For the first time since she’d left him, she felt something like relief.
Something like freedom.
She wiped her cheeks again, trying to steady herself.
The low growl of a motorcycle cut through the storm.
Avery froze.
The sound grew louder, deeper, vibrating through the pavement and straight into her bones. A single headlight flared behind her, bright enough to cast her shadow across the dashboard.
Her pulse stumbled.
A motorcycle engine shouldn’t have been out in weather like this. No one rode in a downpour unless they had to.
The headlight appeared behind her, slicing through the sheets of rain. The bike slowed, tires hissing on wet pavement, like the rider had been on the road long before the storm rolled in. The engine shut off. Silence fell, thick and heavy and expectant. Then boots hit the pavement.
Slow. Measured. Certain.
Avery’s breath caught in her throat.
She turned.
And the world stopped.
Seven years hadn’t erased the way he moved. Even through the rain-blurred glass, she knew that silhouette before she ever saw his face. Noah Carter stepped out of the rain like a ghost she’d never stopped missing.
Except he wasn’t the boy she remembered.
He was taller now. Broad shoulders filling out the black leather cut clinging to his rain-soaked frame. His hair was shorter, darker, plastered to his forehead. His jaw was sharper, dusted with stubble. Tattoos curled over his forearms, disappearing beneath the leather. A faint scar cut through his eyebrow, another along his jawline.
His eyes, those storm-gray eyes she’d memorized at thirteen, were harder now. Sharper. Older. Like he’d seen things that carved pieces out of him.
He looked like a man who’d lived a lifetime in the seven years she’d been gone.
He looked furious.
He stopped at her door, rain dripping from his hair, breath harsh in the cold air.
“Avery.” Her name wasn’t a greeting. It was a wound. A verdict.
Her throat tightened. “H-hi.”
“Seven years.” His voice was low, rough, scraped raw. “Seven damn years.”
She flinched. “I didn’t… I wasn’t… Noah, I…”
“Don’t.” He closed his eyes for a second, like the sound of his own name hurt. “Just… don’t.”
Before she could react, he opened her car door and reached for her.
“Noah…”
He didn’t listen. He never had when she was hurting.
His arms slid under her knees and behind her back, lifting her like she weighed nothing. The air in her lungs stalled as her body pressed against his, solid muscle, heat, leather, rain. The scent of him hit her next: smoke, storm, and something darker she didn’t recognize.
He carried her through the rain toward Sweet Treats, jaw clenched, eyes forward, like he’d beenwaiting seven years for this moment and hated every second of it.
