I should leave out the back door right now. What on earth could Dex say to me after all this time that wouldn't just open up old wounds? I had a life. I should walk the hell out of here right now and get back to it.
My words stuck in my throat as I said goodbye to Joleen. Dex filled the doorway again and I pretty much hung up on her. My heart began to pound again as his eyes settled on mine, then dammit if they didn't trail lower down. He took one step toward me, then another. One more and I could feel his hot breath on me. I had a fleeting thought that I might want to call Joleen back to tell her I'd changed my mind. He was just inches from me. I could reach out and touch him. He was solid and strong. Real. I could feel his body heat already. And yet, I was still afraid. Afraid I was dreaming all of it and if I did put my hands on him, he'd vanish, just like he did in my dreams.
"Dex," I said, my voice sounding so far away to my own ears.
My eyes settled on a furious pulse beat in Dex's neck. It occurred to me this moment might feel like a dream to him too.
"I didn't know," I said. "Nobody told me you were coming home."
He smiled and lifted a hand to my face. My eyes traveled from that pulse point on his neck and finally up to meet his eyes. I hadn't realized until that moment that I'd been afraid to do it. This was too much. All of it. It was too much.
Dex. Here. Right in front of me. In some ways, I'd spent the last thirteen years convincing myself that the fast and furious time we'd spent together hadn't been real. That I'd created some myth around how great we'd been together. First loves are like that, aren't they? But everything came back to me. Everything I'd tried to blot out with time and distance. My heart and body seemed to cry out to touch him, to let him consume me just like he always did. It scared me. My breath came short, my heart fluttered and heat zinged through my blood, warming me with need. After all this time, he could still make me ache for him with just a look. God, what would happen if I let him touch me?
His hand hovered by my cheek. I had a sense that something similar was happening in him. His fingers twitched, like he was deciding what would happen if he finally touched me. Would I vanish like a dream? Would either of us be able to stop at just the innocent contact of his hand against my cheek?
"God." His voice was ragged with emotion. "You're more beautiful than I remembered. You're the same ... almost."
I studied his face, his features. He was my Dex, with his strong jaw, fierce, penetrating green eyes, thick black hair that I loved to run my fingers through. It was long and wavy at the ends, just brushing the leather collar on his cut. And, oh God, his scent. I had all but forgotten the intoxicating smell of leather, clean soap and that underlying hint of musk that was all Dex. My head flooded with sense memories. Dex's touch. Dex's kiss. The way he awakened my darkest desires with just the curve of his smirk or the slight arch of his brow.
Some things were different too. Of course they would be. Silver framed his temples and the lines of his face had hardened, giving him a new, rugged allure. There was something else too. His nose was thicker through the bridge than I remembered. It had been broken and set badly or not at all. His left brow was split at the center, a jagged line running through the dark hair. That was what broke my hesitation. I reached up and smoothed the line of his brow with my thumb. He flinched when I did it, but let me.
He was real, flesh and bone. He didn't vanish when I touched him. His hand came up, his fingers encircled my wrist. He brought my hand against his chest. I could feel his strong heart beating a little too fast, just like my own.
"Did you give as good as you got?" I smiled as tears welled in the corner of my eyes. No. This can't touch me. Not anymore.
Dex smiled back and it nearly undid me. I had forgotten that. How his full, bright smile could make me literally weak in the knees.
"That happened a long time ago, Angel."
I should have said don't. Don't call me that. Don't look at me like that. We aren't the same people. This isn't the same. You can't go back. Instead, my body answered when my brain should have. Before I knew what was happening, I arched up on my toes and tilted my head. Dex searched my face for just an instant, and then he brought his lips to mine and reason, rational thought and time seemed to fly away.
This. Just like this. I'd dreamed of it too. Dex kissed me slow and soft. Never rushed or frenzied. He knew how to draw me in and keep me there until I could barely tell where he started and I began. And that I knew was the dangerous part about all of this.
I'm not the same. I can't go back.
When he finally drew back he had his arm around me. He still held my hand against his chest, he had his other hand at the small of my back. He was tender and gentle and I wanted so much more. He pressed his cheek against my temple.
