gusty confession left me on a plea. “I was wondering what it would be like if it were real. If this wasn’t faked. If you kissed me because you want me, the same way I want you.”

Oh, man, I’d really done it then. Pushed him over a line he didn’t want crossed. Darkness blazed through his eyes in a way I’d never seen it do before.

Fury and ferocity.

He reeled back by three inches.

It tore my hand from his face and created a chasm of volatility that roiled between us. One that was going to suck me to the bottom of it.

His expression was set in fierce restraint.

His eyes pinched in desperation.

His jaw clenched in disgust.

I went to grab him by the shirt so I could hold on to him. Tell him I was joking, that I didn’t mean it.

Convince him I was just being that goofy Tessa who no one took seriously and hope he didn’t get that I was begging him not to go.

I started to toss out a thousand lies when he snapped.

His big hand flew out so fast I couldn’t process the movement. He had me by the back of the neck and was pulling me forward with so much force my feet nearly slipped out from under me.

Or maybe I was just flying when his mouth crushed against mine.

My entire body lit in a show of fireworks.

Snap. Crackle. Boom.

Oh, yes.

I couldn’t even stop the moan that rolled up my throat as a volatile concoction of relief and need and desire went sailing through my system.

My hands drove into his shirt as I struggled to keep up with the shift.

With this perfect fantasy that I’d been dying to experience.

It wasn’t gentle.

It was a plundering.

Decimation.

My complete ruining.

His mouth moved over mine in an obliterating push and pull.

A gasp ripped up my throat when his tongue stroked through my lips to dominate the kiss.

It was all kinds of demanding.

Possessive.

I liked it. God, I liked it so much.

My hands roved, needy in their search, palms rushing the hard planes of his chest, up and over his shoulders and diving into his hair.

Bliss.

A torrential downpour of bliss was what I felt.

A grumbly moan rolled off his tongue and spilled into our kiss.

“Tiny Tease, wrecking my mind,” he mumbled as his hand skidded down my side, taking greedy handfuls of my flesh as he went.

I yelped when he grabbed me by the bottom and tugged me against the delicious expanse of his hulking body.

Flames roared. An inferno that combusted in my belly.

A full-fledged fire.

I whimpered. Milo moaned.

“Is this what you wanted to know, Little Dove?” he warned at my mouth as he continued the plundering. “Did you want to know what it’d be like if I took you? Owned you?”

“Yes.” It was complete surrender.

My feet were suddenly no longer touching the ground, and on instinct, I wrapped my legs around his waist when he hoisted me up.

“You need to feel it, Tessa?” He used his hand that was kneading into my bottom to grind me against his massive erection.

Desire erupted.

A needy throb at the juncture between my thighs.

Holy fuckballs.

Salem was right.

This bad boy would split me in two.

I was so here for it. For all of it. For everything he had to offer.

“I’ve always wanted you.” The admission gushed in a torrent of need. “Show me what it’s like, Milo. Please, show me.”

A growl rumbled in his chest, and he dove back in. Every stroke of his tongue was possession. Every touch of our hands frantic.

Disorienting.

Perfecting.

So much.

So good.

His kiss consumed, and I was in a frenzy as I struggled to touch him everywhere I could, wanting more, but not sure I could handle all that he was.

But, oh, was I ready to try.

My fingernails raked desperately at his shoulders and rushed down his back, searching for a way to get inside. “Milo. Do you feel this, too? Did you feel it for all those months?”

The question incited him farther, his groan pained.

Close to agonized.

The kiss became punishing as he continued to grind me against his cock.

“Please,” I begged. “Please…please touch me.”

Lust clouded my sight.

A fever that I’d never experienced before.

Something I didn’t know but wanted to discover in Milo.

I gasped when he suddenly plopped me onto the counter, and he fisted a hand in my hair, the man close to rough as he dragged me to the edge.

“You wanna come, Little Dove?”

