Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

30. Tessa

THIRTY

TESSA

“Goodnight,” I called to Cheryl from the front porch. She was the last of our guests to leave, staying long after the party had ended since she’d insisted on helping clean up.

“It was the best time. Thank you for letting me share it with you. I’ll see you both soon.” She blew a kiss in our direction before she climbed into her car. She started the engine, and her headlights sliced through the dense, toxic air.

Suffocating.

Excruciating.

At least that’s the way I sensed Milo’s presence, where he stood behind me like a dark mirage.

The hope of something beautiful, but when you dipped your fingers into it, it filled your spirit with poison.

It was my own freaking fault that I’d come to imagine a future he would never allow.

His rejection earlier had hurt.

In a big way.

I’d felt—embarrassed, I guessed. Too hopeful in a moment that felt so real. Lost to Cheryl’s love and support. The love and support of our friends. Milo could have at least taken one for the team and kissed me like he meant it.

But I knew down deep it was all me.

That I’d come to a breaking point.

The realization that I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. Putting myself in a position where I kept getting hurt.

Yeah, I was the one who’d encouraged it. Pushed it. I’d wanted him to open up to me so badly that I’d laid myself out like an offering. Hoping he’d feel it in my touch. That he’d understand.

After tonight, I knew it. Felt it. I couldn’t pretend any longer.

Cheryl backed out and drove away, and I felt the shift in the atmosphere, the low roll of thunder as he turned and moved back into his house, leaving the door open behind him.

I followed, slow to move back through the door, freezing when I was struck with the low, anguished bellow that ripped from his massive body.

Guttural.

Pained.

It was a sound I was sure I could hear from a thousand miles away.

A hook that embedded itself in my soul from where he stood at the island with his back to me.

Slumped over again, though this time, his posture was riddled with stark, gutting grief.

The kind that couldn’t be understood unless you’d experienced it. Been right there to witness it. Felt the desolation of its effect.

“Milo.” His name trembled from my throat and struck the room like a plea.

Energy pulsed. Intense and dark and compelling.

It was a pull I knew full well I needed to resist, but I had no idea how to defy the call of his heart, as if our souls were linked in some way.

Because that connection hummed in the air, though tonight, it keened and moaned a quiet lament.

Potent and powerful.

Fierce and broken.

My pulse raced with determination, a furious thrumming that rushed out to meet with the man who thrashed in the wreckage of his past.

Tied to a place where he was alone.

Where demons possessed and monsters roamed.

The problem was, Milo somehow viewed himself as one of those who crawled the underbelly of this sordid hell where he held himself prisoner.

Chained.

Stuck in a moment he couldn’t change or take back.

And I wanted to free him of his binds. And if I couldn’t, then I needed to free myself of the ones he’d locked around me.

Because I couldn’t do this.

Couldn’t keep pretending that what I felt was fake.

So, I inched closer to the mayhem that flailed and whirled, a dark, dark storm that battered his soul.

I felt it flooding back. A swell that crashed and beat against the shores of my spirit, as if he were seeking refuge.

“Milo,” I said again.

His shoulders tensed before he finally turned around.

My breath hitched.

The sheer size of the man was terrifying, but it was his agonized expression that knocked my knees, the sight of him that reached into my chest and yanked my heart right out of my ribs.

That mountain of a man stood raging.

A hurricane.

Lost to a torment that I didn’t know how to erase, but I wanted to find a way to possess for him, anyway.

To whisper it away for a moment.

To promise him I would hold it if he’d let me.

But he had to let me in. I could no longer stand on the sidelines.

He stared at me through a bleary, disordered gaze, the man held captive somewhere in the recesses of his mind, though I could feel those eyes calling out for me somewhere in the misery where he lived.

Like he thought maybe I could be his rescue. A way out. Or like I might be his condemnation.

“Little Dove.” It was half a plea, half a warning. “You should go to bed.”

I edged forward a step. The air shivered. The energy leapt.

“You keep asking me to walk away from you, Milo. You keep pushing me away. And I can feel it, when you need me.” I clutched at my chest.

Unease flitted through his big body. “Keep telling you that you don’t want to go there.”

I lifted my chin, the words hard and desperate. “I’m strong enough to handle what you need. I think it’s you who’s not strong enough to handle me.”

Shards of pain left him on a moan. “Tessa.”

My head shook, and I took another step forward. “I can’t do it anymore. Can’t handle this push and pull. Can’t keep ignoring what this is.”

