set my hand on the small of her back. Figured we both needed the connection. Never close enough.
We headed in the direction of the kitchen, but Frankie surprised me by taking my hand and ducking us into the den off to the left.
Pulling me into the darkened room, she clicked the door shut behind us.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I asked, hands getting slowed in the tension as Frankie rounded around me.
Shadows danced and played and leapt through the oversized room. The drapes that hung over the massive windows that overlooked the backyard were parted a foot, the sheer fabric exposed letting the moon flood the room in a milky glow.
A huge bookcase took up one large wall, floor to ceiling, and two big sofas faced each other in the middle, a pool table toward the back.
That energy banged against the walls.
Two of us bottled in the force of it.
Our connection bounding and shivering.
I JUST NEEDED TO BE ALONE WITH YOU.
Could see the bob of her throat as she swallowed, the moisture clouding her eyes. “Your dad is right—we need to be honest—and I have to be honest right now and tell you how scared I am of losing him. When I saw you runnin’ after her? I knew it. I knew it was her and I was already feeling a crater getting carved out of the middle of me at the thought of having to let him go. I still can’t understand how she could possibly leave him in the first place.”
She’d turned her head a bit in profile, so I had to decipher part of what she was saying, but I got it. Understood it on a level that terrified me, too.
When she turned back to me, helplessness had taken hold of her features.
I started to edge her way. Slowly. The energy shifted as I moved for her. “Unicorn girl.” My fingers reached out to trace the angle of her face. “What did you tell me? One day together is worth a thousand years of pain?”
Her eyes dropped closed. Lingered there. Her mouth forming a quiet, “Yes.”
“Then we fight for every day that we can. We fight for Everett. We fight for us.”
E-V-A-N.
She signed it up close to my body, her fingers flitting out to touch my chest. I grabbed her by them, dragging her arm up and curling it around my neck. I started to edge her deeper into the room.
“Evan,” she said this time, her breath caressing my face.
“We do this together, Frankie. No more walls. No more barriers,” I murmured down at her.
Remorse twisted through her face, and I shook my head to stunt it.
Last thing I wanted was her focusing on the time we’d lost.
We didn’t have time to regret the past when the only thing we had was our future.
“It’s you and me, Frankie Leigh.”
She released a gush of air, and I swallowed it down, took her in a kiss that I poured into her with everything that I had.
I hoisted her up on the edge of the pool table.
Could feel her needy gasp.
Desire a lightning burst that flashed through her body.
I stepped back so I could stare at her sitting there in that skirt and that shirt.
Her brown hair was as wild as it came, mussed and frizzy, kinked up curls that I reached out and grabbed a fistful of. I spread my opposite hand out on her hip and dragged her back to me.
Dick already hard. Lust speeding out of control, the need to get lost in this girl overwhelming.
To forget. To remember.
To touch and take and tease.
I was kissing her again.
Deep and hard and demanding.
Unchecked.
Could taste her moan, and I swallowed it down, taking our kiss deeper. Tongues flicking and our hands losing the little control that we’d had.
She slipped hers under my shirt, palms rushing up my abdomen as she drew it over my head. Need thundered, and I did the same, ripping the fabric from her body so I could get to what was underneath.
Chills lifted in a flash across her skin, gooseflesh racing.
I dipped down to chase it with my tongue, kissing along the delicate curve of her neck and across her collarbone, dragging all the way down to pull her nipple into my mouth through the lace of her bra.
Nails dug into my shoulders. Sharp pricks of perfect pain as I sucked at the hard as stone peak. “Evan.” Could feel the breath of my name skate across my back.
A shiver of a pledge.
I pushed up the