“Addison.” His hands slide to her face, firm but careful, grounding her. “I told you I’d come back.”
“It looks like you almost didn’t.”
“Yeah,” he admits. “I almost didn’t.”
The honesty in it wrecks her, and something inside her that wound itself so tight since the night he flew away, finally snaps.
She grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down, cupping his face with her other palm as their lips meet. Her mouth crashes against his in a way that betrays how badly she’s been starving for it, like she needs to prove he’s solid and warm and alive. He stiffens in surprise for half a second before his hand slides into her hair, holding her there.
His lips are rough and cracked, but she can be soft enough for both of them today.
He makes a low sound in his throat, tilting his head, chasing her mouth with his own like a flame toward the last pocket of oxygen.
Every night she spent wondering if she’d ever see him again, every tear she shed wishing things had been different, every awful nightmare her brain conjured up during his absence, all fade into the background as her fingers curl in his shirt, and he pulls her flush against him.
It could only be fate allowing them one last chance to tangle up in each other, and she has no intention of wasting such a gift.
When he leans back, it’s only far enough for their foreheads to rest together, the heat of his skin soothing her chills.
“I had to fight like hell to get back to you,” he murmurs.
Her lips brush his again, softer this time. “And here you are.”
His exhale is shaky, and much as she wants to feel him again, there is something else that needs to be addressed first.
“I’m only gonna say this once,” she finds his eyes, her thumb brushing his cheekbone. “If you ever give me a gun again, expecting that I’ll shoot you, I will. But that bullet is going directly in your ass.”
“Got it.”
Then she kisses him once more, their connection slower this time, until Emma runs out from the house, throwing herself against Wyatt’s side.
He chuckles, tucking her under one arm while the other wraps around Addison. “It’s damn good to see both my girls again.”
Chapter 20
“I had to stop to refuel in Telluride. They did a lot of chopper tours before the outbreak. You don’t even wanna know what’s going down there.”
Addison tilts her head, a cup of hot tea between her palms, while Wyatt gives her all the details of his trip west. “What’s going down?”
“Everyone. On each other.”
“Oh. Oh my.”
“Yeah, the town is safe. A little too safe. Alla that rough terrain has closed them in, and I guess they decided that if the world’s ending, they may as well go out with a bang. Multiple bangs. One might say I saw too much. I didn’t ask questions.”
She huffs out a half-laugh. “Well, there are certainly worse ways to entertain yourself at the end of the world.”
It would be easy to use this as a lead-in to pulling him toward the bedroom with her, and really, that’s all Addison wants now. To feel him close after fearing she may never touch him again, but there are more serious aspects of his trip that she needs to know about before she’s able to move past it.
So, she pauses a beat, forces her nerves steady, and asks him the question she’s avoided since he showed up an hour ago. “Is he still alive, Wyatt?”
“No.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Yes.”
Finding out that the man she loves killed her ex-husband is an emotional journey that Addison isn’t quite sure how to process at the moment.