Blinking, he took a step away like he could shield himself from the severity. “Warned you it was going to be messy.”

“But neither of us knew it would be like this.”

“I already told you?—”

“Stop it. Just stop it, Milo. Stop lying to yourself and stop lying to me. This isn’t fake, and if you think it is, then you’re a fool.”

“I warned you not to fall for me,” he grated.

“Too late.”

His jaw clenched beneath his beard. “I can’t give you what you want, Tessa. What you need.”

“You’re wrong. Everything I need is right here.” I pointed at the floor. “Right here with you. And I know you think you’ve done something in your past that precludes you from being loved, but you’re wrong, because I love you.”

The confession whipped from my tongue.

So hard it smacked through the oxygen like a sonic boom.

A reverberation that banged against the walls.

“I love all the sweet and protective parts about you, and I love the harsh and fierce ones. I love the hope you have for your children, and I love your broken parts, too. I love you,” I whispered that time, begging him to see.

He squeezed his eyes shut, words a scrape of denial. “Tessa…don’t.”

“I love you, Milo. I love you.”

His head shook, and he refused to look at me. Refused to acknowledge what I’d said.

“I’m in love with you, Milo. Wholly and completely.”

Pain lanced through his expression. “Please…don’t.”

“Tell me you don’t feel it.”

He just stared at me, refusing to say anything.

Rejection curdled in my throat, closing off the hope, and I began to nod as I forced myself to accept it.

“Okay, then.”

My words were so low, filled with the pain of the realization that this had to be it. He’d made me promise to tell him if it became too much. I doubted this was what he’d meant, but here we were.

Me at my end, and Milo stuck where we’d started.

“I’ll be here for your kids, like I promised. But if you can’t admit what you feel for me? Then this…” I gestured between us. “It has to end. I have to protect what’s left of my heart.”

No more pitching between want and rejection.

No more stolen touches and shameful hands.

Because I wouldn’t be a sin.

Wouldn’t be something he regretted.

“Goodnight, Milo.”

I turned in the direction of my room, fighting the burn of tears. I needed to hold on to them at least until I made it to the safety inside.

He might know how far I’d fallen, but he didn’t need to know the pain of landing there.

I’d almost made it to the door when a flurry of footfalls echoed behind me. He looped a massive arm around my waist and yanked me against the hard planes of his body.

His voice was even harder as he rushed the words at my ear, “You think I don’t feel this, Tessa? You think I don’t know it’s real? But I’m terrified of letting you down. Of failing. Of destroying something good.”

“I’m not afraid, Milo. You’re worth the risk,” I rasped through the haze. “What you have to ask yourself is if I am. Am I worth the risk?”

A growl ripped from his chest, and he had me spun and pressed to the wall before my senses could catch up.

Electricity cracked.

A whip in the air.

Amber eyes had turned molten.

Lava.

Scorching a fiery path as they seared me through.

“Am I?” I demanded. He didn’t need to tell me he loved me back, but I at least needed this.

A promise that this was more.

That I was more.

My shoulders were pinned to the wall, but my back heaved forward, my body making a play to meet with his.

Milo stared at me, his breaths ragged, that severe brow slashing downward in intensity. His lips plush and his jaw hard and his heart hammering.

“You’re worth it, Tessa. You’re worth everything.” He swept me off my feet and into his massive arms. “Every. Fucking. Thing.”

I lifted my chin. “Then prove it.”

He carried me through the cabin and directly to his room, all hulking power and steely determination.

He tossed me onto his bed, and I bounced against the mattress.

A giggle got free. I didn’t know if I wanted to weep or let go of a shout of victory.

Loving Milo Hendricks for the win.

“What are you laughing at, Little Dove?” It almost sounded like a warning as he gazed down at me where he stood towering at the side of the bed.

He was looking at me the way I’d imagined he would do in my dreams.

In this way that made me feel like he was both going to ravage me and keep me.

Ruin me and cherish me.

All bristly fierceness and gentle adoration.

I felt it glow and warm and seep down to my bones.

“That I can’t wait until you wreck me.”

“You want me to break you, Tessa?”

Every glorious muscle in his giant body flexed.

I writhed on his mattress, my breaths shallow, the words a plea, because for the love of all things holy, I needed him, and I needed him now. “I think you already have.”

“Think it’s safe to say it’s the other way around.”

“No, Milo, I don’t want to break you. I want to show you everything you deserve.”

