He was coming, just from this, from eating her out.
Oh, that was hot.
A fresh surge of heat blasted through her veins.
His chest heaved as he slumped forward to rest his forehead on her shoulder. For several heartbeats, neither of them moved, and the only sound was their mingled ragged breathing and the occasional pop from the forge fire.
“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered against her skin, voice rough with embarrassment.
“Anson.” She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t you dare apologize for wanting me that much.”
His eyes skittered away from hers, color high on his cheekbones. “It’s been… a while.”
“Good.” She leaned forward to kiss him and tasted herself on his lips. “Because I want to be the only one who makes you feel like this.”
She slid her hands under his shirt, wanting to feel his skin, to touch the scars he’d been hiding, to show him they didn’t matter.
But his hand shot out, circling her wrist. “No.”
“You really don’t have to be embarrassed. I thought it was hot.”
“It’s not that.”
Confusion broke through her post-orgasmic haze. “I don’t understand.”
He stepped back, silently putting distance between them, and her frustration sparked. “Is this about the scars again? I already told you I don’t care about?—”
“But I do.” He wouldn’t look at her now, eyes fixed on some point beyond her shoulder. “I care.”
She slid off the bench, suddenly aware of her nakedness from the waist down, while he remained fully clothed.
“You should go.” He turned away, bracing himself against the anvil again. “Please.”
She stared at his back, at an utter loss for words that might break through this wall he kept erecting between them.
This was it, wasn’t it? The only relationship she’d ever get from him. One step forward and two steps back, over and over until she lost her mind.
“You know what? Fine.” She snatched her shorts from the floor and yanked them on, then pulled the flannel closed over her breasts. She wished she could leave it, but she wasn’t about to walk home in the snow without a shirt. “Keep pushing me away. Keep hiding behind your scars like they’re some kind of shield. But I’m done playing this game.”
His shoulders bunched at her words, but he didn’t turn around.
“I love you, Anson. I’ve loved you through years of letters. I’ve loved you through prison bars and distance. I’ve loved every version of you I’ve ever known, and all the versions I haven’t.” Her voice cracked, but she pushed on. “And I thought—I really thought—that you meant it when you wrote that you loved metoo. But love isn’t this. Love isn’t shoving someone away the moment they get close enough to see the real you.”
She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her, rough and broken.
“I killed four people, Maggie.”
She turned slowly, heart in her throat. “What?”
“Not just Eddie Kowalski.” His knuckles whitened on the anvil. “He was just the one I was able to drag out, but three other people were inside.”
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft crackle of the forge fire.
“I don’t understand. In your letters?—”
“I told you about my buddy Danny Ortiz dying because of faulty equipment. I told you I found out the military contractor that provided that equipment was cutting corners, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with petitioning to have them shut down.”
“I know. I remember, but?—”
