Page 75 of Almost Home
The confusion on his face made me press on. “It felt like you couldn’t see that I’d changed—that I’d spent years working on how I deal with my parents and have made crazy strides with them. It made me feel so stupid—like I was seventeen again, in some ways.”
He swore under his breath. “I didn’t mean to—"
I squeezed his hand and caught his gaze. “No, I get it. I was too sensitive, which is usually how I am after talking with my mom. And you were understandably in a bad mood. Not a great combo for communicating about something difficult, but look.” My gaze swept between us and around the low-lit living room where my pointless but pretty fake fireplace was lit. “We’re here, and we’ve made up, and it’s all good.”
“We’ve made up. That’s a good point.” Then he leaned up and over the table to press a quick, searing kiss to my lips.
Heat rushed through me and pooled low in my belly. He was so sweet and hot, and it’d been forever since I’d felt like this. I hadn’t wanted anyone like this in… in… well. Since him. Since I was hormone-crazed and unfazed by how insane it was that I’d found the love of my life at fourteen. I’d had him like that a little over two short years and then lost him for two decades, and now here we sat.
“What’s that look for?”
The burn in my cheeks matched my hammering heartbeat. I couldn’t tell where he was exactly with how he felt about the two of us, but even I knew he wasn’tuninterested. He wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t wanted to—Wilder simply didn’t do things he had no interest in.
“I was thinking how glad I am to be here with you now.” I could’ve said more—how I’d thought about him. Pathetic though it might’ve made me, I’d wondered how he was and wondered if I’d ever see him again.
I would never say I’d come back to Silverton for him, but I could admit a part of me had come back for the possibility of seeing him. To apologize and right the wrong as much as it could be after so much time had passed.
“I am, too.”
* * *
After cleaning up dinner, we sat on my small couch, legs touching and my right hand knitted with his left. His thumb swept along the outside of mine in slow arcs and sent a prolonged wave of sensation from my arm all the way through my body each time he did.
Basically, he was torturing me. It felt like every topic we spoke about—his old job, life, friends, and my old jobs, life, and friends—was leading up to what was happening now. What was life like now for us, and what did we want together?
That, and would we actuallybetogether? He hadn’t kissed me since that quick press of lips at dinner, and though I wanted to climb on top of him and kiss him like the world was ending, I held back.
I’d never been bold like that except with Wilder, and though everything in my body said,“Get him while the getting’s good,”my heart shuddered at the thought of making the first move. Or, not the first, but thenextone.
But the more he looked at me with those dark blue eyes, and every time he ran a hand across the close-cropped beard on his jaw, the more I thought about tossing all those doubts to the wind and taking what I wanted. And right as I thought I might do it, he finally looked at me and shifted forward so his face hovered close to mine.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said, eyes skating over my face and landing on my lips.
My pulse spiked. “Anytime. I’m so glad you came.”
He bit his lip in a gesture so sensual, I would’ve expired on the spot had it not been for the pained furrow in his brow. But in a blink, it dissolved into a pleasant smile and he reached out, pulled my head toward him, and kissed my temple.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said with a lingering look that sent fire down to my toes and then hopped up and made for the door.
Um. What?
“Oh-kay, sure, yeah, I’ll see you—” I jumped up too and tracked behind him.
One last flash of those eyes and he was gone. Door closed, out of sight, practically disappeared. I would’ve thought I’d conjured up the whole evening if I didn’t still see the leftover trash hanging out of my too-small trash can.
I leaned my head against the panel of wood blocking out the rain and wind, and apparently, a very restless and confusing Wilder. My heart twisted as I parsed through the evening. He was interested—I knew it. But he was holding back.
Not all that shocking, really. I’d left him suddenly, brutally, years ago. Maybe he was scared I’d do it again? I needed to find my voice and use it. Tell him I—
The doorbell rang and I startled back, then whipped it open on reflex. “Wilder?”
The words sprang from my lips as I took him in—rain-soaked shirt plastered to his sculpted chest, dark hair made darker by the moisture dripping off him.
“Do you want me to stay?”
My mouth opened like it’d speak, but the sight of him so wild-eyed and pulsing with energy and intention had stolen all the words from my brain.
“Sarah. Please. I need you to tell me.”