“And what do you want in return?” His voice turned all sexy and raspy, and God, this man did things to me that shouldn’t be possible.

Things I should probably be terrified of because I was completely laying myself bare.

Offering it all. But we were long since passed caution.

I’d tossed it to the wind the day I’d agreed to stay here with him.

“Well, I’m thinking right about now that I want you to touch me.”

I sent him a teasing grin, though the need was verified.

A dizzying desire streaked through my body, and I was tingling just looking at him.

A heavy breath escaped him, and his tongue swept over his plush, decadent lips. “Why’s it feel so good with you? Why’s it feel so right?”

“Maybe because we’re right where we belong, right now, in this moment.” The words were thin wisps that rushed from my lips. “What if we were meant to be here, Milo? What if the heartbreak and loss we’ve both suffered warped us into a new shape? What if it bent us so we had no choice but to turn a different direction? A place where it was impossible for us not to meet? What if we were supposed to become something brand new together?”

His fingers tickled along the outside of my calf, just above the strap of my red heel.

An anxious breath sighed from my lips.

“And what if I ruin you, Little Dove?”

My heart ravaged my chest, every beat chaos, my spirit whipping through the room in a bid to meet with his.

“I already told you that you were worth the risk.”

A compulsion wound around us.

Enveloping.

Enshrouding.

Or maybe it was cocooning.

Weaving a safe place.

This bond of protection that we could only find in one another.

I eased up to sitting, and I stared up at him as my fingers moved to his belt, my voice a low promise as I worked the buckle free. “I’ll stand by you, Milo. I’ll stand by this gentle man who’s so intimidatingly fierce. A man who will do anything to save his family. A man who is willing to fight. But one who also has the softest spirit. A man who adores his children. A man who looks at me like I might be a treasure.”

I pushed to standing.

Energy flashed.

I set my palm over the erratic thunder of his heart.

“And whoever you are in the darkest places in here? Whatever you’ve done? Whatever you’re prepared to do? I’ll stand by him, too.”

“That guy’s not good, baby.” He gathered my hand and kissed across my knuckles, his breaths shallow and hard.

I pushed up higher. My fingertips traipsed into his beard. “But I still want that guy to be mine.”

“I want to give you the entire fuckin’ world, Tessa.”

“How about you just give me you ?”

“Is that what you want, Little Dove? You want this? You want this mess?”

Everything about him darkened and slowed.

Energy crackled.

Pinpricks of light.

Every part of us knew this was it. Milo and I were no longer at a precipice. We’d pushed ourselves to the edge and there was no place to go but over.

Our only choice was to fall into each other’s arms.

And I’d gladly, recklessly fall into his.

“Yes. I want it all.”

“If I have you, you’re mine.” The words came as possession as they cut from his mouth.

A claim.

A call.

“I already am,” I whispered.

I had no time to even anticipate it before his lips captured mine in a savage kiss, his mouth hot and his tongue demanding.

He fisted a hand in my hair, and he angled my head to the side so he could devour my mouth. His other hand splayed wide, riding down my spine until he was cupping one side of my ass.

He squeezed and kneaded before he tugged me closer, up against the rigid expanse of his gorgeous body.

I yelped a tiny sound that was driven by lust.

By this cloud of desire that filled the room.

Disorienting.

Bewildering.

Empowering.

The roiling heat combusted, his kiss, his touch, the room consumed in flames.

He touched me everywhere, palms impassioned as they glided up my back, running around my sides, pushing up between us until he was palming my breast as he continued to kiss me. Never letting go of my mouth while he worked every inch of me into a frenzy.

A blaze erupted in my insides.

A flashfire that seared across the surface of my skin. Rising up and pouring out from that sacred place that’d cried out to be set free. To find the place where I trusted fully. Where there was no question. No ulterior.

Just pure desire.

My desire for him and his desire for me.

A low, throaty moan reverberated from Milo’s chest as he pulled me closer, and he slipped his hand under my dress. He lifted me by the bottom into his arms and ground me against him.

I burned.

Begged.

“Milo, please.”

“You think I’m not going to take care of you? You think I don’t know what you need or how to give it to you? I’m going to own you. This sweet body that I’ve been dying to get lost in.”

“Do it now.” I almost whined it as I rubbed myself all over him, my core throbbing, this desire so intense he was the only breath I could find.

A rough chuckle skated free, dripping from his tongue and sliding into me, his tongue stroking slow as he murmured, “Are you eager, sweetness?”

