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  In the next beat she was against the refrigerator. His kiss went even deeper as he pressed into her and she felt how eager he was to be even closer. Feeling his desire in every move he made, hearing that she was stealing his breath, feeling his strong heart thunder under her touch was...it was whimsical, everything she had imagined day after day, night after night. It made her realize her memory of how sensual he had been was not a hallucination at all.

  She had never wanted him more.

  Then all at once the anger she had been soaking in all afternoon decided it should make itself known.

  Instead of her hands grasping they began pushing at him, but he was so lost in the taste of her, the rush only she could give him, he took it as her excitement. It wasn’t until she nipped at his lip a bit so brashly that he jerked away and she ducked out of the cage of his arms that he got the hint.

  She sucked in a breath as she began to pace.

  “What the fuck?” he roared, reaching for his lip. She didn’t draw blood but he was sure if he hadn’t pulled away when he did, she would have.

  “I tried pushing you off,” she said and shrugged sharply, still pacing, and still fighting her heaving chest. This boy was going to be the death of her! No sane person could survive the highs and lows he dished out, much less how fast they came.

  A sarcastic smirk came to him as the tip of his thumb reach to wipe the corner of his mouth. What was left of her scorching kiss had turned cold, and he was smearing the harsh reminder away.

  “I’ll never get you,” he said, moving toward the door, understanding this was a mistake. He had no self-control around this girl. She took all the black and white of his life and flooded it with color.

  “Me?” she yelled after him, pointing at her chest all but hopping in place like a boxer ready to go into the ring, charging forward only to step back.

  He didn’t find her defense adorable, he found himself swelling with pride, and reassurance. She was strong. Bold.

  Women leave. At the drop of a hat. But if he were to ever give the notion of keeping one around, be foolish enough of thinking of some forever, she’d have to be strong. He’d worry no matter what when he was gone, but having someone who didn’t have the mindset to stand up and defend themselves, in any way, for any reason—he wouldn’t be able to deal with.

  Blunt and strong, those were things he knew how to respond to.

  “Yes, you!” he roared back. “You go through fucking hell and don’t even think to tell me!” He pointed at her. “And don’t say I didn’t need the pressure. What I didn’t need the pressure of was you not telling me you’re all right.”

  Some of the anger left her, but not much. She was back to her fast, short pace. The speed of her breaths were not from passion but from her doing her best to take in the adrenaline soaring through her.

  “I needed to hear it from you,” he said in a less fierce tone. “I needed you to tell me you were safe. Something.”

  She jarred forward and pushed against his chest only to pull back. “I answered you! The first breath of clarity I had I used to find your letters and tell you. Answer you!”

  She grunted and in confused anger her hands clenched the thin air. “Then what? Nothing. Not one more fucking letter? Could you be any more confusing?”

  His gaze rapidly rushed over her, reveling in the strength he saw but determined to state his point. “Over two months! You expect me to believe you endlessly grieved for your abusive, drunken father for that amount of time?” He stepped forward and ticked his jaw up. “Murdock keep you company? You cry on his shoulder?”

  “No,” she said with a sick, pissed expression on her face. “I needed that long and then some to get over the fact I killed him.”

  Declan jerked his head back, his gray eyes mixed with furious confusion.

  “Yeah,” she said with a sneer. “I listened to you. I pushed back.” Her voice cracked then. Even though he was before her eyes, she didn’t see Declan but a flash of the last image she saw of her dad—the nightmare that would not die.

  In a beat, she felt her face against Declan’s chest, felt his hand cradle the back of her head. She breathed it in for all of ten seconds then pushed back. She didn’t want his validation.

  “I don’t need the sympathy. I didn’t mean to do it and more times than not it feels like a nightmare I’m trapped in.”

  “The fire?” he asked, moving closer gradually with his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

  She bit her lip when she felt it tremble. “He said they could hurt you...all of you.”

  “Who said?” Declan asked as his brow tensed. He’d be damned if anyone hurt his own or threatened her—death was all but promised to the fuck that did as much.

  She moved her head side to side. “He fell...I pushed back and he fell,” she said as her gaze stared into nothing, watching it all again. “I went down with him...then I ran...only stopped for a weapon, but when I...when I glanced over my shoulder he was still and—” She looked right at him. “I think I hoped he’d never get up again.”

  Again he had her in his arms, rocking her. “You’re fine. You survived, baby. You did it,” his lips said with panted breaths. Emotion was ripping him. He wanted to dig up her father only to kill his ass again. Justice was trembling. Over three months gone, and the ass still had his clutches on her.

  When she felt tears coming, sanity came and she moved from him and rushed down the hall to the bathroom to steal a second to compose herself.

  Her escape didn’t work out so well. He was right behind her.

  “Leave, Declan,” she said, half turning as she walked. “I’m not a charity case. And clearly you had other plans lined up tonight.”

  He swayed back, dumbfounded.

  “Don’t give me that look!”

  “What are you talking about?” he yelled.

  “That girl!”

  He moved his head to the side trying to clear the absurdity she was saying. Way too much had happened from the last second he saw her until now, and even when he did see her he was on his way to talk to his dad about Nolan.

