Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)
Where We Left Off: Chapter 28

The amount of information that has come to light in the darkness outside of Mitch’s house is too much, too quickly, and I’m struggling to process all of it. There’s a deadly tension mounting between Tate, Hudson, and Mitch, and even my mom can sense it, although she doesn’t quite have all of the pieces of this puzzle to facilitate her in understanding the significance of what Hudson just revealed.

If Hudson is Tate’s step-brother then that means that he is going to be in his life forever. And of all of the people in the world, Hudson is the last person who I ever, ever, ever want to be in the vicinity of again.

If I want to have Tate in my life, then I have to have Hudson in my life too.

And that is something that is simply impossible.

The driver’s door of Tate’s truck is still ajar from when he jumped out barely ten minutes ago, so I release Tate’s hand from my mine and turn around so that I can climb up on the step, kneel over his seat, and collect my glasses from the dashboard. I slip them on as I dismount from the car, my movements burdened with weightlessness as the paralysis of my distress spreads through my veins. When I get my feet back on the road Tate has turned one-eighty to look at me, but I don’t meet his eyes, too scared of my own reaction. I one hundred percent refuse to cry in front of Hudson – I did it back then but I won’t be doing it now – so I can’t risk looking at Tate’s face.

I glance in the direction of my mom and fiddle with my frames as I say, “I just need one minute. I’ll be back… I just need…”

I clamp my lips together, turn on my heel, and then I begin to walk quickly down the street, crossing to the pavement on the other side of the road, eager to put as much distance between this whole situation and myself as possible.

I hear my mom shouting something about how dangerous it is to be out alone like this at night, but I keep on walking with no intentions of stopping. Little does she know that the biggest danger to me in this neighbourhood is standing right next to her.

By the time that I round the street corner I break into a full on run. It shoots a rush of adrenaline straight to the centre of my chest and in the next second three years’ worth of tears are gushing out of me. It’s ugly. I’m sobbing so hard that my sternum is burning and a rusty ache is scraping at the back of my throat. I wish I had my inhaler with me because I don’t know how long I can run like this without external aid to my lungs. My legs are shaking, but my horror-induced adrenaline is propelling me forward, hands swiping at my soaked cheeks and wet lashes leaving salty dots across my glasses lenses. An involuntary sob escapes my throat and I wish that I could just shut the fuck up. What if someone hears? I hope that no one sees me because this is the most embarrassing and heart-breaking moment of my life.

I only register the footsteps behind me when they’re one second away, but as I spin around, expecting whoever is there to try and stop me or bring me back, I’m met with Tate’s warm chest. He scoops me into his arms, enveloping me in his body, and he aids my escape without a word. His jacket is hanging over his forearm and he tries to drape it around me as he jogs us further away from Mitch’s house. My tears are still audible and I cringe into his neck as I think about how weak I look right now. But then again, if a life with Tate is now impossible, it shouldn’t matter if he thinks that I’m lame, because he won’t have to be around me for much longer anyway.

The thought makes me cry harder.

I don’t know where he’s taking me but the even confidence of his strides tells me that he does. I pull away slightly from his neck so that I can try and look up at him but the hand that was cradling my back strokes upwards, and he presses my head to his body again. My tears are silent now and I feel a little bit less pathetic knowing that he can’t hear them. I rub my fingertips around the thick base of his neck and press my cold nose against his skin, inhaling. His scent is masculine, comforting, warm. His entire ribcage swells sharply against my body, as if he felt a palpable physical extraction by my breathing him in.

He slows to a walk but I don’t move to see where we are. I quickly rub at my face to remove any further evidence of tears, and the tracks sting icily as the night air touches them.

I feel my back press up against something hard and Tate slowly lowers me to my feet. I can’t bear what I’m about to do so I quickly reach up to his neck, entwining my fingers into his soft hair, and drag his mouth down to mine. My haste elicits a groan from his chest and he doesn’t fight me like I expected him to. He never denies me. My eyes sting because I’m going to have to give him up when I only just got him back.

