Page 49 of Breaking His Exile

A drop of rain struck between his boots, and he stared at it, watching it spread dark on the stone.

“You have no idea what being with me could cost,” he said.

“I know exactly what it could cost. I watched you put a knife through a man to keep me breathing. I’ve got the general shape of the risk.”

“You should’ve run,” he said.

“But I didn’t.”

Evander looked at her. Rain. Dark gold hair. The set of her jaw that said she’d argue with a mountain and expect it to move.

He was tired of arguing.

His hand moved before he gave it permission—up to her jaw, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. Her lips parted. Her breath warmed his skin. He felt the hitch in it, the slight catch that told him she hadn’t expected him to touch her again so soon.

Or maybe she had. Maybe she’d known exactly what she was doing, pushing him like this, refusing to give him the distance he’d spent eight years convincing himself he needed.

He kissed her.

There was no slow build this time, no tentative exploration. He’d spent the morning braced for her to recoil, and she hadn’t. He’d spent the hike cataloging every reason to keep his hands to himself, and she’d stripped down to her sports bra and looked at him like he was the only thing in all these mountains worth seeing.

Her mouth opened under his and the sound she made—low, approving—sent his heat racing down his spine. His hand found her waist, the other threading into her rain-wet hair. She tasted like the canteen water, like the honey from breakfast, like something he’d forgotten existed.

He pressed her back against the rock wall. She went willingly, her spine arching into his palm, her hands fisting in his shirt. The jacket slipped off her shoulder. He followed it down, mouth tracing her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the salt-sweet skin where her pulse jumped.

“Evander.” His name in that songbird voice did something to him. Something dangerous. Something he should stop.

He didn’t stop.

He found the edge of her sports bra. She made a sound of pure invitation, and he felt a tremor run through her under his fingers.

“Ribs,” he managed.

“Fuck my ribs.”

He laughed against her neck, surprised by the unfamiliar feeling and sound. Then her hands were under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and the laugh died into a groan. His cock throbbed against his fly, and her knuckles brushed over it.

The world narrowed. Rain on stone. Her breath against his ear. The weight of her thigh as she hooked it over his hip, pulling him closer until she was stopped by the layers of fabric.

He wanted to tear through them.

His fingers found the button of her jeans. Hers found his. The angle was awkward, cramped against the rock, and neither of them cared. She bit his lower lip, hard enough to sting, and he groaned into her mouth and felt her smile against him.

He should stop. Every protocol he’d built, every circuit breaker that kept people safe from him—she’d stripped them bare in three days.

His fingers found the zipper pull. The sound was lost in the rain, but he felt the vibration in his fingertips. Her breath caught. Not from pain—he’d learned that hitch, would have stopped cold if he’d heard it—but from the same thing driving him. Pure need.

He slid his hand lower. Her skin was hot despite the chill air, and he felt the raised edge of a scar. She made that low sound again and hooked her leg higher over his hip, and the angle brought her against him, pressure where he was hardest. His vision narrowed to the wet gold of her hair, the dark of her eyes, the shape of her mouth as it said his name.

“Evander.”

He kissed her again, deeper, and he dipped a hand between her legs, finding her soaked.

“Damn, songbird. You’re ready.”

She bucked against his palm with a sound that broke something loose in his chest, some final restraint he’d been clutching since the moment she climbed into his truck. The rain hammered the ridge. The stone was cold against his knees. None of it mattered. Only this. Only her. Only the impossible fact that she was still here, pulling him closer when every other person in his life had learned to run.

He worked her jeans lower. She helped, the movement awkward in the cramped space. Her sports bra had ridden up, showing the undersides of her breasts and the wildflowers tattooed along her ribs, the musical notes trailing toward her hip, and the bruises fading to yellow.