about this now. We actually don’t have to talk about it ever again. But just know you will always be Willow to me.”
My heart simultaneously ached and soared. I wanted to write that future with him too. I didn’t know how long we stayed there. Standing in the middle of his room, his bed only a few feet away. He didn’t ask any questions, nor did he try to give me any sage advice.
There was nothing left to say.
The fact was Hadley was dead. My using her identity wasn’t going to change that.
There would be no painting with her daughter.
No laughing over animals.
No journal entries decorated with hearts and smiley faces.
That wasn’t Hadley’s life.
But it could be mine.
With Caven.
I had a successful career as an artist. An incredible man who would hold me until his arms fell off. A beautiful little girl who looked like my mother, laughed like my father, and had every bit of my sister’s attitude.
And, in one way or another, Hadley had given them all to me.
Maybe the answer wasn’t rewriting her life.
Maybe he was right and it was all about embracing my own.
Or maybe it was just about putting off the inevitable and forgetting if only for a few more hours.
“Caven,” I whispered, raking my nails down his back.
He turned to stone as I slipped my hand down the back of his sweats. “Fuck,” he rumbled.
Pressing up onto my toes, I kissed the base of his neck and murmured, “Go see if she’s asleep.”
He took my mouth in a needy kiss, but as I was getting lost in a taste that would forever be engrained in my memory as Caven Hunt, he was removing my hands.
Palming either side of my face, he stepped away. “Stop.”
“No, don’t stop. Stopping is bad.” I tried to capture his mouth again, but he held me out of reach.
“Jesus, Willow. Your cheeks aren’t even dry yet.”
I tugged at his waistband. “So dry them while you get me naked.”
Releasing my face, he took a giant stride back. It was only a few feet, but for as deflated as I felt, it might as well have been a mile.
“We’re not doing this. Not after that.”
Without a care in the world and a desperation to forget, I peeled my shirt over my head, leaving me in a simple, but sexy, white bra.
His gaze jumped to my breasts, but it was the way it flicked to my scar that sent the chill down my spine.
“Willow,” he breathed. After one last perusal, he bit his bottom lip and looked toward the door. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me tell you no. I don’t have it in me.”
I prowled closer and peppered kisses across his defined chest. “If you tell me no, I’m going to have to start deleting stars on your date review.”
He let out a growl when I grazed the tips of my fingers across the fabric covering his hard length. And no sooner than I slipped a hand into the front of his pants was I up off my feet, being carried to the bed.
I grinned in victory, eager to shut the world down and lose myself in Caven the way it was always supposed to be.
He dropped me to the bed and followed me down with his upper body, his hands landing on either side of my head. His kiss was deep and greedy, igniting everything from my nipples to my clit. Fighting with his pants, I shoved at them with my hands and my feet.
I needed to feel him.
To close my eyes and block out the rest of the world.
I just needed a few minutes to shut down the side of my brain that haunted me with all the ways I’d failed my sister.
That wasn’t what I was going to get though, because in the next second, Caven flipped me to my side and crawled into the bed behind me, his chest coming flush with my back and his arm going over my hips.
“We’re not doing it like this,” he rasped.
I rolled my hips, finding his cock, thick and straining. “Caven, please.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, clamping down with his arm to stop my movement. “Stop. The last time I was inside you, I thought you were her. I’ll be damned if we are bringing her to bed with us again. You’re hurting, and I get that. I’d give anything to be able to make that stop, but not at the risk of damaging what we have.”
“It’s not going to damage