Page 95 of Hate Wrecked

I place my hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “Riley, what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is soft, nearly a whisper.

“You’ve been begging me for something, and I just…” I hesitate, hearing the heartbreak lacing my tone. “You ruin me,” I say through gritted teeth. “You always have; you always will. I thought time and distance would dull this, would exorcise you from my heart. But it hasn’t. I’m not sure it ever can. Why do you want this, Riley? I need to know this isn’t another game and that you‘re not going to leave me on the shore again.”

“It never was a game. I just…I got lost.”

I shake my head, but she pulls away enough to place her hand on my chest, over my heart.

“Give me grace for the past, for the mistakes I made. I’m not there anymore, okay, Rowan? I hope that if you found anything to be true here, it would be that. I am not her. So the question is, is itheryou want? Do you want who I was despite the way I hurt you? Because being in love with a ghost benefits no one. I have to do that with my mother—forget who I thought she was. Learn to love her now, whoever she is, if we ever get off this fucking island. But you? I’ve wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you. And you? You have always been good and always been the kind of man who becomes someone’s home. That’s what you were. You were home, despite my hatred for the word. You are home, and love, and peace. Out here in this place, you let me be wild, and I turn to you over and over again because you aresafe.”

I flinch at the word before placing my hand over hers. “How sexy…”

She pulls her hand from mine, grabbing my shoulders. “You bring it to life: safety and fire. Warmth is needed even when you’re trying to be cold. I don’t want the things I used to want. The things I thought I deserved. Pain. I thought I deserved that, Rowan. I don’t anymore.”

“Your psychiatrist would be proud of you?—”

She cuts me off. “Will you just let me tell you I love you?”

The world stops then. I don’t hear the ocean. I don’t hear the fire. I don’t hear the birds in the dark. I just hear her voice, her words, everything I have longed for. I take her hands from my shoulders, bring them to my mouth and kiss each knuckle. When Riley closes her eyes, I see her shoulders ease, the tension from the day slipping away. At that moment, it feels like words can heal. Her own, the kind in my head, the ones unspoken. I pull her close, wrap my arms around her. “Okay,” I say.

“I love you, Rowan Finn. Even if you won’t let me. You’re not the only one who was haunted, who couldn’t shake it,” she whispers to my chest, to my skin.

When I pull away, I take her hand, lead her to the tent. Her eyes are wary when I drop down, so I kiss her, hands on her body, pulling her closer until she’s straddling me. I fuse my mouth to hers. We are skin to skin when we touch. The sun has warmed us, the salt never leaves us. It’s rough—the sand on us, how we grip each other, how we kiss as if this is both our last and first time.

When she pulls away and leans across the tent, digging into her bag, I hold my breath, trying to calm my racing heart as I grip her thighs. But it speeds up when I see what is in her hands—the necklace—the necklace I dropped into the sand.

I close my eyes and shake my head, then take it from her. She shivers as I reach around, brushing her hair away, wrapping her neck in gold and the past. I kiss that neck as she gives me more words, more confessions. “When you love someone, they never leave you. You may part, but they are always a shadow inside, ever present in how you move and carry yourself in this world. Rowan, God, you have always been that voice in my head, asking me if I can be better, do a little more, or be there for someone when life gets dark. You did that for me when I was my own shipwreck, my own bad dream on top of the ones I lived in during my waking hours.”

I roll us onto the blanket, one hand pulling her leg around me, the other in her hair.

“The note saidI would leave it all for you.I knew you loved me then, when I read it. But it was still too late. Tell me you still do,” she begs as I look down on her. “Tell me it’s not just me.”

I kiss her ear, her neck, her collarbone. I want nothing more than to rip her bikini top down, taste her, show her my feelings, give in to every risk I’ve shied away from. But I don’t, and when she reaches up, running her hand over the white streak in my hair, I unravel.

“I love you, Riley. I’ll never be able to stop. I’ve been locked in this anguish for years. I’ve only been in love once in my life.” I bring her hand to my chest. “I can feel it in here. It will only happen once. Or maybe if it happened again, it would pale in comparison. I didn’t fall for you because you were forbidden. I fell for you because you view the world in a way that broke my heart and made me feel everything all at once. Wanting to protect you has been my deepest need since the moment I saw you. It became too much when you ran, when you hurt me. My ego was too strong, and my heart was too hurt to be in your life anymore. So I had to build that wall. Your mother gave me an out for this job. Maybe she saw more than we knew, but I never hesitated. I had to see you again. I had to know that you were okay, and if you weren’t, I wanted to try to be there for you again. But being face to face with you brought everything back to the surface. And I couldn’t let you in, not again. I couldn’t let myself be vulnerable again with the only woman I’ve ever fucking needed more than anything. That kind of love hurts; it leaves you soft and easily broken. I saw it with my mother. I thought I had done the work that made me stronger and steadier. But you tilted me off my axis again when you walked across that airport floor. All I could think was…don’t let her see it. Don’t let her see it again because if she throws it away again, I’ll never recover. I’ll never recover if you decide again that the safe bet isn’t exciting to you. This isn’t a game. I’m no game to master or play, Riley. So if that is what you’re doing out here—playing house on an island with your past love—then stop. Let’s just get through this so we can make it to the other side. I’ll believe you if you say someone or something is coming. I’ll be whatever you need. But I won’t be a way to pass the time. Not again. Never again.”

She leans up then, and I stay steady, let her press her forehead to mine. “I love you tragically, without question, with the part of me healing and mending. I just…then…I just…” She falls back, covers her face with her hands.

I roll off of her, grip her wrists, and pull her up. When she is sitting, I pull her close, wrap my arms around her. “I’m not him, Riley.”

“I know,” she whispers, half trembling.

“No. I don’t think you do,” I say, gripping her hip. She goes to speak again, but I stop her, my mouth finds hers, and there is nothing gentle in me. Gone are the tears and the questions. Gone is the man on the brink of walking away from her. Gone is the ultimatum. Her hands find my hair, and my arms go around her back. I’m hungry and desperate to tell her with my body what her ears don’t want to take in, what her heart wants to push out.

Outside the rain falls down, and we fall apart just out of its reach. I kiss her with fervor, with regret. With all I can’t say and everything I confessed. And she kisses me with all she is now, breaking down the man who had an iron wall around his heart.

What a beautiful compromise, what a heartbreaking surrender.

I don’t deserve any of it, and I devour it all.

IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?

RILEY

As the rain falls,Rowan removes my clothing one piece at a time. I remove his, and my hands wander. A slow descent from his broad shoulders, down his chest, the ridges of his abs, to the length of him. He presses his forehead to mine, moaning. “Riley...”

This isn’t like before. It’s a tease, a dance, a war between two bodies and two hearts far too familiar with each other, with the scars that have kept us apart.

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