Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

14. Trent

FOURTEEN

TRENT

She sat across from me, fighting tears, finally seeing me for the monster that I was.

Funny how I’d warned her, needed her to get it, then when she did, it made me want to crawl out of my skin.

Shame thick.

Hatred thicker.

But guys like us? We didn’t get to rewind or rework our pasts. We didn’t get to make amends because you couldn’t right wrongs this bad.

We didn’t get a second chance.

Even when we ran, the demons would be right there. Our sins written on our souls. The horrors emblazoned on our minds.

Unforgettable nightmares that would never let up.

When I couldn’t stand her discomfort for a second longer, that gaze dipping and ducking and landing everywhere except for on me, I pushed out of the booth to stand. “Let’s go.”

Surprised, Eden jerked her head up. Long, blonde locks swished around her shoulders like a play of soft seduction while those autumn eyes swam with moisture. With a sea of distrust. A well of fear.

And still, deep within, there was something that shouldn’t remain.

The girl was always looking at me like I was better than I was. Like there was something there, buried deep. Something that could be resurrected.

Not possible.

Because any goodness inside me had died the first time I pulled a trigger in the name of the club. In the name of surviving. In the name of my piece-of-shit father.

“What?” she whispered, confused. Unsure and uncertain, and fuck, I had the intense urge to gather her up. Hold her. Tell her I’d never hurt her.

“Looks to me like you lost your appetite.”

Her gaze dipped again, like she didn’t want to admit it, and I dug into my pocket and pulled out a hundred. I tossed it onto the table.

She remained sitting, her head downcast before she tipped that pretty face in my direction. “Trent?—”

I stuck out my hand. “Don’t, Eden. You don’t have to say anything. Already know.”

Already knew I was bad. Wrong. Exact thing she needed to keep far, far away from.

A frown curled her brow, her lips parted on a denial that she couldn’t cut loose because she and I both knew it would be a lie.

A lie that said maybe the two of us could be.

Like this want could be sated.

The sight of her that way tied my guts in knots, the chaos of thoughts that roiled through her mind tossing my body into overdrive.

Lust bottled. Need barely bridled.

Tentatively, she accepted my outstretched hand.

Motherfuck.

She singed me. Slayed me. Fire raced my flesh, this girl the kind of flame that could do me in, consume me in a flash.

Knew better than traipsing in the direction of something good. Wanting to dip my dirty fingers in the pure. Would ruin us both when we were done.

That knowledge didn’t seem to make much of a difference, though, with the way I twined her fingers through mine, not wanting to let her go, way my heart trembled in my motherfucking chest.

I led her out, and Eden cowered close to my side, although there was something brave about the way she kept squeezing my hand. Like she was the one giving me encouragement. One giving me reassurance.

Her belief.

Her goodness that shined.

We dipped out of the bar and into the sweeping darkness of the night. Sky so close where it hugged the earth. Heavens smattered with stars strung like ribbons of hope through the night. Beneath it, it was easy to get swayed into thinking there might be a bigger purpose to all of this.

A purpose I wouldn’t be graced.

Wind howled through the towering trees, stirred the ground, the night air cold where it breezed against our skin.

Eden shivered where she stood frozen at the side of my bike.

Like she had no idea where she was supposed to go from there.

Lost.

And I was the idiot who thought I could maybe show her the way. Give her a direction, a way out of wherever she’d go when her features would go sad.

To her sister who had fucked her over.

But I got the sense it went way deeper than that.

This girl’s heart strewn all over the place.

I shifted, overcome with the need to touch. To trace the goosebumps on her flesh. To watch this beautiful girl light up.

“You’re cold,” I rumbled, voice barely audible with the strain.

Eden looked at me with those eyes.

Open.

Wide.

Terrified and still giving me the kind of trust I didn’t deserve.

Her tongue swept across her lips, cautious and slow, and she was huddled so close to me that when she forced out the words, I felt the stutter of her heart. “I need to know something…is…is Gage in danger? Are you in danger?” Her head barely shook, her attention jumping around to search the silence of the shadows, at war with her fears. “Are we in danger?”

Images streaked through my mind.

Flashes of darkness.

Drums of light.

Begging. Pleading. Blood. Splatters. Shame.

