Preston's Honor(65)

But I had to touch her. I needed to feel her skin under my hands, wanted so desperately to taste her sweetness on my tongue. I still loved her. God help me, I did. And I wanted her so much I could barely breathe. I stepped toward her, and her eyes widened in surprise as her head tipped back to look up at me. “Lia,” I said, my voice gravelly, “I missed you. I’ve missed you for a long, long time.”

Her lips parted and her eyes blinked and a gust of breath whispered from her mouth. “I’ve missed you, too.”

I wove my fingers through her silken hair, supporting her head in my hand. “Do you think there’s a chance for us, Lia?” I rasped. “After everything, is there any chance at all?” I didn’t know myself, but I wanted her to want it as badly as I did. If we both tried . . . maybe if we started over with the intention of repairing what had been so broken, there was a chance. However small, I’d take it.

She stared up at me for a moment, so many emotions flashing through her eyes that I couldn’t identify them. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“Do you want there to be?”

She closed her eyes briefly, just a fluttering of her lashes, as pain flickered across her face. “Yes,” she breathed. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

My heart leapt and I took her mouth, hard and sudden, and she let out a tiny squeak as her arms came around my neck, her fingers weaving into my hair. She tasted just the same as I remembered and every cell in my body responded. Mine. I dipped my tongue into her sweetness and she moaned, tangling her tongue with mine and pressing her slender body against me. Blood surged through me in a hot, fast rush, but I willed myself to slow down. It’d only ever been that way with us. It’s all Lia had ever known, and I wondered if she even realized there was anything else—lovemaking that was slow and languorous and didn’t result in ripped clothing and bruised skin.

Ah, hell.

I pulled my mouth from hers, ending the kiss, resting my forehead against hers for a moment as we caught our breath. I leaned away, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear, her full lips red and swollen from my kiss, her eyes soft and vulnerable as she looked back at me.

We stood together by the fence where I’d once waited for her with bated breath, and I felt something inside me open up, like a flower that had bowed its head and shut its petals when the darkness fell upon it and suddenly felt the warm, unexpected glimmer of a sunbeam.

Slowly, Lia reached out and took my hands in hers, her eyes not leaving mine. For a moment I was confused, not knowing what she was doing. I glanced down at our hands and then back to her. Then she curled her fingers toward her palm to create a loose fist and used her other hand to close mine, bumping our knuckles together once, then twice. She opened her hand and I followed suit, grasping her fingers as she grasped mine.

Oh. It felt as if my heart breathed the word.

Her hands were soft and gentle, and they moved with certainty. I watched as she went through the handshake that I’d had so much trouble remembering. Once and again, and then she let go of me and I did it on my own, imagining her hands were Cole’s, swearing I could hear his laughter drifting to us from the fields, through the breeze, and in the rustling of the leaves above.

I laughed out a strange sort of choking sound. “That’s it.” I nodded. “That’s it.” She knew. She knew because she’d been there, and I recognized the sweet simplicity of the gesture for what it was: a gift.

Our hands dropped, and we looked at each other for a moment and something shifted in the air around us. I didn’t know exactly how to name it, but it caused another spark of yearning to flare within me. “Come over tomorrow, Annalia. Spend Hudson’s birthday with us. Please,” I said, the words falling from my lips.

I didn’t know if there was any chance we could ever wade through the years of miscommunication and loss between us. I had no idea if there was any way to reclaim what we’d once barely begun. But now I knew we both hoped for it, and that seemed like a pretty damn good start.

She watched me for a moment before she nodded, her face breaking into a smile that went straight to my heart. “I’d like that.”

“Me, too, Lia. Me, too.”





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


Annalia



I woke to the sound of rain softly falling on my window. For a minute I didn’t move, just listened to the light, hypnotic drumming, my mind drifting. I thought about the party the day before and turned over, smiling softly at the memory of Hudson in my arms with his birthday hat and cake-smeared grin.

My mind moved to Preston and how we’d stood at the fence and talked, really talked, for the first time in so long. And the way he’d kissed me . . . Do you think there’s a chance for us, Lia? A shiver of hope moved through me, but I was still so wary, so afraid to invest my heart in Preston again. Had I ever really stopped? I sighed. Maybe not. No, be honest, Lia. Definitely not. Oh, but to love him had hurt me so deeply. Could I risk my heart that way again? Should I? Could I even stop myself if I wanted to? My heart, it seemed, knew only how to beat for him, like the wings of a bird soaring through an endless sky. As blue as his eyes and as warm as his touch had once been on my skin.

It was obvious we still had a physical spark. For a time I’d wondered if we’d even lost that. When I’d shown up at Preston’s house with my measly suitcase, his mother had let me in and told me I could take my bag upstairs. I’d passed what I saw was his room, unsure of whether I should put my things in there or not, deciding instead on the room across the hall with the door standing wide open, obviously a guest room by the sparse furnishings and lack of personal items. If Preston wanted me to sleep with him, he could let me know. He hadn’t. And that had hurt. So badly.