Because she lied. Because she took my daughter.
Because she married someone else and let him be the father I should have been.
Because she disappeared and I spent twenty years pretending I didn't care and I cared.
I cared every goddamn day.
She kisses me back like she's been starving.
Like she's been carrying the taste of me in her mouth for two decades and the memory is nothing compared to the reality.
Her hands fist in the front of my shirt and pull, and the buttons give, and her palms are flat against my chest and the touch is gasoline on a fire that's been burning underground since I was in my thirties.
I walk her backward. Three steps to the wall.
Her back hits the plaster and she gasps and I swallow the sound because it belongs to me.
Everything she's given to other people for all these years—the sounds, the gasps, the way her body arches when someone presses her against a flat surface—all of it was mine first.
She wasminefirst.
“I hate you," she breathes against my mouth, her hazel eyes flashing with that same fire that burned me twenty years ago.
"Good."
"This doesn't fix anything."
"Ask me if I give a damn."
My hands clamp onto her hips, those curvy swells fuller now, rounder, softer—the hips of a woman who's lived, who's carried secrets and lies.
I dig my fingers in deep, bruising the pale skin under her clothes because I need to mark her.
Need proof that she's here, back at my ranch, letting me claim what's mine again.
I want evidence on her skin that I was here.
She yanks at my belt, furious and precise, no bullshit, just raw need driving her fingers.
She's always been like this—direct with her body when her words failed.
Her body never lied. It told me everything her mouth hid.
The buckle clinks open, and she shoves my jeans down, her hand wrapping around my hardening cock, squeezing hard enough to make me grunt.
I hoist her up, her thick thighs locking around my waist, her arms snaking around my neck.
She's trembling, and fuck, so am I, rage and hunger shaking us both.
This is so fucked up.
She betrayed me, vanished for over two decades, and instead of demanding answers, I'm slamming her back against the living room wall, my mouth devouring her neck, sucking hard enough to leave red welts.
But I can't stop.
Her scent hits me—richer now, like expensive spice instead of that cheap vanilla from before, but underneath it's her, that addictive pull I've chased in every pussy I've fucked since she left.
And I need her silent, need her paying for the years she stole from me.