Could barely breathe by the time I came back, nothing but a fuckin’ fool when I reached out and traced the chills that had pebbled on her arm, that dress whipping around her legs and her hair thrashing around the angles of her gorgeous face.

My fingertip dragged the length, and I leaned in close, figuring I had nothing else to lose. “The man who was supposed to be my father? One who wanted to send me to Hell? I sent him there first.”

Eden’s eyes pressed closed, and she exhaled a shattered breath, her sweet soul shivering with the truth.

“Only reason I’m still here in California. But that doesn’t mean we’re ever going to fully outrun it. That we’ll ever fully be safe. I made a lot of enemies back then, Eden. Did a lot of bad, bad things. But I’ll spend my life making sure that Gage won’t be affected by that bullshit. That he gets to live a semi-normal life.”

“Okay,” she whispered, giving me more of that unfound trust.

“Let’s get you home. It’s late.”

Warily, she nodded, and I swung my leg over my bike, helped her get on the back. My insides twisted in a rush of want when she shocked the shit out of me by curling those arms around me like that was what she’d been made to do. When she hugged me tighter than she ever had before.

When she held on and buried her face in the back of my neck like she needed it. Like she needed to get closer. Mold herself to my fashion. Sink inside and become one.

Invade.

Possess a piece of me the way she was possessing me.

Like she fit.

Stupid.

Couldn’t go there. Neither of us could afford it, that was clear enough.

Opposites.

Goodness and greed.

Purity and depravity.

Plus the fact that I couldn’t let down my guard. That I had to focus. Be true to the promise I’d made.

One reason.

I started the engine. The roar ricocheted through the thin air, and I struggled to get my shit together as I eased out of the spot and took to the road that was all but deserted this time of night.

I headed in the direction of her house.

The headlight from my bike speared through the lazy darkness as I zigzagged down the sleeping city streets.

Her arms were wrapped tight around my waist. So fucking tight. The heat of her body saturated mine. Soaked me through.

But she was shaking, too. Shaking so bad that on the straightaways I kept putting one of my hands over hers that were locked at my stomach. My hand curled over hers like I could hold her fears. Make it right. Be someone good enough to stand by her side.

I made the last turn into her neighborhood. Her house came into view, cream-colored with light-green eaves, shrouded in a hedge of giant trees.

Should have just dropped her at the curb.

Let her off and let her go. It’s what a good guy would do.

But that was the whole problem with who I was, wasn’t it? I wasn’t a good guy. Not even close.

So I pulled into the single-car drive at the side of her house. I eased to a stop, killed the engine, and kicked the stand.

No words were said when I reached down and unwound her trembling fingers and helped her slip off the bike, but I couldn’t find the strength to let her go.

She wobbled where she stood, her fingers locked on mine, girl looking at me with those earthy, autumn eyes. Watching me like I was something different. Like I might be worthy to touch her. Hold her.

I wasn’t, but still I climbed off the bike, my frame towering over her fierce, sweet body.

So fuckin’ pretty.

Different.

Brave and bold and kind.

Better in every way.

“Trent.” She whispered my name like a prayer.

Honey dripped from her tongue and glided into my senses.

My free hand came out and cupped the side of her face, my thumb running the angle. “Eden.”

Heaven.

Paradise standing there beneath the night sky.

Her throat tremored, and her fingers fell free of the clasp of mine when she turned and started up her walk. Nothing else was said as she walked toward the front door.

Didn’t know if it was an invitation. Only thing I knew was I couldn’t do anything but follow her.

Powerless to her lure.

That connection zapped.

The draw that was this girl.

Electricity crackling and blistering like a storm.

A heatwave that shocked through the cooled night and strummed my nerves into a frenzy.

I stalked behind that goodness, that vulnerability, wanting to dip my fingers into the warmth of it.

Get lost.

Forget.

Maybe be the guy this girl clearly deserved, even when I didn’t know a whole lot about who she was, which was a mindfuck considering the information I’d just dished for the first time.

But I guessed I already knew everything important.

The truth that there was nothing corrupt about her.

That she cared.

Fuck, I got that sense that she might even love my kid.

Thing that was really messing me up was this reaction. Fact that my cock was stone, guts tangled in need, fingers itching to fist in that blonde, blonde hair.

Wanted to take her.