  Nolan. He had to find Nolan, but now this... Now he understood what she’d gone through. How it wasn’t a sudden death that Declan was sure was a blessing. It was a moment that would always be able to reach back and rob seconds from her life.

  “That girl!” she said again. “Look, I get it. Whatever we are, it repels as much as it attracts. I get I’m some girl you knew back home and the way you see things, where you’re going, doesn’t have room for this weight. Let’s just stop fucking with each other, okay? Why rip it open right when we find a way to agree with the pain?”

  Oh hell no, she was not throwing that excuse at him. “There was no fucking girl!”

  “What? You’ve had so many you can’t even remember?”

  He slammed the bathroom door shut, thinking he trapped her, but all he did was push her to escape out the other way into an empty room. At one time it was a guest room fully furnished with antiques, but now, after selling everything they could to start to pay the debts of her father, it was nearly empty, only a lamp and few frames against the wall remained.

  He gripped her arm and then turned her, stopping her from going out another door. “One fucking girl. One name: Justice.” He moved in closer to her face. “Now, I’ve had a hell of a day, all the more a blur now that I’m here with you, but if I remember correctly my cousin’s wife was hugging me when I first saw you today.”

  She furrowed her brow. And he smirked, but not because he was boastful but because he was full of disbelief. She was jealous. She cared. She was not some girl too young for him fucking ‘Jody’ while he was gone. He meant something to her.

  “Is that what the lip biting shit was about? You thought I was making my rounds like some man whore?”

  “What the hell was I supposed to think? You gave me the first breath I could remember having in months when I found your letters. You made me see out of the fog of it all. Then what? You just stop
ped. I didn’t even see you graduate!”

  He dropped his head and shook it, his smirk still in place. “I get nothing from you. And after swallowing every inch of my pride I get Atticus to ask you if you had gotten any of my letters—giving you the benefit of the doubt, thinking that you had thought of me in all that time, and you did remember I was writing and were looking for a letter at your post but I was sending them to the wrong address or some shit.” He looked right at her. “Then it turns out no, I hadn’t, you never even thought to check, or about me. During all your shit. Not once.”

  She leered. “You’re an ass!” He lifted his brow in question. “What was this? Your punishment? Mad you didn’t get attention for a few weeks? Mad I had shit to deal with?” She stepped up to him. “Let me assure you, Rawlings, you were in every thought. Every time I wanted to stop the BS from getting more out of control, from pulling me deeper, I thought of you. When I thought of why I was in the right, I thought of you.” She glared. “When I thought of how I ever found the courage to do something like this, how I managed to live past that night, I thought of you—your words.”

  All the new information in his mind was settling, knowing her side, his side, what his family had done—and the result of it all so far, he got it. And he was pissed. “You were threatened,” he said, pointing at her. “A Stouter threatened you and used me as a grudge.”

  Her eyes flashed over him questioning but not questioning how he understood the possibility so easily.

  “Murdock,” Declan said, reading her perfectly. He stepped closer, now she was against the back of the door. “What did he do to you?”

  She never heard his tone so venomous, so it took her a second to process his words. “He said it would be bad. That my dad was asking around about you and me already. He said I had motive and they’d make it look like more than it was.”

  “What did he do?” he asked harshly, searching her for the answers he wanted. All he could see was red and his overactive imagination was running wildly toward the horrid dark side of his thoughts.

  “A spark...Dad was gone already. Flames came, the story a second later.”

  He rushed his hand across his short military cut as he turned. “You should have told somebody.”

  “Why? Feel like being a martyr? My choice. My consequence. I don’t need your permission to give a damn about you or your family.”

  He met her stare once more. “I’d be a martyr for you any day of the week! Getting twisted with a Souter is only going to pull you right back into the trap your dad had you in.”

  “Right.”

  “What does that mean? Murdock holding this over you?”

  She stared helplessly at him. “Paranoid. So am I.”

  “Of losing you, yes. I’m sure he is.”

  “What?” she breathed. “There is no us! Never was. Did you even bother to read a single letter I wrote back?”

  “No.”

  “You ass.”

  He was back in her face in a beat. “The day your letters arrived was the day I was pulled in to discuss a ‘concern’ that had been brought to the attention of my drill sergeant. Obsessive behavior, flooding a barely seventeen-year-old girl with correspondence to an unhealthy level—a troubled girl who was picking fights with authority figures and damn near starting a public confrontation. Oh, and she had just lost her dad and was now running wild with little to no real guardians. Trouble waiting to happen one way or another.”

  “What?” her voice echoed in the empty room.

  Declan sneered, not at her, but at what had happened. She had dug herself in right next to a Souter for no reason—they were always going to lash out, no matter what deal you made. “Sheriff Souter thought to pass along his concerns.”

  She gasped. “Murdock, he said that was a threat that night!” She went down to a squat so she wouldn’t faint, then up again. She had almost convinced herself, after weeks of working at the garage, that the Souters, their influence, wasn’t nearly as profound as she thought—the threat was nothing like Murdock led her to believe.

