Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills 2)

Memories of another little girl that I couldn’t quite place. Ones I was clinging to harder and harder the more time that passed, terrified they were going to fade.

All of it was a gutting reminder that getting any closer to Salem was going to turn out bad.

Still, I leaned in, let the confession rumble from my tongue. “Call me whatever you want, gorgeous, I’m just thankful as fuck to find you sitting here this morning.”

“You thought I wouldn’t be?” Her voice was raspy, the air growing thick, that connection suffocating in a way we couldn’t let it.

Didn’t matter. I was lost in it, stumbling around in her gravity. “Thought there was a chance you were going to hide from me.”

I let the grin take to my mouth even though a fucking riot went down at the thought.

Grim.

Salem knew—knew what it meant.

She might not know the details, but she knew what I’d done.

She saw the blood and the sin and the depravity.

I rubbed at the back of my neck, suddenly conscious of the fact.

Wondering how it was possible she was still sitting there.

“If I were smart, I would.” The lilt of a tease filled the words, but her eyes flashed with something that looked a little too close to surrender.

The truth that neither of us understood what the hell we were doing.

Treading on dangerous ground.

“I guess I’m sticking around to make a bigger mess of things,” she admitted.

“Nah, baby…” I angled my head at the dwindling stacks on the desk. “A mess is the last thing you’re making. Thinking you’re the only one who can get this disaster in order. Besides, I’m pretty sure if you decided to hide, I would just have to come find you.”

Tried to keep my tone playful, but it shifted to a growl. Possession riding high.

She choked out a disbelieving sound, though she sent me one of those seductive smiles that hit me in the gut.

“You’d come find me, huh?”

“Yup.” Like a fool, I kept angling forward.

Drawn.

Had the urge to crawl right over the counter and set this girl on my lap. Get down to an entirely different type of business.

“Told you once I tasted you, I wasn’t ever going to want to stop.”

Flames lapped. A fucking forest fire that engulfed the entire room.

Thunderbolt eyes struck, and Salem swallowed hard before she edged back, breaking the tether that pulled us together. She cleared her throat, and she glanced at the door again before she looked back at me. “I think we’d better stick to that friends thing, Jud.”

“Oh, we’re friends, darlin’. Good, good friends.”

Couldn’t keep the suggestion out.

Her eyes dropped closed, like she couldn’t look at me, and my name fell like a plea from her lips. “Jud.”

We were held there a minute, in our reservations, in our pasts that seemed to refuse either of us a new path, in the truth of what we both knew she was getting ready to say.

She finally peeked over at me when she started to speak. “I’m not sure either of us can handle this, Jud. Not when the thought of walking away from you already hurts.”

Maybe I hadn’t allowed myself to admit it, to evaluate it, but I was there, too. The fact I’d go on a hunt if she disappeared.

“I decided a thousand times yesterday that I wasn’t coming here,” she continued. “I decided I was going to leave well enough alone. And here I am, which is probably the most foolish thing I could do. But you’ve helped me so much, Jud, and I…” For a beat, the avalanche of words subsided before the admission slipped free. “I want to help you, too. And I think the only way we can manage that is if we actually do this thing as friends.”

All this goodness came gushing out.

The girl a well of it.

She made me want to drop to my knees.

She was right.

Of course, she was right.

Didn’t mean it didn’t twist through me like a blade.

“Okay,” I said.

Salem blinked like she was shocked I’d agreed.

“Okay,” she repeated, like there was a chance of this issue being resolved.

I pushed off the counter and started back toward the door that led into the main shop, but I thought better of it and made a detour. Rounding the counter, I took three steps to erase the space between us.

Salem peeped in surprise, and my hand fisted in her hair, my mouth an inch from hers.

“Okay,” I grunted again. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t still taste you on my tongue. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to taste you again.”

My mouth moved to her ear. “You don’t want me to hunt you down, Salem? Get it. But I’m afraid my heart might have already claimed you as my own.”

She touched the pounding at my chest. “And I’m afraid this heart is as broken as mine, and we’re only going to end up hurting each other. I already warned you I’m in no position to fall in love.”