Taste her.

Vanish in that body and that heart and those eyes.

Eden fumbled into her bag to pull out her keys that she must have forgotten she’d surrendered to me. I dug them out of my pocket and leaned around her to unlock her door. “There you go.” It was a breath against her ear.

A shiver raced her, and she reached in and flicked on the light before she glanced back at me, nerves rattling through her as her gaze swept me like I wasn’t a nightmare that’d shown up at her door.

She widened that door and stepped inside.

Energy lashed.

Swallowing it down, I followed, entering her house for the first time.

I took it in as I clicked the door shut behind us, chuckling low when I realized it looked exactly like her.

Fit her to a T.

Pure.

Humble.

Sweet.

Everything cozy and warm and bright.

Like it couldn’t help but glow with her light.

Slowly, she turned around in the small space, wearing that same modest dress she’d been tempting me with this afternoon. In it, the girl was still the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

My sanity’s demise.

Maybe my heart’s, too.

Because fuck.

I got the sense Eden Murphy might undo me.

Obliterate the fortress I’d had to build around myself to survive.

Unravel all the dirty threads that were barely holding me together.

Retwine them until I was complete.

Make a broken man whole.

She stared at me with questions rushing over that stunning face.

I inched forward.

The air shivered, and Eden’s chest heaved.

God, I had no idea what I was still doing standing there.

I roughed a hand through my hair, dropping my attention to my boots. “Listen, I’m sorry if it was too much, unloading all that shit on you.”

Rejection twisted through Eden’s expression, the curve of her jaw appearing harsher than ever. “Don’t you dare apologize to me for that.”

My heart nearly stopped at her ferocity.

She stepped forward in a plea, her fingers raking down the front of my shirt. “Don’t apologize for trusting me with that.”

My stuttered heart started to pound. This thunder that I couldn’t contain.

“Not a whole lot I’m proud of in my life, Eden.” I took a step her direction. Enclosing. “But I’m fuckin’ trying to be something for my son.”

Those eyes flitted over my face.

Searching.

Seeking.

“None of us are whole, Trent. None of us are without blame.”

I scoffed out a bitter laugh. “Baby, my blame is disgrace. Unconscionable. Unforgivable. I think I made that much clear.”

“I don’t believe that.” Her voice was a whisper. “Not for a second. Do you think I don’t see your grief?”

Eden edged back another step.

Temptation.

Raw, innocent seduction.

Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing to me, the way her pulse thudded in the bare space. A space that called out to be filled.

My soul thrashed.

“Do you think I don’t see the goodness you don’t know how to show?”

Fuck me, I wanted to dip my fingers into the pure.

Into all that blamelessness radiating off her like a dream. The belief.

“You think I don’t see you?” Fingertips traced down the side of my face as she murmured that. “Absolution. I think you are looking for it, too.”

Affection in her touch.

Affection in her eyes.

Could barely see. Could barely think.

The only thing I could focus on was the whoosh of the blood I could sense racing through her veins. A thrum, thrum, thrum that bounded and banged and made me feel like I was going insane.

I inclined closer, my nose running the length of her jaw, breathing the words as I went. “I ruin everything I touch, Eden. Ruin it. Destroy it. I’m terrified of doing the same to you, just like I’m terrified I’m going to be wrong for that little boy.”

The last I choked out as my hand cinched down on her waist.

Guessed this time, I was the one who was vulnerable. The one who was putting his mangled, ugly heart on the chopping block.

Her palm found my cheek, soft and warm. “Trent.” Her gaze moved across my face, her words low and wispy, laden with emphasis. “You have the choice. You have the choice of how you live your life, no matter how you’ve lived it in the past. You have the power to decide who you are now. The kind of security you give. The kind of father that you want to be. You have the choice to love him with everything you have.”

My hand curled around her wrist, two of us sliding into a trance. “I do, Eden. Never thought it possible, the way I love him. Things I would do for him.”

But it’d cost.

It’d cost my brother.

It’d cost my soul.

It’d cost our security because we’d be running for the rest of our lives.

“I can’t lose focus, Eden. Can’t start deluding myself into thinking I’ve got anything else left after that.”

