He doesn’t say anything as he hops into the driver’s side and starts the ignition. We make the short drive home in silence, sexual tension permeating the air between us, thick and hazy. Once he pulls into the driveway and kills the engine, August unbuckles himself, but I make no move to do the same.
“Are you seeing her?” I ask.
“No.”
“Why did Leo say that then?”
He sighs, running a hand through his dark curls. “She’s been interested in me for a while, and your brothers are under the impression I’ve been suffering from a…dry spell. They’ve been trying to convince me to go out with her for years.”
“Who the fuck is she?”
“She works for me.”
Goddammit. Nope. I don’t like that at all.
My face must give me away because August shakes his head, hiding a smile before licking his lips. “I like seeing you jealous. It makes my cock hard. Feels like a fitting punishment for the torment you’ve been providing me all these years.”
“Torment?” I ask incredulously. “I haven’t been around!”
“Oh, you don’t need to be, Little Vice.” He hops out of the driver-side before rounding the Bronco to where I’m sitting in the passenger seat. “You can destroy me from three thousand miles away.”
“You say that like you witnessed me trying.” I throw off my seatbelt and hop down from the truck, but August pins me against the side of the hood before I can shove past him. I look up at him, narrowing my eyes. “You talk about the claim you think I want to have to you, but you seem to be the one trying to own me.”
He drops his head so his gaze meets mine, his arms bracing against the truck, boxing me in. I feel so small beneath him, and he watches my face like he knows it too.
“I’ve never wanted anything more than to own every piece of you, Elena.”
“Then why’d you let me go so easily?”
There is a war within his gaze, and his mouth twitches, lips trembling with hesitation. Like there are words he wants to say, but he can’t get them out. He swallows them down, and whatever secret he’s harboring has me shoving against his chest.
“No, you don’t get to do that. Whatever you’re hiding, say it. I can fucking take it.”
“It wasn’t easy,” he rasps. “It destroyed me, waking up that morning to find you gone. The night before, seeing you at my door, taking you to bed—it was the first time I allowed myself to have hope.”
My breath shortens at his admission, tension and trepidation coiling tightly at the base of my stomach. He closes his eyes, like he doesn’t want to look at me. Suddenly, I’m grabbing his face, pulling his forehead against mine.
He exhales with trembling breath before he continues, “You don’t get to talk about jealousy to me when I had to watch you walk into that Manhattan apartment with another man’s arm around your waist. When I had to watch him twirl you in the street and watch you laugh at something he said. You don’t get to be jealous when I had to witness that. When I had to walk away.”
My chest seizes, his words wrapping around my lungs and squeezing impossibly tight. “What…” I pull back, blinking. “What do you mean?”
“I came after you,” he whispers, eyes still closed. “I came to New York, and I saw you with a man. With friends. Happy and carefree and fine.” His voice cracks on the word. “I didn’t letyou go easily, Elena.” His lids finally flutter open, burning right through my soul. “I never let you go at all.”
I imagine the drumming between our chests could be heard for miles, and the haze of tension between us begins to dissipate, revealing the most clarity I’ve had in years. I inch my thumb along August’s jaw, feeling the short, shallow bursts of breath escaping his lips. Running my thumb over it, savoring its soft feel against my skin.
“Elena,” he rasps, and I feel the vibration against my palm. Multitudes of green dance in his eyes, like the color of the Earth. Grass beneath my feet, palm leaves whispering in the wind, the sparkle of glittering water when the sun hits it just right. Gravity.
He’s my gravity, my atmosphere.
A yearning hunger radiates inside that gaze—a need, a question.
I don’t make him ask it aloud as I snake my hand behind his head and bring him to me, answering. His lips meet mine, soft in the way they feather between my own. Tasting, and teasing, and testing the waters of this rebirth between us.
It’s not enough.
I twist my fingers in his hair, pulling hard, and he groans as I force us closer together. I’m brazen in my pursuit of our connection. I need his touch to know I’m still breathing, his mouth to remind me what I’m living for.
As his mouth opens, I slip my tongue inside, seeking claim. He meets me halfway, allowing them to dance together. The ball of his piercing flicks against my lip, earning a surprised moan from me. He matches it as our mouths continue to move in sync. One hand leaves the hood and lands on my lower back, splaying across it and pressing me harder into him.
