Dark and Shallow Lies(58)

He doesn’t say anything else. But he doesn’t stand up and move away, either. And I feel that old pull. So strong. So familiar. It’s such a deep part of me, that longing for Hart. I know it so well. Like the feeling of the boardwalk under my feet.

Or the sound of Elora’s laugh.

There’s a kind of comfort in the timeless ache of it. Something about it that makes sense.

I reach out and run my fingers over his cheekbones and his jawline, like I’m trying to memorize the map of him. I see him flinch. But he doesn’t pull away from my touch.

All I want in the whole world is for him not to hurt any more. And for me not to hurt any more.

Hart shuts his eyes and leans in closer. I can feel his breath on my lips.

So I kiss him. And he kisses me back. We kiss each other so hard and so deep that it’s like we’ve both been snakebit and we’re trying to suck out the poison. Like we need to draw out each other’s pain.

We kiss each other like it’s a matter of life and death.

Tongues and teeth.

Hands.

I hear him moan my name, and the sound of it vibrates against something deep inside me. I try to speak his name out loud, but it gets all tangled up on my tongue.

Hart presses his lips against my ear, and the heat of his mouth makes me half-wild. “Shhhhh,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to talk, Greycie. I feel you.”

The night is so hot, and we melt so far into each other, that I’m not sure whose arms or lips or searching fingers are whose any more.

Hart stops and pulls his shirt off over his head, then he turns and spreads it out over the cushion of cypress needles in the bottom of the boat. I pull my tank top off, too, then he scoops me up off the seat to lay me down.

For just a second, I think about Elora.

How she lost her virginity right here in this very spot. With Case.

And I wonder if the old pontoon boat will be the spot for me, too.

If my story will be an echo of hers.

The way it always has been.

But then Hart is on top of me. And I’m not thinking of anything any more.

Not even Elora.

Or Zale, with his ice-fire eyes and his electric touch.

All I’m thinking about is Hart.

How I wish I could press kisses to all the broken places way down deep inside him. All the sore spots I know I’ll never be able to reach. But I can’t. So my mouth finds his collarbone. His jaw. The hollow at the base of his neck.

Hart decides to pick up the pace, and I don’t complain when he fast-forwards to the part where he awkwardly tries to unbutton my shorts and slide them down my legs. But they get all tangled around my ankles when I try to kick them off. And Hart laughs. It’s a low, genuine chuckle deep in his throat, and when I hear it, I fall absolutely head over heels in love with him all over again.

For like the ten millionth time in seventeen summers.

That moment slips away like river fog, though, and Hart presses himself hard against me. I reach down to touch him through his jeans, and he hisses. I feel his teeth at my neck. Sharp. Not kissing me any more. Biting. Nipping. Pulling at me. Eating me alive.

Devouring me.

His breath is ragged and whiskey-thick. He pants in my ear and growls my name as he slides a rough hand under my bra.

From his side of the pond, Willie Nelson grunts and bellows at us, like maybe we’re the noisy neighbors keeping him awake.

I fumble with the buttons on Hart’s jeans, but I can’t get them undone.

His tongue moves over the edges of my teeth, one hand tangled in my hair, as he yanks his fly open. I hear the metal buttons scatter across the bottom of the boat.

He shoves his own hand down the front of his jeans, and I feel him moving against me as I open my mouth wider for him. Denim rubs at my thighs, and the weight of him steals my breath.

I tug at the waist of his jeans, trying to pull them down, but he won’t let me.

“No,” he says. “Don’t. I just need –” But then my mouth finds his neck again, and his words become meaningless syllables as his hand keeps working.

“Fuck!” I feel all his muscles tighten before he goes limp in my arms.

And that’s it.

It’s all over.

Whatever it was that pulled us toward each other drifts away like mist.

Or cigarette smoke.

Hart helps me up. He slings his T-shirt over one shoulder before he shakes the cypress needles out of my tank top and hands it back to me. I turn it right side out and pull it over my head before I tug on my shorts.

He straightens up his jeans. Mutters something about the buttons. And how late it is. Tries to laugh again.

Fails.

Then he walks me home. He doesn’t hold my hand, but he does manage to mumble, “Night.”

Nothing more than that. And even that is more than I can force out.

When Hart leaves, I reach for the doorknob. But Evie suddenly appears out of the shadows on her front porch. She looks so small, and she moves so silently in my direction that I mistake her for Wrynn at first. But then the moon catches that white-blonde hair.

“You lied to me,” she whispers. “You told me Hart didn’t love you.” Her chin quivers, and the misery in her voice is more than I can bear tonight.

“He doesn’t. Evie –”

She comes a few steps closer. Her eyes are the color of river fog.

“Please don’t take him away, Grey.” She reaches for my hand. Squeezes hard. “He’s the only good person left in this whole place.” She bursts into tears. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what he did for me. He saved me, Grey. If he leaves –”