Her throat bobbed when she swallowed. Her voice a snare. “I see it, Trent. Feel it when you look at him. You’re different than you are with anyone else. Beautiful in a way I doubt that you can see in yourself. But I see clearly. You have more to give. More to share.”

She pressed that hand over my heart that raged. “Right here. I see it living right here. You deserve love just as much as anyone else. You just have to be brave enough to let it free. To give it. To receive it. You have to trust that you deserve it even if you think you’ve failed.”

My forehead dropped to hers.

This girl who believed in me the way few others had. My brothers. Gage. It ended there. Felt impossible to ask for more.

“What if our failures are already too great? What if we’ve lost too many of the ones we love? Destroyed our chance at ever feeling whole and right again? Who the fuck are we then?”

Sorrow gripped me by the throat. My mother’s sweet voice. Nathan’s face behind my eyes. Could hear both their ghosts screaming in my ear. Only reason I’d made it through that was because of Gage.

Eden gasped, grief clutching her in a fist. She grabbed at her chest like she was fighting to capture the answer. Lost, too.

“I don’t know,” she rushed, so low I could barely hear her. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Her entire being wept, like she had her own ghosts screaming in her ear. She twisted away, haunted in a way that caught me off guard.

Thought she was trying to escape it, too, her past, with the way she moved down the short hall at the back of the living room.

And I was the goddamned sadist who followed her. Unable to stop chasing down the pain. Knowing I’d inflict it. That I was destined to fuck this up.

I’d promised—promised I wouldn’t lose focus or direction.

One reason.

One reason.

My chest nearly caved in when she got to the bedroom doorway and her hand shot out to the threshold. She bent in two, holding her stomach and trying to catch her breath.

She stumbled the rest of the way into her room.

I came up short at the doorway.

A bloodsucker who needed an invitation to enter. I stretched my arms over my head and hung onto the top of the doorframe, air heaving from my straining lungs.

Eden sank down onto the side of the bed, woman a seductress and she didn’t even know it. Soft and graceful and sexy as fuck.

Blonde curls hugging her shoulders, that dress draped around her body and showing off every delicious curve.

Little Temptress.

But there was so much confusion and sadness shrouding her as she watched me.

That gaze devouring.

Consuming.

Ruining.

“I should go, Eden, I know it. But I don’t fuckin’ know how to stay away from you.”

Electricity zapped through the air.

Crackles of lust.

An explosion of need.

Her lips parted, and a tiny sound slipped from her lush mouth.

I took a step inside.

“I’ll hurt you, and I won’t even mean to,” I told her, voice raw and rough with the warning.

She fidgeted on the bed, her knees pressing together.

Part in need.

Part in protection.

“I don’t even know what I feel, Trent.” She stared across at me. “I don’t understand this feeling you’ve created in me.” She pressed her hands to her chest.

Pleading.

She laughed a helpless sound. “You’re probably the last man I ever thought I’d want. The last man I should want. So different than anything I ever pictured for my life.”

I didn’t even take offense to it. She wasn’t saying anything different than what I’d been saying all along.

“But I do.” The admission bled free like an appeal. “And I don’t know how to come to terms with that.”

In some kind of shame, her attention drifted to the bedside table.

Like she was drawn.

I followed the path.

To the picture that was there.

Every muscle in my body flinched.

It was of Eden wrapped in the arms of a guy.

A guy who shined the way she did.

A nice guy.

A good guy.

Kind of guy she deserved.

Two of them a mesh of perfection.

Two rings were leaned against the frame.

Old hopes lost.

My stomach suddenly rebelled.

Flailed with her sorrow all while I was overcome with this surge of possession.

Fuck, I really was getting in deep.

So fuckin’ deep when she heaved out a breath and the force of it had me inching closer, her words the softest lashes that struck through the room.

Long, fading echoes that bounced from wall to wall.

“My husband’s been gone for six years.”

No question, this wasn’t a case of a marriage gone bad. The dude hadn’t walked out on her or left her of his own choice. This abandonment was the kind where no blame could lie. The kind that left you ripped open with questions. Bleeding out for the rest of your life.

I slowly eased to my knees on the carpet in front of her.

Overcome again. This time with the need to wrap her up. Hold her pain. Rewrite the sadness from her spirit with something good. “I’m fuckin’ sorry, Eden.”