His hands move to my shoulders, re-securing his jacket carefully over them, before allowing himself to give in completely. He holds my face to his with the expansive grip of his hand, keeping me in place, before sliding his palm down the column of my throat. He holds me more firmly than he ever has before and the unyielding domination makes my body grow limp, sweet liquid heat swirling around low in my belly. His other hand dips under the back of my t-shirt and roams upwards until he’s between my shoulder blades. Then he uses his forearm to press into me, making my cold skin blaze with heat, and he pushes me flush into his solid torso.

I pull away slightly so that I can begin to say what needs to be said but he forces my mouth back to his. He knows what’s coming and he’s determined to prevent it. I mumble his name against his lips but it only makes him press against me harder. My eyes flutter as he unleashes all of the strength that he usually keeps under such tight reins against my body, so much smaller than his and therefore so much easier to control. He slides his tongue into my mouth, filling me so deeply that I feel the movements in my womb, and his hands work together to restrain, control, and reward the involuntary movements of my body. I know what he’s doing and it’s so achingly unfair. He’s reminding me of who he is and what only he is capable of.

He’s showing me what I’m going to miss when I let him go.

And I don’t want to let him go, that’s the tragedy here. What I want is for Tate to go get his truck, drag me inside, then take me to his secret home and never let me leave. I want to give him all of his fantasies because, somewhere along the way, they became my fantasies too. I want to play his spoilt little girlfriend and then become his ravished little wife, watching him obsess over me as I make him his beautiful tousle-haired babies. I don’t want to go back to Mitch’s house, pack up my belongings, and then head to my mom’s, wherein I’ll spend my days studying until I finish high school, and then get shipped off to college to fulfil her dream for me.

But that’s what I have to do.

“Tate,” I moan, pushing with all of the strength that I can muster at his chest. It doesn’t move him an inch. His head is buried under my hair at the sensitive curve of my neck and he’s inhaling me so deeply that I now understand his earlier reaction. I can feel it, the magnetic pull between my soul and his, as he consumes my pheromones that are inviting, taunting, and begging for him to do whatever he wants. His body is rippling as he decodes the message and sounds that are more animal than human rumble gruffly in his chest.

“Tate, please, we have to talk about this,” I implore, but my voice is weakened in my lust. “You know that I-”

“I know,” he says, his face suddenly looking down at mine. The timbre of his voice is so low that I whimper, and his eyes become half-mast upon hearing the noise. He swallows hard and leans back down so that he can give me kiss after kiss after kiss. “I know,” he whispers, cupping my cheeks in his hands.

As if a faucet has been turned my tears begin to fall again and Tate wipes at them with his thumbs as his lips try to chastely console me. His brow is contorted and his eyes sparkle, as tears of his own glass over the surface. It has always been like this, this abnormal connection that sometimes doesn’t even come once in a person’s lifetime. My pain is his pain. He’s hurting because I’m hurting.

I have been blessed to know Tate Coleson but my time is now up. Nothing this good ever comes without a price, and God knows that I have had my fair share of pain to balance against his goodness.

I wish I could stop crying. My eyes are too blurry and I can’t see him properly which makes me cry even harder, because this is the last time that I’m going to see him and I can’t even see him. I wipe my fingers over my cheeks and under my nose. It’s not pretty. All of the happiness that I have had as a result of Tate is bleeding out of me in every form of liquid that my body can conjure up. It’s so painful that I rub my chest, worried that this agony will never end and my heart will be permanently severed. I’ve read stories about people dying from broken hearts, old couples leaving the world only days apart, because it’s like their body knows – it knows that the best part is over now and there is no longer any reason to stay. And that’s how it feels. Leaving Tate feels like the best part is over… and there is no longer any reason to stay.

“Baby,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

My tears continue to run down my face and down my neck until they are deep into my cleavage, anointing Tate’s silver cross. I pull out the pendant and we both look down at it as it glistens with my tears. He can sense that I’m about to pull it over my head and give it back to him because he grips it in his hand and slides it back into my top, wrenching my chest to his so that his necklace rests finally between us. He presses his cheek against the top of my head and tightens his arms around my waist.

It’s a long time before either of us moves again.

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.