The air shifted behind me and I realized that Scratch had come up behind me. I turned, finding him close. He was tall and I craned my neck to look up into his face. He looked deep in thought, the two angry red scars running down from his hairline right down his cheeks and to his chin like red war paint. His arms were by his sides and his throat bobbed as he continued to stare down at me.
“I was worried about you,” he confided, his voice deep and husky.
I quirked a smile. “You know I can handle myself.”
His closeness made my heart speed up, and I wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss me when his arms came up. I’d wanted him to for as far back as I could remember. I’d wanted him to stand up to my father, to demand that I be his. He never had, and strangely, now the thought frightened me more than my daddy’s rage ever did.
He dropped his hands back to his sides and nodded at me, his eyes burning intently. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it without speaking.
“What?” I asked quickly, thirsty for his words.
He shook his head and dragged a hand over his mouth. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” I teased.
I had to know.
“You just seem… different,” he admitted, his gray eyes watching me with curiosity.
I shrugged. “I guess I am different. A lot has happened.”
He nodded in agreement. “I better get back.”
He turned from me and I watched his retreating back. I bit down on my lip, my own curiosity piquing. I had to know, I realized. I had to know if what we’d once had was still there. Or if the Highwaymen had changed me for good, irrevocably shaped me into someone new. I wanted to go back to the woman I had been, because the new woman was a stranger. I didn’t know who she was.
“Scratch?” I called his name like I’d done a hundred times before, but this time there was something more in it. There was an unspoken question, and he must have heard it because he turned back with a small frown.
I took a step toward him, closing the already small space, and he put his hands up to my shoulders and shook his head in warning.
“Don’t.”
I paused, unsure, uncertain, but unafraid. I reached up on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. My hand gripped the back of his wide neck, his muscles tense, and I pulled his head down to mine as I leaned up and placed my lips on his.
I kissed him and he breathed hard against my lips as he fought himself before finally giving in. Scratch’s hands slid down my body to my waist and he picked me up and sat me on the kitchen counter before spreading my legs, his hard body filling the space.
His tongue pushed past my lips and I opened to him, giving him full access to my mouth, to my tongue, and I kissed him back hungrily, desperate to feel the connection we’d once shared.
His hard cock ground up against me and I moaned into his mouth as he tugged at my clothes. My hands slid down his chest, pushing his cut from his arms, and he let go of me briefly to let it fall to the kitchen floor before gripping the hem of his T-shirt and pulling it up and over his head.
His chest was harder and more muscular than I remembered. And where it was once smooth, now tattoos and scars were etched into his skin. Yet his chest wasn’t as hard as the Highwayman’s. His scars weren’t as deep as the Highwayman’s, or as in abundance as his. I ran my hands up and down his body, marveling in him, pushing away the time when my hands had touched my dark angel, my monster, my Devil.
“Off,” he grunted, pulling at my T-shirt before lifting it over my head. His mouth moved down my body, finding its way to my breasts where he pulled my bra down, freeing them and then trapping them once more with his hands and his mouth. My hands were in his hair, tugging on it as he sucked on my pebbled nipple and ground himself against me.
I threw my head back, my eyes closed as I moaned into the empty air, needing him, needing this, needing anything to make me feel normal again. Needing something, someone to rid me of the shadow the Devil had cast over my soul. Scratch’s hands moved to my jeans, unbuttoning them, and I allowed him to lift me up so he could pull them down over my ass, dragging them down my legs before grabbing his own zipper.
His eyes met mine, lust and heat and everything in between filling them. “You sure?” he grunted, dragging a hand over his short beard.
I stared up at Scratch, my best friend—hell, my only real friend—and I wanted to say yes. I wanted to give myself to him so that no one else could have it. In some ways, my virginity had always been his to take. But in that moment I knew I couldn’t go through with it, despite wanting to. Our moment was lost now, swallowed whole by the Highwayman’s touch.
My head and heart collided inside me, warring with my emotions.
Scratch’s breaths were coming hot and heavy and he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. “It’s okay,” he said against them.
“It’s not,” I replied, my voice wobbling as I struggled to control my emotions.
And it wasn’t okay, because Scratch didn’t realize why I wouldn’t sleep with him.
Why Icouldn’t.