Affection ridged her face, and she was touching mine again. “Funny how we’ve both told each other the same thing tonight.”

There was no stopping it, the way my hand curled around her wrist, and I was bringing her palm to my mouth, laying a gentle kiss to the soft, soft skin.

“Not the same,” I whispered.

I stared up at her, unsure how to handle this. How to deal. Not when I was aching. Aching for this girl who was clearly aching for someone else. “What happened to him?”

Her head shook, and she warily peeked at me, her voice thin, taxed with sorrow. “Nothing glamorous. A car accident in the middle of the day.”

I squeezed her knees. Why I was encouraging her to continue, I didn’t know. Didn’t need to know any of this shit.

But I wanted to hold her pain, too.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “He was supposed to pick me up after school that day.” Her expression deepened with the memory, her gaze focused on the picture, her voice far away. “I remember waiting and waiting and waiting. Watching for him to come around the corner. I knew he’d make a big joke about bein’ late. Make up some crazy story to make me laugh and take away my worry.” She shifted her sorrow back to me. “But he never came.”

I reached up and brushed a lock of thick blonde from the side of her face. “I’m so sorry. So fuckin’ sorry.”

I needed to stand up. Get gone. Because this was so far outside what I was equipped for. I was a prick just for kneeling there at her feet. Girl so high above me that I was a fool for wanting to reach out and touch.

Hold it.

Worse was the jealousy. This sick, sick feeling that someone’d had what was supposed to be mine.

Never said I wasn’t a twisted fuck.

Emotion tweaked the side of her face that shined with the tears that streamed, girl looking at me again like I was different. Like she was the one in awe when she was the only thing I could see.

My hand was still in her hair, brushing it back. Stirring that energy. That connection that didn’t belong.

We were opposites.

All wrong.

But I couldn’t shake the sense that I was supposed to be there. Right then.

“You miss him?” Why I couldn’t help from asking it, I didn’t know. But it was out there in the air. A stumbling block that was sure to trip me up.

Old affection whispered through her words, broken and real. “I always will.”

Had to end this right then. I was in way over my head. There was nothing I could do to compete with that kind of love. That kind of devotion. That kind of loyalty.

Knew full well that’s what she needed.

I started to push back and stand.

Eden scrambled to keep me there, her hands on my cheeks and that look on her face. The one that connected us in a way that it shouldn’t. Bond so fierce but destined to break.

Her words filled the room. Wonder and a plea. “He was my best friend, Trent. I loved him. After he died, I thought I would never feel anything again. I succumbed to being numb. A prisoner to the vacancy that I thought was a life sentence.”

Get up. Get lost. Get gone.

Was chanting it while I knelt in front of her, every rational part of my brain telling me to go. Rest of me?

I was stuck.

Tied.

Bound.

Her features twisted in the same confusion they’d been watching me with from the beginning.

“Then I met you...I met you and I felt something for the first time. How is that, Trent? After all these years, after all this time, I meet you and something inside me lit? Something dead for so long, and the sight of you sparked it, this piece of me alive again for the first time?”

My insides twisted with her confession. A mangle of emotions swept up in a storm.

“Eden, fuck, don’t wanna hurt you.”

“I think I’m already past taking that chance. When you didn’t show today…”

She trailed off.

The implication hung in the air.

Her true fears and anger coming to light.

No doubt, waiting for me had brought all those bad memories spiraling back.

A groan rumbled in my chest. “Eden, baby, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too…for the way I reacted.”

“Don’t apologize. I get it.”

“Do you? Do you get what I’m feeling? Do you feel it?” Eden tipped her face to the side.

My throat felt like the Sahara. So dry. On fire.

Could barely nod as I brushed my fingers along her jaw. “Is he the last man that touched you?”

There I went, flying down a hazardous, perilous lane.

But I needed to know.

She tucked her chin, the pants ripping from her lungs hard and haggard, her voice rough when she returned her eyes to mine. “He’s the only man who’s ever touched me.”

Air heaved free on a ragged grunt, and my hands moved to her knees, cinching down tight.

“Fuck…Eden.”

“I don’t know how to stop this. Fight this. What I feel from you. What I want from you.” Need and desperation fueled the words. “It’s…different from anything I’ve experienced before. This…want. This ache I feel all over when you’re near. It’s more, Trent. More.”

