She nodded as she dropped her hands and let them rest on his broad, solid chest.
“I see.”
And she did. She saw the selfless man who took care of the women he loved, the passionate one who loved with all he had—even when it meant walking away. And she saw the beast in him, the one that led him to drink. He wasn’t two separate men as she’d always told herself. There wasn’t one who’d loved her and one who’d walked away. They were two parts of a whole. Both parts making him the man that he was.
The man she loved.
She let her eyes memorize every inch of his face, fearing they’d both reason their way out of this intense stare down before it went much further. Trace’s hands came up to her wrists and slid down her arms. She barely stifled the shiver it caused.
“You’re still my beautiful girl. Still too damn beautiful for my own good,” he said, his voice a tormented whisper. “I knew I could take care of this.” He slid a hand down and cupped her intimately between her legs.
Her hands clutched his black T-shirt, gripping him tighter for support as need pooled liquid and scalding where he’d touched her.
“I had to make sure I was worthy of this.” Trace’s right hand left the throbbing apex of her thighs and came to rest on her heart. “I know you still love me, Kylie Lou. I don’t know that I’ll ever deserve your love, baby. But I want to. I’ll spend the rest of my damn life trying to be the kind of man who does.”
She placed her hands over his. Her heart quivered in fear at his words. When he lowered his head and kissed her softly between her breasts her entire body began to tremble under his touch.
His chest expanded as he pulled in ragged breaths. She let her hands roam from his hands to his arms. Smoothing them down his chest, she gripped the hem of his shirt.
“I’m scared,” she whispered into the small space between them.
“Me too, baby,” he breathed. “But I need you to trust me. We can’t do this without trust. I just want you, Kylie Lou Ryans. There’s no one else. The things the media says about me are—”
“Shh.” She brushed a finger over his mouth before lifting his shirt over his head. She’d heard all she needed to.
Once his chest was bare, her eyes drank in the muscular planes. Her hands made a path over the chiseled lines of his abdomen up to the hard ridges of his shoulders.
“When you first left,” she began softly, “it felt like I had nothing to hold on to. Nothing that mattered anymore.”
An apology flashed in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but she placed her small hand over it once again. His eyes never left hers while she spoke.
“And then I grabbed on to music, to the only thing I knew and understood. Even though every note, every chord, every single lyric I played or sang cut deeper into the pain of losing you.” She felt his hands massage their way up her back as she worked deftly to remove his belt. “I couldn’t save you from yourself. No matter what I did.”
His hooded hazel eyes undressed her at the same time his hands did. She felt every barrier she’d put up between them drop away with her clothes. Her shirt hit the floor, but she’d been exposed to him long before it did.
“And then I tried…I tried so hard to find something that didn’t remind me of you. Someone who could fill that hollow ache you left inside me.” She felt the wounds she was inflicting on him as his body tensed beneath her hands in response. “And then he walked away. Like everyone else. And I didn’t even care.”
The sound of his zipper coming down as she lowered it slowly filled the silence.
“And these past few days, spending time with my band and letting them see me—
the real me, the feel-first-think-second me—made me realize I was never empty. I’d kept something no one could take away from me. Not even you.”
“What’s that?”
A slow smile spread across her face as she shifted his pants down his hips.
“This.” Grabbing his strong, warm hand, she placed it in the same spot where he’d touched her chest. His fingers pressed into her flesh. “Loving you is as much a part of me as my music is. It’s not a choice and it’s not something I can live a full life without. I love you. I never stopped, Trace. Not for a single second. Even when I tried my hardest. Even when I wasn’t sure if you loved me back.”
For the first time since their emotionally charged exchange had begun, he closed his eyes.
“You know,” he said softly.
Kylie leaned back against the counter behind her.
“I do.” She nodded. “You brought me back to life. You made sure the only one who could record our song was us. You kissed me on stage because I sang a song that hurt to sing. You bought my daddy’s truck. You went to rehab and got sober. You ditched everyone, your band, your family, to come have a pity party bonfire with me, you—”