"God," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, Ava."
"Dex." My heart was like a jackhammer in my chest. Something welled deep inside me and threatened to bubble to the surface. It was like hope and desperation all rolled into one. I couldn't breathe. My emotions warred with each other. He felt so good, so strong. And it hurt. All the pain and sadness, the longing I'd felt for him. I couldn't let myself feel it.
But when Dex pressed himself against me, it shocked me how well trained my body still was for him. God. I wanted. Somehow, we were backed against the conference table. He set me on it. I brought my hands up and threaded them through his thick hair. Oh, how I'd missed the feel of him. His hands were everywhere. He touched my face, ran his fingers across the curve of my shoulder, kissed the column of my throat. Then he was on his knees in front of me, burying his head in my lap. I folded myself over him, running my hand down the smooth leather of his jacket over solid muscle. He trembled beneath my touch.
"Dex," I said again. He looked up at me and the longing in his eyes shattered me into a thousand pieces. My legs parted. Heat pooled at the juncture of my thighs. Oh God. He had barely even touched me and I could already feel myself growing wet for him. Thirteen years and what seemed like a hundred lifetimes and yet he still affected me this way.
His hands cupped my ass and he held me tight. Only my jeans kept me from teetering over the edge of something I knew I couldn't control. Had I worn a skirt, he would have already buried himself between my legs and I wouldn't have had the strength to stop. As it was, all he had to do was press his thumb against my jeans and I knew he'd be able to tell how much I wanted him. He would know I was soaked for him.
Slowly, he rose. I parted my legs and he came to stand between them. His eyes held a question. Do you want me to stop?
The answer was yes. And God no. He would ruin me all over again if I didn't come to my senses.
"Dex." It was all I could say and it came out as a whisper. Just that one word. Just his name and what he must have seen in my eyes. He cocked his head and gave me one last, devastating smile. Then he stiffened, straightened to his full height and took two steps away from me. "I can't do this." My brain, my words seemed disconnected from my body. Like I was drunk and yet some corner of my brain could still reason and warn me against danger. But if I took one more drink, let him touch me one more time, I'd be lost.
"It's all right, Angel. I know. I know."
Then he turned, walked out of the room and closed the door softly behind him. It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest, just like it did thirteen years ago.
Chapter Six
Dex
I stood with my back against the door and Ava on the other side of it for a few seconds before I could bring myself to walk away. I shouldn't have touched her. The minute I saw her, I should have fucking walked out of the bar and kept on going. I was an asshole. I wasn't the same person I was before I went inside and of course she wasn't either. We were strangers. And yet, when I kissed her, when she ran her hands through my hair, it was like all that time had never happened. She wanted me just as badly.
"How 'bout we take a ride?"
Sly walked across the bar and stopped in front of me. He cocked his head and pursed his lips together. Then he reached out and squeezed my arm. I nodded. Sly jerked his chin toward Billy at the other end of the bar as we walked past.
"Can you make sure she's okay?" He pointed his thumb back toward the office where Ava waited.
Billy's eyes darted from Sly to me and back again but he nodded. "Sure thing, Prez."
Sly had his arm around my shoulders and the two of us walked out of the bar together. I grabbed my helmet off the seat of my Harley and Sly mounted his next to me. We didn't say another word to each other. We didn't have to. I knew exactly where we were going and it was about damn time.
We rode fast and hard, chasing the last blazing pink band of sunlight. It felt so damn good to feel the wind in my face and the roar of my engine under me. How I'd survived all those years without this, I don't know. I knew in that instant that, no matter what, I'd never let anyone take my freedom away from me again. I'd die first if it came to it. Maybe I should have died back then. As good as it felt to be out here, pain shot through my heart in the space where Ava used to be. I'd shut it off, or tried to. I never should have touched her. Not today and not back then. All I ever did was bring her pain.
I pulled alongside Sly as we headed out of town, past the ranches and veered off the paved roads onto the dirt path that led to the bluff. This was our path. Our territory. Our sanctuary. We crested the hill and cut our engines when we reached the top.