Page 146

The last is cut off on a sob that feels like an ax cutting clean through me. I don’t wait for him to answer before I gather my things and escape from his truck. I should go into the office, but I don’t. I climb right into my car. Without daring a look at Holt, I back out and drive away.

I cry the whole way home.

30

THE WRECKAGE OF US

JUNE 2023 – PRESENT DAY

Igave her time. Time to unwind. I think it was a mistake, because the more time I gave her, the more wound up I found myself.

She’s upset and grieving and lost. But so am I. Only, I grieved her and Tate long before Tate died. I never stopped grieving them. Not for a fucking minute.

My knuckle connects with her front door again. The key Mom gave me burns in my pocket on the ring with all the others. I could use it…

I should have returned it.

If Faye wanted me to have a key, she’d have given me one.

It’s the only thing that stops me from shoving it into the lock, and instead, knocking again.

I catch sight of her through the frosted glass and my already hot blood heats.

The locks click and the door opens and fuck me—the woman is beautiful.

She’s stripped of makeup and flushed from her bath. Her mass of warm brown hair is twisted into a knot on the top of her head, and she’s wearing nothing more than a flimsy white silk robe.

I don’t know whether I should be relieved she finally answered the door or pissed that she answered it like this. Vulnerable and delectable.

Irre-fucking-sistible.

“Holt,” my name shudders from her lungs on a breathless breath. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing answering the door like this?”

Her brows inch high. “I tried to ignore you. You wouldn’t stop knocking. I thought it was an emergency.”

“Christ,” I bite out. At my sides, my hands curl and uncurl.

I’m on the edge of something. My control, perhaps?

She drops her hands onto her hips. The motion stretches the thin material tight over her breasts, and I just—snap.

Shoving into her, I use my body to physically push her into the house. Then I kick the door closed. I think the house rattles with the force of it.

She gasps the sweetest sound. It’s the sound that’s haunted me for over a decade. The sound I hear in the dead of the night when the ghost of her would come to me. Taunt me.

The sound I engraved in my memory that first time I entered her, and all the times that followed.

Fuck.

“Holt…”

“You want to know what this is, Faye?” I don’t wait for her to reply. “This is us, dammit. This is me and you. Messy and twisted and so fucking wrong we’re right.” I step into her until her back connects with the wall. Air tumbles from her lungs into the space between us, and I taste the sweetness of the wine I know I’ll find on her tongue.

I’ll find it, because I am going to kiss her.

I’m going to taste her.