Page 49 of Freak
But something else inside her, not in her mind but seated more deeply, not a voice at all but something far more elemental, something perhaps that had been inside her since before she understood words or how to use them,wantedthis fierceness from him, wanted to give in to it, to submit to him. That something understood that his force wasn’t danger or offense but desperation, a need to cut through everything that had grown up between them on this day and reclaim their closeness.
She’d wanted words first, to work through the trouble and reclaim the connection between them. Mel clearly wanted the connection reclaimed before anything else.
And she responded. A fire caught and began to blaze in her, bedded in her core and sending fiery heat through every vein and nerve, all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes, to the roots of her hair. She blazed so hot she thought her feet might truly lose contact with the ground.
She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all the wild abandon with which he kissed her. At that clear sign of her acceptance, without even the slightest break in the dance of their mouths, Mel dropped his hands from her face and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body to his like he meant to draw her fully inside him.
And then her feet did leave the porch as he stood tall and pulled her up with him. For a hazy, dazzling moment, Abigail thought she was truly floating.
In that moment, she knew she was in love. Fully and completely in love. Not a single complication had been resolved, but for this one moment, none of it mattered a whit. This was her man, holding her up, holding her close, and it was all she cared about.
He was right: this was the way to reclaim what they had. Not merely reclaim it butemphasizeit.
Mere seconds after that powerful understanding landed inside her, Mel’s force gentled, and he finally eased back. Still holding her dangling before him, he opened his eyes and smiled.
“Talkin’s overrated,” he said in a soft voice more like his usual friendly drawl.
She smiled back. “Maybe so. Maybe sometimes.”
His smile faded from his lips, and his eyes grew serious. “I know there’s talkin’ to do. I know we got shit to work out, Abs. But we’re workin’ it out. ‘Cuz I need this—you, I mean. I need you. All that shit today feels like it came outta nowhere.”
It hadn’t, which was why they had talking to do. They each owed the other an apology, and they each had ways of being and thinking the other didn’t yet fully understand. However, what they’d needed before anything else was this: this closeness, this attraction, this bond.
Understanding this moment for what it was, Abigail didn’t push him toward talking. Instead she brushed a finger over his soft bottom lip, bedded in a heavy beard and still gleaming from their kiss.
Strangely, she realized it would be easier to speak the words to tell him she loved him than that she needed him. It wasn’t the right time for the former, and she shied from the latter (something she’d think through later, alone, when she could focus), so Abigail told him something else good and true: “I want to work it out, too. I don’t want to lose you.” And then, because she was still completely held by his strong, steady arms, still on fire all the way to her toetips, and well convinced that sometimes talkingwasoverrated, Abigail slipped her hand into Mel’s dark hair, put her lips at his ear, and whispered, “But we can talk later. Let’s go upstairs.”
She felt the shock move through him before he whipped his head back and stared hard at her. “Abs?”
Already her nerves quivered, but her resolve remained solid. She wanted this. Him. Oh, how she wanted him. She was nervous, but she wasn’t afraid. Because she trusted him.
“I want you to come to bed with me.”
Mel didn’t need to be told again.
Chapter Fifteen