My laughter was low. Dry. Close to being unhinged. “You think it’s any different for me, Eden? Fact I never told a soul about how I ended up here? How I ended up with Gage? What’s it about you that makes me feel safe for the first time in my life?”

Trust her when I’d sworn I’d never trust an outsider again.

“It’s this…this feeling.” Frantically, she gathered one of my hands and spread it against her chest. Against the boom, boom, boom that thundered manic at her ribs. Uncontained. Reckless and out of control. “It’s this. Do you feel it? Tell me you do, too, because I’m so tired of being alone.”

“I’ll fuck it up.” Didn’t need to answer it straight. Admit it. Fact this girl had me on my knees made it clear enough. But she needed to know one thing. “I’ll ruin you. Don’t fuckin’ mistake it.”

It was a growl. A warning I already knew this girl wasn’t going to heed.

Because neither of us were immune to this.

She pressed my hand down farther. “It’s okay because it’s the loneliness that hurts the most.”

For a few minutes, I was going to take it away.

Greed rumbled up my throat, and my hand she had pressed against the raging of her heart spread wider, pressing tight up against all that gorgeous, honeyed flesh before I was pushing forward, my face pressed to her dress, against the fabric that covered her stomach.

“Eden.”

It was a grunt.

A plea.

A warning.

Because I didn’t know how either of us were going to come back from this.

Should walk.

Hell, I should fuckin’ run. Get on my bike and put a state or two between us. End this before it got any more complicated.

But those fingers drove into my hair, hanging on tight to the point of pain, and I was grumbling the promise into the fabric of her dress, “Gonna touch you, baby. Gonna make you feel right.”

She whimpered, and I pulled back a fraction so I could take her in. So I could get a good look at this timid seductress sitting propped on the edge of her bed.

Her breath all around, her heart beating out of control, her chest writhing in desperate heaves.

I glided my hand down her trembling belly, around the curve of her hip, all the way until I was back to holding her by both knees. Dipping down, I pressed my nose to the inside of her left thigh.

Slowly, I dragged it up.

Inhaling as I went.

Sucking down that sweet, honeyed scent.

She shivered, and her hands tightened in my hair. “Trent.”

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

I had this precious girl in the palm of my hands. Ruinin’ her the way I did.

Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

And I swore to god, she would like it tonight.

The ruining.

The destroying.

She trembled as I slipped my palms under the material of her dress and glided it higher until she was all exposed, quivering, silky thighs.

Lush and curved.

A perfect fantasy.

Lust pounded through my bloodstream, seeing her this way. So damned sexy. So fuckin’ sweet. Everything I shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t want. What I was going to take because I didn’t know how to stop.

“You’re beautiful, Eden. Fuckin’ heaven,” I murmured against the flesh, nose riding the length of her inner thigh until I was pressing it to the lacy white fabric covering that sweet spot I was dying to get lost in.

“Little Temptress.”

I ran my nose through the seam, tongue stroking out.

Just the faintest taste of this girl and I was about to boil over.

Lose control.

Eden gasped. Gasped as her chest arched. A hiss from her teeth. “Trent…I-I…” Words scraped from her tongue, lost and desperate to find landing.

“Know what you need, Kitten. Tonight, I won’t even make you beg for it,” I grunted at the fabric, edging back enough that I could meet the weight of those eyes as I wound my fingers in the edges of her panties. I began to drag them down the length of the toned, smooth skin of those long, long legs.

My gaze ate up every inch of her as I went.

Those eyes and that face and her quivering, needy body.

Her desire.

Her need.

Didn’t forget the fact that this girl needed care, too. Truth of the fear that lingered in her gaze and shivered through her spirit.

I mean, fuck, the last man—only man—who’d touched her, long fucking gone and now a monster like me was in his place.

And I got the sense she’d never been touched quite like this. That I was going to mark her a little in the way she’d been marking me.

I unwound her underwear from her ankles, her dress bunched up around her thighs.

Every inch of this girl was pink and flushed.

I traced the color with my finger, riding up the top of her thigh, girl sucking in a sharp breath.

“So pretty,” I muttered.

Those eyes flared and flashed.

“So perfect.”

I kept pushing her dress higher.

“So right.”

