She closes her eyes, her lashes dotted with glistening wetness. “You don’t get to do this to me…”
“Too late,” I whisper.
My lips crash over hers, consuming and hard. I close my eyes, allowing myself to finally have this moment—the very thing I’ve dreamed of for six years. She tastes the same as she always has, like cominghome.
She gasps, drawing back before a stinging slap is delivered across my cheek. I bear it, not opening my eyes as I work the pain through my jaw.
Her hits have gotten better.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” She rages, balling up her fists as she turns away from me.
My eyes flutter open as my tongue darts along my bottom lip to collect the memory. She’s shaking, her back turned to me as her shoulders remain rigid and her fists clench at her sides.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” She spits again, her voice cracking.
“You said that already.”
She whirls on me, her eyes glassy, furious, and wounded. God, she’s always been devastating when angry. All heat and bite.
She lifts her finger to my chest, slowly advancing on me. “You don’t get to disappear forsix yearsand act as if nothing changed between us!”
My gaze drops the moment she touches me. It’s small, but it feels branding. “I don’t think nothing changed.” I mutter. “I think everything changed.”
Her laugh is sharp and bitter. “You don’t know the first thing about what I went through.”
“No,” I admit quietly. “I don’t, but I know what I did. I left you alone with the fallout. I know I chose my own pride and urges over you. I know I tried to convince myself that burning it all to the ground would have been better for both of us.”
Her expression droops downward, her lips wobbling.
“I don’t deserve the way you used to look at me,” I say. “I know that.”
“Then why are you here, Kaden?”
Because I never stopped loving you.
Because six years couldn’t dull the ache of missing you.
Because I couldn’t learn to breathe without you near.
I meet her eyes, conviction and truth in my sight. “Because I tried living without you and I felt like I was fucking dying, Sunny.”
Her gasp is light, barely audible, as it hangs between us. There’s so much tension crackling like a live wire that it clouds my vision. My only clear image is of the woman I’ve loved since I first met her.
“Is everything okay?” Dylan’s voice shatters our moment, and I close my eyes, resting my head back against my shoulders.
I’m going to kill him. Slowly and painfully.
Melody wipes her cheeks quickly, plastering on a forced smile as she steps around me. “I’m fine.”
“I finished the food for you,” Dylan says as if he’s proud of himself for the bare fucking minimum.
“Thank you, baby,” Melody says quietly as they walk down the steps.
I’m left alone, my own fucking mistakes biting me in the ass.
Chapter forty-three
Melody
