Page 21 of Bolt To Me
Carli smiled faintly, too tired for anything else. But when she looked across the square, it wasn’t the nods or the praise or even the murmurs of respect that made her breath catch. It was Cory.
He was standing beside the old bank steps, sweat still glistening on his neck, his arms folded across his chest as he watched her with a look that said everything she hadn’t been able to put into words since the storm.
The town was changing, had changed from the time she was a teenager with gangly limbs and a mouth that made the boys scared. But him? He never changed. He’d seen her clearly from the beginning. And now, she was starting to see herself thesame way. And that might’ve been the most powerful kind of healing there was.
The Night Before
The stars were out, big, bold, scattered like a thousand fire-kissed diamonds across the endless sprawl of the Texas sky, each one suspended in velvet black like it had been hung just for them. The night was warm, but not stifling, the kind of heat that draped around the shoulders and kissed bare skin with damp fingers. The air still carried a faint echo of the storm, a trace of electricity, the ghost of rain soaked into the wood siding and cooling earth. The scent of cedar lingered thick in the walls of the main house, grounding everything with the rich, rugged sharpness of the trees outside. It smelled like memory, aftermath, and beginnings all at once.
Inside, the space had been made whole again. The broken things had been picked up and swept away. Furniture re-centered. Glass replaced. Blankets folded with neat corners that didn’t match the tension in the air. The kind of quiet cleanliness that suggested normalcy, but it was a lie. Because the real damage hadn’t been physical, the mess still lived in them,where it twisted under ribs and tugged at nerve endings, where it left bruises shaped like old regrets and kisses that had gone unspoken.
Carli stood by the open window of the guest bedroom, arms wrapped tight around herself, the cotton of her shirt twisted in her fists. Her gaze was fixed on the pasture beyond, where the fence lines shimmered in moonlight and the wind moved like an invisible tide across the grass. Her bare feet pressed into the old wooden floor, but her thoughts were adrift, floating somewhere out past the tree line, where the sky met the dark. She had managed to salvage most of her stuff from the ruined guesthouse. A few items of clothing were literally gone with the wind, and her laptop had a nice dent in the case, but still worked. But she could replace what was ruined and missing. What she couldn’t do was settle her mind.
She didn’t flinch when Cory’s footsteps approached behind her. She didn’t stiffen when the heat of him spilled over her back, or when his large hands found her hips, thumbs brushing just above her waistband with the kind of touch that wasn’t possessive, but grounding, anchoring, like he was reminding her he was there. His voice, when it came, was low, a soft rasp pulled from somewhere deep in his chest.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said, not accusing. Just an observation. A worry wrapped in calm.
“Just thinking,” she murmured, the words slipping out like breath.
“About?” His fingers flexed slightly against her, a barely-there encouragement.
She turned slowly, her arms still folded, but her gaze locked on his. “You. Me. This… whatever this is.”
Cory’s jaw tightened just a little, as if the weight of that question sat heavy on his tongue, but his voice never faltered. “And?”
She hesitated just long enough for the silence to thicken. “I’m scared,” she admitted, voice quiet but bare. “Of losing myself again. Of wanting too much.”
He stepped in, close enough that their bodies nearly touched. “You are too much,” he said, heat threading every syllable. “And that’s why I want every damn piece of you.”
The words struck her like lightning, unexpected and electric. Her breath hitched, eyes wide, chest rising. He didn’t stop. Didn’t let her drift away again.
“I’ve spent my whole life being what people expected,” Cory said, voice thicker now, raw with old truths. “Jackson’s smooth-talking little brother. The guy who never sticks. The one who laughs it all off. But then you…” His gaze searched her face, his hands tightening on her hips. “You walked into that bar in a wedding dress with fire in your eyes and ruined everything I thought I wanted.”
Her breath stuttered, caught between disbelief and something too big to name.
“You didn’t need me to save you,” he went on. “You needed someone who could see you. And I do, Carli. Every stubborn, beautiful, wild part of you. Even the ones you try to hide.”
Tears burned hot behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure when they had formed, but they sat heavy now, threatening to spill.
“I love you,” Cory said, and it wasn’t a confession. It was a declaration. His hand came up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing just under her eye. “Not just the fun parts. Not just the heat. I love you when you’re messy, and moody, and trying so hard to be fine when you’re not.”
That cracked something open in her, something deep and aching and fragile. She surged forward, mouth crashing into his in a kiss that was everything she hadn’t been able to say. It wasrough and raw, trembling and frantic, a kiss that tasted like salt and salvation.
He caught her instantly, arms wrapping around her like she was something he’d waited years to hold. She felt his breath shudder against her lips, his hands spanning her back, gripping tight like she might disappear if he let go. Then, without a word, he lifted her into his arms, and she went willingly, legs locking around his waist as he carried her toward the bed like something sacred, something precious and untouchable, except to him.
The mattress dipped beneath them as he laid her down, their bodies tangled, mouths searching, gasping, finding each other again and again. Hands roamed desperately, familiar and starved, fingertips dragging over fabric, pressing into muscle, slipping beneath clothes. Her shirt peeled away first, exposing her skin to the warm rush of air between them. He kissed her collarbone, her throat, the hollow just above her breast, and she arched into him, needing more, always more.
Cory’s shirt hit the floor with a tug, followed by her jeans, then his. Bare skin met bare skin, and it was electric, heat, and friction, and the overwhelming rightness of their bodies fitting together like a secret answered. His mouth returned to hers, slower now, tasting her like something rare, something never to be wasted. Their kiss deepened, turned hungrier, edged with reverence.
“I need you,” she whispered into the curve of his neck, her breath hot and ragged against his skin. “All of you.”
“You have me,” he said, voice so thick it trembled. “You’ve always had me.”
He kissed her again, then trailed down her body, mouth worshipping every inch, lips brushing over ribs, stomach, hips. His hands followed, mapping her with a reverence that bordered on holy. She gasped when his tongue found her, a sudden bloom of pleasure that stole the air from her lungs. He took histime, drawing sounds from her lips like notes from a beloved instrument, coaxing her higher with each flick, each stroke, until her body trembled and her voice cracked, shattered, begged.
When he finally moved over her again, she was already undone. And yet the moment he slid inside her, she felt it like a new beginning, a slow, deep claiming that wasn’t rough or frantic, but intimate, grounding. Their fingers laced tightly between them, and their foreheads touched, breath mingling in the space between their mouths as they moved.
“I love you,” he whispered again and again, his voice a chant, a promise, a prayer. She whispered it back, breathless, gasping, her heart in every syllable.