  “It’s nothing,” Declan said, meaning it. He may have gotten some shit about it, but all it did was make him sharper, a better warrior. It put things in perspective, too. She was here, young and blameless; he was gone and not. Common sense would tell any fool what kind of chance either of them had. None.

  “How can their reach be that far? Seriously? How did they even know you wrote me? Why lash out months down the road?”

  Declan breathed out. He was over being mad about this lash, at least in that moment he was. He didn’t have long before he had to go and he needed to know she was okay, he needed to tell her Nolan would be okay.

  “Dad’s pretty sure someone saw you at the post office, maybe the same person at the diner when granddad stood up for you. They could’ve gossiped a bit, poked fun at Murdock or even the Sheriff.” He pressed his lips together to calm his anger before he went on. “Apparently, this town thought you and Murdock were ‘sweet’ and then they had the fat to chew on that I had an interest in you. The Sheriff didn’t like the slight. Thought to nip it in the bud as quietly as he could. His concerned phone call was his move.”

  A phone call? Whatever. Justice shook her head. “We have enough issues without letting these people stand between us. It’s not right. I’m not a kid and my one and only guardian is very aware how—of how I feel about you.”

  Declan’s anger and tension in his body deflated a bit. “What issues are those? You defended yourself and your dad dies? Murdock, a sorry sack of shit has now hooked you to him forever because of a secret that had no weight in the first place? Or, is it the fact that it is what it is. I’m not here, and you are.”

  She shook her head, telling him she had accepted the time they had to be apart, that wasn’t a problem. It was a price that has to be paid. “No. The issue is that you make no sense. You’re hot and cold and I can’t keep up.”

  Him? Ha! “I told you why I didn’t write back. Even if the Sheriff’s boy weren’t into you he’d still fuck with us just because he could. Because he was your father’s buddy.” He shook his head. “I can’t let him give you shit, you or my family. I can’t give him a reason when I won’t be here to answer for it.” Declan cursed. “To keep you safe I have to give you space.”

  She was so mad she had to stop herself from hitting him again. “You told me five seconds ago, Declan! What do you think has been going through my head for weeks on end? Life doesn’t stand still here, resume when you decided to enter it. It moves, and sometimes the minutes are a bit too long when you share them with as many demons as I have.”

  His hands reached for her face, in a cradle position, but not touching. “I don’t know how to tell you how I feel. How I’ve always felt. I don’t know how to ask you to wait. I can’t.”

  Even if he did, she wasn’t listening to another word that came out of his mouth. Hearing that he felt anything at all, seeing what he could not say in his eyes was enough for her—her lips crashed into his.

  Their kiss was hot and grasping, their touches harsh, fast, and starved. “We can’t,” he said, even though his hands were everywhere, soaking her in. He was sure that the two scraps of cloth she had on could be ripped away with little effort, hell they could stay in place for all he cared.

  When her hands rushed under his shirt then dove past his waistline grasping the hard length of him, a grunt left his throat, as his kiss fell to her chin then down her neck.

  His hands moved down her back, past the cup of her ass, pulling her leg up so he could find a way in. And as soon as the tips if his fingers slid inside, her hand gripped him tighter and they both moaned.

  “We can’t,” he said again, even though his hips glided him along her grip. He just wanted to feel it for one more second. Her and him. He wanted to breathe in the scent of strawberries and champagne. He wanted to feel like he was home. Really home.

  Justice couldn’t handle him saying no. Not because it was a confusing rejection, but
because she knew it was because of others he was saying so. It wasn’t their choice. Her and him could love each other as they wished.

  Right then they may be prisoners of time and circumstance but that was fine. Every prison has room to move in, and time flows. Everything is temporary.

  She was taking control of this. In a beat, she had him free from his jeans and his shirt pushed as high as she cold push it, her kiss was wild as it moved down his chest, gliding her teeth across the ridged edges, shakily grinning when she felt him shudder, as she sensed every response his body was making.

  He said her name, more than once, even grasped at her, but she was determined and a breath later her lips carefully slid over his crown, just as a deep, growling moan left him.

  Hearing his surrender gave her reason to go slower, to drive him wild. Feeling his hand rush through her hair, how carefully controlled yet trembling his touch was, made her feel even more connected to him. Somehow she knew she may not be his first anything, she may not be his last, but she sure as hell was the only one who’d ever made him feel.

  Suddenly, he pulled her up and pushed her against the wall, putting her right back in the position he had her in before, only this time, he’d managed to pull her tank up. Feeling her chest-to-chest.

  He moved against her as his fingers dove deep inside swaying just so.

  “Declan,” she breathed when she felt herself building.

  He didn’t stop. Instead, for a moment it felt like he was everywhere, his kiss was ravenous, his touch was both hard and soft, and knew exactly how to move with her.

  Each throb of her body grasped for release, she panted his name. And then she screamed it. Right as she did, she’d reached between them and grasped him working him with each pulse of her body. He let her but he pulled back a second later. His kiss broke as his forehead leaned against her collarbone and he did his best to catch his breath, come down from his own rush.