Page 69 of The Last Call Home
And when I tugged him down—legs wrapping around his waist, back hitting the mattress with a grunt he swallowed in a kiss—it stopped being about memory.
It became need.Now.Us.
I remember the scrape of his stubble on my throat.The way he bit my lip and then kissed it like he regretted it.The heat of his body pinning me down, his cock grinding against mine until I lost track of everything but the way he groaned my name—my name—like it still meant something.
He fucked me like a man chasing redemption.Every thrust deep.Unrelenting.Like he needed to prove we weren’t broken.Like if he just stayed inside me long enough, it would erase all the nights we didn’t get.
And I let him.
Because this wasn’t just about wanting him.It was about letting him in.Letting myself be touched.Taken.Known.
Trusting him with the parts of me I’ve kept locked away, even from myself.
I held his hips as I pushed deeper, feeling him open to me, taking all of me—like he needed it just as bad.He wanted the surrender as much as the act itself.His name broke from my lips as I spilled inside him, my forehead pressed to his shoulder, my whole body shaking from the force of it.
And he stayed right there—wrapped around me, his breath warm against my neck—until he followed with a quiet, aching sound that twisted my chest.Like it cracked something open in him too.
We didn’t speak.Didn’t need to.
It wasn’t about dirty words or desperate gasps anymore.
It was the silence afterward.The way he touched my face like I was his and he didn’t quite know how to say it out loud.It was the way we breathed in sync.The way our bodies stayed tangled, not for heat, but for connection.
Tonight, it didn’t feel like I was breaking.It felt like the beginning.There’s a lot we still need to say—some of it ugly, most of it overdue—but this?This was a start.
At least for the two of us.
Now, I’m not heading home.
I park behind the bar and walk toward the back of The Honey Drop, where she always leaves her car.It’s just past four in the morning, and the world is cloaked in that deep, inky quiet—where even sound feels hesitant to exist. The dark stretches around me, thick with stillness, like the night hasn’t decided to let go yet.Her headlights slice through the dark, sweeping across the lot in a pale arc of light before settling as she pulls in.
By the time she throws the car into park, I’m already moving.I round the back of her car, my boots crunching over gravel, the cold biting through my shirt, but I barely register it.I reach her door just as the engine fades into silence.
She turns toward me, surprise flashing across her face for a heartbeat—eyes narrowing like she wasn’t expecting this.Me.But the moment passes, and her expression softens, like she’d been hoping for it all along.
I open the door.She starts to shift, reaching for her bag, but I don’t give her the chance to finish.My hands find her waist as she steps out.She doesn’t resist.Doesn’t blink.Just rises into me like we’ve done this a thousand times before.
And I kiss her.My mouth captures hers, and she responds like she’s been waiting for it too—like maybe sleep never came, and she’s been running on the memory of last night just like I have.This isn’t a soft greeting, more like a hello I’ve been holding in my throat since she walked out that door.
Her hands fist the front of my jacket, pulling me closer, deepening it, grounding us both in the fire that’s still very much there.Not burned out.Not even close.
When I finally break the kiss, it’s only to breathe.My lips brush hers once more, slower now, and I whisper against her mouth, “Morning.”
She mumbles, “It’s a little early.You didn’t stay with him.”
“I could have.”I shrug.“But then I wouldn’t have seen you arrive.And I always do.”
That earns me a half-smile.“You do?”
“Of course I do.I check.Every morning.I need to know you’re safe.”
“You don’t have to.This is sleepy Birchwood Springs,” she says with a wave of her hand, brushing it off like I shouldn’t be concerned about her whereabouts.
I tilt my head, deadpan.“Lilah, I need you to understand something important.This town is not sleepy.This town is more like Sleepy Hollow.”
She snorts.“The scary movie?”
“No, the gory disaster that was supposed to be scary but ended up looking like it was directed by a haunted meat locker.That one.”
