Page 93 of Last Resort

If I didn’t know him any better, I’d say he looks like a defeated man, but he’s not. Not after he finally hashed things out with his brother. Maybe it’s that he finally faced his father’s passing tonight. Maybe it’s everything combined that has worn on him for so long finally being put to bed.

“What Ledger said . . . it doesn’t fix everything, I know that, but at least I can walk away from everything now with a clear conscience.”

I nod, not trusting myself to talk because the thought makes my chest ache. He’s leaving, Sutton. You knew that all along. And yet there was a small part of me that was relieved tonight when he said he’d patched things up with his brother. A small part of me believed he might decide to stay if that happened.

“What’s that look for?” he asks me, his head angled to the side, his eyes searching mine across the dark room.

“Nothing.” I offer a soft smile that I hope reaches my eyes. “You keep telling me that you’re glad this happened, that you’ve finally talked this all out, but I know you well enough to know something else is bugging you.”

The shadows play over his features as he finds the words to voice whatever is on his mind. “I just keep asking myself what kind of man puts his family in the position that he has to be threatened to do his part? What kind of son screws up so much that his father has to put the burden on his other son to fix it?”

The heartbreak in his voice guts me. There is no right answer to his question, but I try to give one anyway. “The type of man who is trying to figure himself out. The type of man trying to find his place.”

“I’ve done so much shit I’m not proud of.” He sighs. “I’m far from perfect, Sutton.”

“No one expected you to be.”

Silence falls, and I stare at a man who could be broken but isn’t. A man who’s been through hell and is questioning his part in it. I want to wrap him in my arms and love him. I want to hold him and let him know.

“You asked me once what’s in it for you. Why should we do this . . .” He looks at the ceiling as his voice fades off.

“No. Tell me, Callahan.”

“There’s only one answer left I can think to give but I don’t think it’s close to what you deserve.”

“What?” I ask, my pulse picking up.

“Me.” He shrugs, his eyes serious but somber. “I’m a fuck-up who is wrong more than he’s right but will never admit it. I’m a spoiled rich kid who doesn’t have a clue about the life you lived but wants to know. I’m a guy who needs space after he tells too much of himself and doesn’t know how to face you the next day. I’m just a man, Collins. A man who doesn’t deserve you but wants you anyway.” He shrugs. “The answer is me.”

My heart is in my throat and tears are in my eyes as he gives me the answer I never realized I wanted. The only answer I realize now I would ever accept.

I rise from my chair and move to him, and his eyes don’t leave mine the entire time. Without a word and with a shy smile, I climb on the couch and straddle his thighs.

“Sutton.” He breathes the word out as I run my hands up the plane of his chest to cup his face.

“Callahan,” I whisper back before my lips press ever so softly to his. Almost as if I’m scared to kiss him, scared to accept the power of the emotion that’s reverberating between us.

His hands trace my sides as I deepen the kiss. Whereas earlier there was an urgency to brand and claim and take, there is none of that now. There is just him and me in this darkened room with an unspoken understanding between us—we’re willingly crossing the line we’ve flirted around.

And I’m not talking about the physical one. I’m talking emotional.

We express ourselves in movements. His hand fisting, tongues licking, and hips grinding. In soft moans and quiet pleas. In the silence no longer screaming all around us.

Along the way we lose our shirts. My bra. His pants are shoved down and my skirt is pulled up and over my head.

There is quiet desperation to our movements now. To knowing what is going to happen and anticipating that bliss.

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” Callahan says as he kisses a line down my neck and takes one of my nipples in his mouth. “To touch you. To feel you. To have you . . .”

His last word falls off on a strangled groan when I sink down onto him, inch by inch, until he’s fully seated within me.

“Look at me,” he whispers. My eyes flutter up to meet his. To take in the look on his face. The pained pleasure. The desperate longing. The want that’s now turned into need.

I begin to move. To rock my hips back and forth over his. To keep my eyes locked on his even when I want to close them and give in to the pleasure surging through me.

“Do you know how much I missed this?” he says, leaning forward and slanting his lips over mine once again. “Missed you?”

I want to tell him I’ve been here all along, but I haven’t. He’s right. This is different. Right now is different. We are different and hell if it isn’t the headiest thing I’ve ever experienced.