Page 96 of Feels Like Home

“But I think she knew I was lying.”

Hattie goes still.

I take a step toward her. My brain knows this is stupid. I do not have any business thinking what I’m thinking, but I don’t care.

I don’t want to think about the reasons she and I are a bad idea.

I don’t want to think about repercussions. Only possibilities.

I just want her.

I capture her gaze, her face dimly lit from the moonlight filtering in through the window of the door, and inch a little closer into her space. I lift a hand and let it rest against her cheek, searching her eyes for any sign that I’ve got this wrong.

All I find is a kind of quiet expectation. A curiosity that seems to invite me in.

It’s a still, quiet version of Hattie. One I’m not used to but would very much like to know.

Everything around me fades away, and there, in the entryway of the old hunting lodge, it’s only me and her. My gaze drops to her lips, and she shifts closer, loosely grabbing onto my jacket.

“What is happening?” she whispers.

I tip her chin up with my forefinger and search her big, brown eyes. “I think I’m about to kiss you.”

She doesn’t pull away.

I lean down slowly and let my lips brush against hers, so soft it’s barely a whisper. Alarm bells sound in the back of my mind, but it’s too late. I’ve already crossed the line they’re warning me about. I shove the thoughts aside and focus on Hattie.

Beautiful, spunky, independent Hattie.

I take her face in my hands and kiss her deeper.

Hattie who believed in me before anyone else ever did.

Her hands move into my jacket and press against my back, and she kisses me like she’s been thinking about it too. I’ve been comparing everyone else to her since the day I left, and I didn’t even realize I did that until I saw her again.

I take her face in my hands, and she moves hers into my hair, the kiss growing more intense. My brain shuts off as I breathe her in, my lips crashing into hers now, a single word reverberating through my mind: More, more, more.

That feeling I’ve been chasing—the whole reason I’m back here—it doesn’t work without her. It doesn’t work if we aren’t together.

I was an idiot to ever think this was anything other than inevitable.

We move so her back is pressed against the door, and my lips trail from her mouth to her neck to the soft spot behind her ear that feels private, reserved just for me. And I’m struck with a feeling so overwhelming I can’t name it.

It’s more than desire. More than love. It’s so much more than a want—I need her.

And I don’t need anybody.

I pull back, aware there is a desperation inside of me I’m not familiar with. I search her eyes. She’s breathless, and I start to panic because what did I just do?

But then she reaches up and touches my lips, the tips of her fingers so soft and gentle as it finds the scar at the edge of my mouth, the spot where my beard won’t grow. Her touch feels like a gift I don’t deserve, but it calms the fear inside me.

“That wasn’t there before,” she says. “What happened?”

My eyes land on her and stay there. “Bar fight.”

She brushes her finger over it again. “You get in a lot of those?”

I shrug. “Used to.”