“That’s what I feel when you look at me,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t, but I do.”

My eyes were hungry as I spread her knees wide so I could get a look at that perfect pussy.

She whimpered, her hands going out to fist in the comforter that covered her bed.

Possession wound through my being, seeing her like this, an angel with a devil at her feet.

Only for me.

My gaze devoured her, every inch, most of her covered in that modest dress while I had her exposed in the most explicit way. Weaving my wickedness on the pure. Tainting this perfection.

And when I did, I was going to be sure she never forgot about me.

“Paradise…haven’t even tasted your cunt, and I know that’s what it’s gonna be.”

Eden wheezed, her ass wiggling a bit on the bed because she was needy, too. Her slit drenched for me, and I was diving in, tongue delving deep between her lips.

Sweet.

So goddamn sweet.

She whimpered and jerked, jolted by the impact, the starstruck moan coming from her whipping me into a dream.

Gripping her by the outside of her thighs, I held her open wide, tongue roving, exploring her from clit to ass and back again.

Lapping and sucking.

And Eden was writhing.

In an instant.

In a heartbeat.

With a stroke of my tongue.

Losing her mind when I turned to focus on that swollen notch that was throbbing and engorged.

I flattened my tongue and licked her in long, hard strokes. My hands that had been on the outside of her thighs slipped around as the girl spread herself wide.

Needing more.

My name a chant of confusion and desperation. “Trent. Please. God. I can’t…I don’t.”

“Got you,” I grunted, tongue slaking out before I thrust my fingers in real fucking deep.

Her pussy was hot and soaked. I wasn’t even in her, and she was still the best thing I’d ever felt.

My dick strained. If I didn’t get inside this girl, I just might die.

But I knew better. Knew better. And I was going to give this girl one thing.

So I ate her up. Tongue and soul and teeth.

She writhed. Jerked and moaned. Little mewls, so good I thought I just might come.

Eden was gasping, her arms curling around my head. “Do you feel it?” she rasped.

Her spirit was all around her.

Her goodness in the air.

Her belief.

Her trust.

I did.

I fucking did.

I felt them all.

And I drove my fingers deeper. Stroking her just right until she was a bundle of nerves about to go off.

Winding and winding.

Girl riding higher.

Felt it when she split.

Her head flew back, and her heart raced wild, and her walls tightened and throbbed against my fingers.

On a moan, she whispered my name.

A dream.

A claim.

“Trent. Trent.”

And I could feel her goodness taking us whole. Whispers of a life like this.

A girl and a boy.

A boy who wasn’t dirty. One who wasn’t vile.

A man worthy of standing by her side.

That man couldn’t help from moving, kissing up over the fabric of her dress, riding higher.

Over her chest and up her throat.

Fingers in her hair and his mouth on her lips.

He kissed her.

Kissed her slow and desperate and with every little bit he had to give.

Soft strokes of tongues and a frantic plea of whimpers and groans.

Fingers sinking into his shoulders and a whisper on her soul.

“Trent.”

Trent. Trent. Trent.

Except that man didn’t really exist.

But maybe neither of us could recognize it right then.

Because Eden was kissing me back.

Her mouth making a path down my throat, hands under my shirt. She ripped it over my head.

Autumn eyes stroked me like a caress, her breaths shallow and jagged and her hands shaking when she brushed the statement tattooed on my side.

Ghost.

Her gaze flashed to mine in some kind of recognition.

The man I could never leave behind.

And I swore it was trust and affection that lit the room when she slid off the bed and onto her knees.

I held her by the sides of that unforgettable face. “Baby…not necessary…you don’t owe me a thing.”

But she was at my fly and shoving my jeans down my hips, cock twitching like a fiend when it sprung free and she took me in her hand.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured as she looked up at me.

Somehow it was the same for the both of us.

Maybe for a beat. For a second. That’s the way I felt beneath the grace of those giving eyes.

She stroked me soft. Timid. I hissed and curled my hand tight around hers.

“Like it hard, Kitten,” I grunted. “You don’t need to be shy. Not with me.”

Eden whimpered, kissed down my chest and over my stomach.

And I was gone.

My hands on the side of her head and my dick buried deep in her throat.

Fucking drowning in the sanctuary of her mouth.

And I didn’t ever want to come up for air.