Hold on to Hope

It was out before I could stop it, and even if I could, I wouldn’t have taken it back.

I needed him to know.

Pain radiated from Evan, his spirit echoing off the rocks, ricocheting back.

“Why did you?” I asked. Desperate.

He took a step forward.

The earth shook. A rumble of the caverns and a shiver of the cliffs.

I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO STAY. His movements were fluid, mesmerizing as he signed.

“Why? Why would you ever think this wasn’t where you belonged?”

His throat bobbed heavily as he swallowed, his own war raging inside of him. “My entire life, everyone always did everything for me. I figured it was my turn to return the favor.” He edged closer, and my breaths were getting shallower, sorrow billowing and getting all mixed up with the insane attraction I felt for this boy.

This man who I was aching to touch. To caress and love and remind how important that he was.

“A favor?” I realized it was a cry. That I was pleading with him to help me understand. “How in the world could you possibly think leaving me was doing me a favor?”

He kept coming closer.

Energy sparked with each step.

A frisson in the air.

So vivid I could almost see the circuit glinting in the space.

Awareness churned, every hair on my body lifted and on edge.

I wondered what I was thinking, coming here.

To our secret place. I guessed it was the masochistic side of me knowing that he would follow. The part that needed to understand.

His head drifted to the side as he stopped two feet away. His overwhelming presence and the subtle scent he wore like cologne hit me in a crashing wave.

The lake and the masculine kiss of the sun.

“I was so tired of seeing the fear written in you and knowing I was the one who was responsible for it.”

“And you think that fear was going to up and go away because you moved across the country? Because you ripped yourself away from me? You think it didn’t grow a thousand times worse?”

Our conversation had become nothing but breaths and gasps. My pulse hammered so hard I could feel it pummeling against my skin, this thrum, thrum, thrum that climbed through the bare space that separated us.

“I wanted it to.” The words quavered, and Evan was right there, his pants washing over my face, his presence making me weak.

“Did you really think I loved you so little? That my love was so superficial that you could leave and I’d forget you? Did you really think you could erase the spot where you are carved inside of me?”

He’d left a cavern so wide there was no chance of it filling. No way it could diminish or even cave in.

“That would be like believing we no longer needed the sun.”

“Frankie,” he rasped, erasing the last bit of space, and he leaned down to run his nose along the length of my jaw. Inhaling as he went.

I sucked in a sharp breath, shivers racing my flesh. I inched back, like I could possibly be strong enough to shun the pull this boy had on me.

Magnetic.

Hypnotic.

My back hit the cool, hard surface of the rock.

Pinned.

That’s the way he’d always had me.

Completely trapped and never wishing to get away.

“Frankie . . . I missed you . . . so goddamn much,” he murmured at my ear, and he pulled back a fraction to look down at me.

“You know that I missed you.”

More than I wanted to admit.

Evan reached out and took a lock of my hair that was blowing around my face. He twisted it in his finger.

The air shivered and danced.

“It’s killing me . . . killing me seeing you with him. Fucking torture, Frankie, having to watch my girl with someone else.”

What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Tell him that I agreed?

Because it was.

It was torture.

Sheer, utter torture.

All of it.

Him leaving me and him coming back a daddy and the way that I still felt.

Those eyes watched me like they were looking for an answer, his chest heaving, and God, my stupid stomach was twisting in all these knots, butterflies scattering when they had no business taking flight.

“Only have one question for you, Frankie Leigh.” That raspy voice was gruff. Hard and almost mad.

“What?”

“Do you love him?”

Flames lapped.

Singeing.

Searing.

We might as well have still been looking at each other through the fire.

Attraction and greed and everything we’d ever promised each other roiled in that unending connection.

“I-I . . .” I turned away from him, unable to remain looking at him and not completely crumble.

Evan reached out and took me by the chin.

Softly.

I felt myself caving. Everything coming apart. I struggled to find defenses. “I don’t owe you an explanation, Evan.”

“You’re right. You don’t.” He edged closer. The words a ragged growl. “But I need to know.”