I rise.My legs complain from crouching too long, but I don’t care.I only see him—his eyes a storm barely contained, the control he always holds starting to unravel at the edges.I move closer, pulled in by something that’s never stopped simmering.Something carnal, wild, and devastatingly familiar.
“When your dad died,” he says, low and rough, his voice catching on something raw.“You told me you knew he was a monster.You learned everything—what he did to me.To the band.Everyone he touched.You signed it with a K.The way you used to when we were young and you sang your letters into my skin.”
My breath stumbles.
I take another step.His eyes track mine, his body taut like he’s seconds from breaking.From lunging.From begging.
“And then?”I whisper, barely trusting my voice.
“Then I lost my fucking mind.”His laugh is bitter.“I wasn’t okay.You knew that.You knew what he did to me.I didn’t know how to handle that.”His hand rakes through his hair, the kind of gesture you only make when you’re close to shattering.“Julian had the accident and I ...I unraveled.I couldn’t decide if talking to you would keep me sane or ruin me all over again.Eddie had to fly to San Francisco just to make sure I didn’t burn the whole damn house down while trying to keep myself together.”
I reach out, barely touching his chest.Just fabric between us, but his breath hitches like it scorched him.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” I say.
The words don’t feel like enough.They never will.
He shakes his head, eyes locked on mine.“It’s not your fault.None of it is.I’ve worked through it because it was a me thing.Now ...now I just—fuck, I’m hoping you’ll give us that second chance.”
A beat passes.
“To fall forward?”I murmur, my heart hammering in my throat.
“Yes,” he breathes.“To fall with this new version of you, even though I never stopped loving the old one.”
Then he pulls me into him.
And the world fractures.
His mouth crashes into mine, without hesitation.It’s just pure, pent-up need, years of longing bleeding into one impossible kiss.His lips are hot, demanding, and desperate.He tastes like regret and hope, like home after a storm you weren’t sure you’d survive.I clutch his shirt, twist it in my fists as his hands find my face, my waist, my back, like he’s mapping me out, memorizing the places that still make me gasp.
He deepens the kiss, tongue sliding against mine with a hunger that’s all teeth and ache.It’s not soft.It’s not careful.It’s filthy and real and alive.
I moan into his mouth, and he growls—low, primal—before gripping my hips and slamming me against the nearest wall.I barely register the thud.I only feel him.All of him.Pressed hard against me, thick and straining and fucking mine.
“I dreamed of this,” he says against my throat.“Of you.Begging.Coming.Falling apart with my name in your mouth.”
Heat rushes through me.My hands slide under his shirt, greedy, frantic.His skin burns against my palms.Every muscle, every scar, every inch of him is branded into me, like we were made to fit this way—lips bruised, breaths stolen, hearts exposed.
He kisses me again.Deeper.Slower this time.It’s like a promise between souls.
I whimper when he pulls back just enough to look at me.His eyes are blown wide, pupils dark with want, lips swollen from the kiss that rewrote everything.
“You’re it, Kit,” he murmurs.“You’ve always been it.”
And right then, I know.
This isn’t just us circling the past.
This is the moment the earth shifts beneath our feet.The moment I let myself fall forward.Not into a maybe or a second chance.
But into him.
Finally, mercifully, coming home.
ChapterOne Hundred Seventeen
Roderick
