I understand he’s got scars. God, I do. I understand that his ex-wife wrecked something inside of him. I understand fear. Hesitation. How decisions of others can alter the course of your life.
But that doesn’t give him the right to treat me like an inconvenience. Not after he was one of the people who assured me I had a place here.
My steps slow, my anger tangling with something softer. Because the worst part, the part I don’t want to admit even to myself, is that it hurts. Not because he rejected me outright, but because I felt something there. A pull. A quiet connection that felt steady and deep in a way that clearly scares us both.
But I’m tired of the whiplash.
Stopping near the front door, I rub my arms like I’m cold even though the room is warm. “I’m allowed to be upset,” I murmur to myself. “I’m allowed to want consistency.”
A sudden, sharp banging at my front door nearly makes me jump out of my skin. “What the—” I gasp, heart slamming into my ribs.
Another knock follows, but this one is harder. More insistent.
I freeze, then move toward the small front window. Of course.
Lincoln.
He’s standing on the porch, jaw tight, shoulders rigid, chest heaving, looking like a man who’s been pacing just as much as I have—only with far worse results.
I scoff under my breath. “Oh,nowyou wanna talk.”
Straightening my spine, my irritation flares back to life.Fine.If he thinks he can march over here after acting like that and just—what? Smooth it over with a warm smile and a Sweetheart? Pretend as if nothing happened?
Absolutely not.
I yank the door open. “What do you want, Lincoln?” I snap, words ready, sharp and loaded. Ready to—
His hands are on my face.
Warm. Calloused.Desperate.
He grips my jaw, gentle but firm. And before I can even inhale properly, he’s pushing me backward over the threshold. The door slams shut behind us with a solid thud as his foot kicks it closed.
“Jesus—” I start.
“Abigail,” he breathes, voice rough and unsteady in a way I’ve never heard before. His forehead presses to mine, his grip tightening just enough to ground us both. “Just—just shut up for a second.”
Shut up?Shut. Up?!
My pulse is roaring now, every nerve ending coming to life.
“I tried,” he continues before I get the chance to ream him out. “I tried to be the reasonable one. The careful one. I walked away because I thought it was the right thing to do, because I don’t getto want you the way I do without screwing everything up. I saw how happy you were tonight with them. I saw it, and I wanted it so fucking badly that it physically hurt to look at you. Because when I looked at you, I remembered how easily that want, that happiness, can just disappear.”
My mouth opens, but he shakes his head, thumbs brushing my cheeks.
“But seeing you walk out of my office with that look on your face…” His words trail off before he utters a single word that rocks me to my core. “Please. Just… just let me kiss you.”
The anger, the confusion, the guilt—it all fractures to a million pieces at our feet. “Lincoln—”
He doesn’t wait.
He kisses me like a man who’s starving, the last bit of his restraint snapping clean in half.
The smell of cedarwood wraps around me as his mouth crashes into mine. The scent is clean and warm, solid and steady. And when his lips crash into mine with an all-consuming fierceness I could have never expected from him, I make a soft, startled sound before melting into him, fingers fisting the front of his flannel. He spins us around, backs me up until he’s pressing me against the wall, kissing me like he wants to consume me body and soul.
And for the first time since I’ve met Lincoln, I don’t overthink. I don’t pull away. I just give him everything.
And I kiss him back.