I couldn’t even speak. I was lucky I got out an erratic nod.

He grabbed me by the knee and spread my legs.

Breathless, I gaped, unable to believe that Milo Hendricks was actually wound between my thighs.

A fortress that towered.

So big and burly and positively dripping with sex as he stared at me with this look that told me I’d better be careful what I was asking for.

“Please.”

All self-preservation had gone poof .

He scraped his callused palm up the inside of my thigh.

Shivers raced, then I was gasping when he jerked the crotch of my sleep shorts to the side and circled a fingertip just at my entrance.

My head spun, and my hands shot to the edge of the counter to keep myself upright while his tongue raked over his bottom lip as he placed his full attention on where he was touching me.

“Look at you, sweet girl, dripping for me.”

A blush streaked my flesh, and I wasn’t even shy.

The words heaved out with a shattered breath. “Every time I think of you, I get wet, Milo. I can’t stop it, the way I wonder what it’d be like to feel you. If you…if you?—”

He cut me off by pushing two giant fingers inside me.

“Oh my God,” raked up my throat, “Milo, you?—”

He silenced the rest when he tightened his fist in my hair and dove back at my mouth.

His kiss was rough as he pumped his fingers at this perfect, mind-bending rhythm while he used the pad of his thumb to circle my clit.

Oh yes, did the man know what he was doing. I didn’t have to wonder any longer what he could do with those big, rugged hands.

Pleasure clouded my sight, and I held onto his shoulders while he stroked me into oblivion.

Bliss built so fast I wasn’t prepared.

A tsunami that struck from out of nowhere.

A summer storm that hit.

I split apart.

A complete rupturing.

An ecstasy I’d never known plowed through my body, leaving no stone unturned.

I cried out as the orgasm ripped through me.

Nothing else existed but this.

This.

“Milo.”

He swallowed that, too, the man holding me like a treasure as I nearly floated off the counter.

In his arms, I shook and bowed, arching toward him in this plea to get closer as little shocks of pleasure continued to scatter through my body.

The O was so yummy, it should have sustained me for a lifetime.

Call me needy, but I wanted more.

One taste was hardly enough.

For the first time, I really, really wanted it because I found the one who I wanted to share it with.

“Take me, Milo. Take all of me.”

I wanted to disappear into his beautiful being.

Stay there.

Fill him while he filled me.

But I’d never been so sure than right then that the man was a tornado.

The kind that touched down and destroyed everything in its path as it passed through.

Gone in an instant but the wreckage insurmountable.

Bottled mayhem that had been shaken so fiercely it blew.

Because Milo jerked away while I still tried to cling to him.

Horror cut through every line of his striking face as he stared at me like I was an apparition.

Or maybe the monster who’d shoved a knife into the sanctity of his ghosts.

Because it was all there.

Regret.

Shame.

All up against the lust that hazed over his eyes.

It didn’t help that pleasure still rolled through me. Tiny sparks that kept going off while he looked at me like I was the manifestation of his every sin.

Slowly, he backed away, peeling my fingers from his shoulders as he went.

“Milo.” His name barely made it from my lips, was barely heard, though I might as well have stabbed him with the way he recoiled when he heard it.

He roughed a shaky, tatted hand through his hair, voice a ragged scratch of desolation. “Have to go.”

Without saying anything else, he turned, snatched his keys from the counter, and stormed out the door.

The walls rattled when he slammed it behind him.

A second later, I heard the rumble of his old truck.

Disoriented, I sat up, my limbs trembling uncontrollably, my mind still muddled with desire and my heart spilling out onto the floor.

Trying to get my bearings, I gulped and inhaled, mind scrambling to process what had just happened as his truck roared off into the night.

The man stole the fire when he went.

It left me cold and adrift.

Hurt.

Because what the hell? Kiss me? Touch me? Then just…walk out?

But the worst part was I was stuck there.

Floating hopelessly in his pain.

Lost to the misery of where Milo Hendricks lived.