Bayou Beauty (Butterfly Bayou 4)

The sight of her standing there wearing his clothes made something spark to life in him.

The storm wasn’t so bad if it ended with his wife looking like the most delicious treat he’d ever seen.

And he was hungry. So damn hungry.

“What are you doing?” She had a big towel in her hand. “Come inside and get dry. Did something go wrong with the generator?”

“Out of gas,” he shouted over the rain. He glanced back and Otis was flicking his stub of a tail and sliding back into the water. Where he belonged.

Where did Rene belong? Wasn’t that the question? He was the “king” of his world, but the only place he’d ever felt comfortable was when he’d been out on the bayou with Dre and Sylvie. They were the only people he’d been free with.

Was he mistaking nostalgia and longing for something real they could build a life on?

He didn’t care. All that mattered in that moment was that she was standing there offering him a stupid towel and no one . . . no one offered to help him that way. No one thought he needed it.

He strode toward her, aware the moment she realized his intent. Her eyes widened and she dropped the towel.

The porch was small but covered. He knew he should go inside and get dry, set them up for what might be a long night, but he couldn’t wait another second. The years weighed on him, all the long years that would have been easier to bear if she’d been by his side.

“I let you go the first time. I don’t know that I can do it again.” He had to give her a chance.

She frowned up at him, but even as he moved into her space, she didn’t back down. Her chin tilted up. “Let me go?”

Tension made his whole body feel like a bow string, taut and ready to go off at any moment. He needed for her to understand why he’d walked away all those years ago. “In college. I let you go.”

Her eyes narrowed, obvious irritation in her gaze. “You told me it was a mistake. You said you shouldn’t have touched me. That’s not letting me go, Rene. That was pushing me away.”

Finally, finally they were getting to the heart of the matter, and once they did, she would either accept him or he would know she couldn’t.

And he would try again. He’d realized she wasn’t something he could toss away because it was hard to deal with. She was important. This marriage was important to him.

“You have no idea how hard it was to walk away from you.”

She was the aggressive one now, her eyes flashing more brilliantly than the lightning in the sky. “You didn’t have to. I never asked you to walk away, and if this is going to turn into some ‘I was too innocent for you’ thing, then maybe you should walk away this time, too. I wasn’t a child back then. I was a woman fully capable of making my own decisions.”

She’d been a woman, but not fully grown. Neither of them had been. They still might not be, but now seemed like the time for them to grow together. “You hadn’t even gotten through your first year of college, and I was leaving for Chicago.”

“Then be honest.” She was close to him, and yet she was still practically shouting over the storm. “You didn’t want some pathetic freshman hanging on to you.”

A thrum of anger pulsed inside him, but he had to admit it felt good. He always, always shoved his emotions down. He couldn’t scare his mother. When his father had been alive, he’d been the one with the burden, so Rene hadn’t bothered him. He couldn’t let his cousins see his rage. He couldn’t show how weak he felt at times.

But Sylvie could handle it. Sylvie would want it. That’s where he’d been going wrong. He’d hidden behind the smooth, modern armor he wore all the time. He’d been polite, thinking he could tempt her with the easy things—money, comfort, power, and position.

Sylvie needed more. She needed to see the part of him no one else got to see, the one he denied ninety-nine percent of the time.

He reached up and gripped the nape of her neck, something primal flowing through him. “I wanted to give you a chance to see the world before I brought you into mine, before I made you my whole damn world, Sylvie.”

He didn’t care that he was soaking wet and she’d managed to get dry. All that mattered was his mouth on hers, her arms winding around him, that sigh that came from her right before he kissed her.

This was what he’d needed to do. He’d been careful around her, but she needed his honest emotion. He could give her this. He needed to give her this.