“I don’t get why you had to leave then in the first place. It was like there was a fire in your ass. No warning. No planning. You just showed up at my window demanding I run off with you. What happened?”
I scraped my hands over my face as I readied to tell her what had happened. Not just that night, but the life I’d led that no one except Ryder knew about.
“My father liked to hit my mother. He was also a drunk, although he didn’t need to be drinking to decide my mother needed a beating. Or me for that matter.”
She gasped. “I knew you didn’t like your father but I didn’t realize he abused you.”
“When you grow up with it, you don’t like it, but you also don’t know any different. You get used to it, I guess. Eventually, when I got big enough to defend myself, my father left me alone except for telling me how worthless I was. My mother though, she was his regular punching bag and that night, I decided to put an end to it.”
“Wyatt.”
I turned toward the river, finding it difficult to tell her all this while looking at her. “I didn’t just intervene; I gave him the experience of what it was like to be beaten. To feel the shock of pain like a knife as a fist makes contact. I don’t regret it. But he was going to call the cops and have me arrested for assault.” I laughed derisively. “All the times he beat my mother and not once did he spend a night in jail. My mother gave up calling for help long ago. Worse, she’d make excuses for him. So, after I left him bloody and battered, hobbling to the phone to call for help, she got mad at me. I’d just protected her and I was in trouble for it. So, I said ‘fuck it’ and left.”
“Oh God, Wyatt.”
I shrugged and turned back to her. “I wasn’t going to jail for that asshole. I packed a bag and the only other thing I needed in life was you, so I came to get you. I expected you to come. I suppose I felt like you should have known I needed to leave, but how could you when I’d never told you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for? You didn’t know. That’s on me.” God, it tore me up how badly I fucked things up for us. The military had been good to me, but being with Sinclair would have been better. “I wanted to contact you.” I stepped toward her, wanting her to see the sincerity of my words in my eyes. “I thought about you every damn day. But once I was gone, it seemed like it would be best for everyone that I stayed gone.”
“You were wrong.”
I laughed. “I’m not surprised. I didn’t get much right then.”
“Why are you back now?” She didn’t sound mad. Or look mad. That had to be a good sign.
“About a year ago I was injured and the military contacted my mom. I hadn’t been in touch with her either, but I guess they thought she should know. She couldn’t come back east where I was taken when I was shipped stateside for medical treatment. My dad wouldn’t let her.” Fucker. “But she did write and I’d write back. Old school.”
She smiled warmly. It gave me the courage to keep going.
“Then six months ago, she said my dad had taken off with another woman. She’d hired two extra hands to manage the ranch so I didn’t think much about it. I figured they’d do a better job than my old man. But then about two months ago, she said the money was tight. As it happened, I was up for re-enlistment. I opted to retire to come home.”
“I’m sure she’s glad you’re here.”
But not you, I wanted to say. I held it back because I knew it was a pathetic statement. “I won’t lie, Sinclair, that a part of me is looking to rebuild what I lost, but I know that’s selfish of me. You have a life without me and I’m so fucking proud of you for that.”
She moved to me, pressing her hand on my chest. “I always got the feeling you felt unworthy, not just of me but of good things in general.”
She wasn’t wrong about that.
“But here you are. You’re home for your mother. You’re fighting Stark. You’re a good man, Wyatt. You always were.” She lifted up on her toes and pressed her lips against mine.
I didn’t know what she was intending, a light friendly peck or to start something more, but on my end, an inferno erupted. My lips remembered her taste and like memory yarn, my body responded automatically.
I banded an arm around her, tugging her close, hoping against hope she didn’t push me away. When she didn’t, I teased her lips with my tongue, begging for entrance into her sweet mouth. Her lips parted, and then I was there, my tongue dancing with hers. I was lost in her. The intoxication of her hot mouth and soft tongue made my head reel.
Her fingers gripped my t-shirt and she moaned, tilting her head and turning up the heat on the kiss.
I ran my hands up and down her waist, loving the soft curve of her body. I slipped my fingers under her shirt, finally touching her soft skin, running my hands along her sides, up her back.
“I want you, Sinclair. God help me, I have to have you.”
Her hands pushed my shirt up. I gripped the hem and yanked it off, tossing it aside. Her hands splayed over my chest.
“Touch me,” I moaned as her hands caressed me.
Our movements were frantic as our clothes w