I clawed at his shoulders. “I need this. I’ve never felt this way, Milo.”

“And now you’re mine, and I plan on havin’ you feel this way forever,” he rumbled.

Oh, holy mother.

I was not going to make it.

Especially when he shifted me in his hold, keeping me writhing against him with one hand while he dragged the zipper of my dress down with the other.

And they said men couldn’t multitask.

He somehow peeled me out of my dress without setting me on my feet, leaving me in only my underwear and heels, while I was ripping at the buttons of his shirt.

Our kisses barely broke long enough to tear our clothes from our bodies.

Relief whooshed from my lungs when his chest was finally bare, his shoulders so wide and his pecs so big and hard, and God, was this man beautiful.

I crushed myself to his magnificent body, rubbing my boobs against him because I really needed the friction.

Needed it everywhere.

Had to sate this burn.

“Tiny Tease,” he rumbled at my mouth.

“No teasing to it, Milo. This is real. It’s real,” I rushed back.

Every inch of him tensed, and I thought he was going to withdraw again, but instead, he was laying me out on his bed, his gaze devouring me as he went.

“So fucking gorgeous.” It was a grunt of lust. “What I’m going to do to you. The pleasure I’m going to bring you. Again and again.”

My hips bucked in an emphatic, yes, please .

He never looked away as he toed off his shoes, then he was shrugging the rest of the way out of his pants and underwear, and I was dying all over again at the sight of Milo completely bare.

My eyes raced to take him in.

Tracking every inch.

Hulking, rigid muscle and the sheen of want that coated his tattooed, scarred flesh.

His cock was enormous, thick and fat with the kind of hunger that made my knees weak.

Beautiful Beast.

“I’m going to expect you to make good on that promise, Milo Hendricks.” I tried to play it light, but my throat was tight, and these tingly shivers were streaking all over my skin.

He leaned over and began to peel my underwear down my legs, murmuring, “I’ll do my best,” as he went.

A desperate sound got loose of my mouth.

I couldn’t help it.

Milo chuckled, then he took me by the knees and spread me wide.

That time, I gasped, “Milo.”

“You’ve got the sweetest pussy, Little Dove.” He dove in for a taste, his tongue pushing deep between my lips.

My hips bucked. “Please. I’m on the pill. Hurry.”

His mouth moved higher, leaving a trail of kisses as he climbed onto the bed.

My hip bone, my lower belly, my ribs on my left side. “Eager girl,” he murmured across my heated skin.

He rode up until he was winding himself between my thighs before he took the hardened nub of my right breast between his teeth.

Warmth streaked, and my fingers drove into his hair. I held on for my quickly dwindling sanity as he licked me into oblivion.

My eyes nearly rolled back into my head when he pressed his hot cock to my center.

Erratic anticipation rushed through my veins and sent chills skating over every inch of my flesh.

“Milo.”

He pulled back, and his fingers softly traced the angle of my jaw. “I have you, Little Dove.”

It was a pained oath.

“Then take me.”

He gazed down at me.

My hair all around and my heart in his hands.

Did he know?

Did he understand what it meant?

Did he know it was unconditional?

Eternal?

“I love you,” I whispered.

And I’d love this man to his dying day if he’d let me.

Honey-dipped eyes dimmed, and his palm slipped to my cheek. “And you own me, Tessa McDaniels.”

There was a dose of sadness behind it as he pushed up onto his hands, the man an intimidating refuge where he hovered high.

The bare space between us groaned, and our connection thrummed.

He adjusted himself between my shaking thighs, and he ran just the tip through my center.

“Oh.” My arms curled around his neck, and I couldn’t do anything but hold on, though my mouth was near his ear, my confession quiet but bold. “I want you so bad, Milo.”

So bad I hurt.

“Does that mean you’re ready for me? Ready for me to take all this sweetness?”

My stomach flipped in need, and I frantically nodded where our cheeks were pressed together. “I’ve been ready forever.”

“Hold on, baby.”

Milo began to nudge his cock inside me.

So slow because holy crap .

He spread me.

Inch by torturous inch.

My mouth opened on a moan, on the perfect, blissful, pained pleasure as he worked himself into my body.

I expelled a shattered breath when he finally filled me full, so full I was gasping short, jutting sounds that I couldn’t control.

Milo’s hand flexed where he held me by the back of the neck.

No doubt, he was struggling to keep it together.

Close to snapping.

To freeing the intensity I could see radiating from him, the clench of his jaw and the flex of his abdomen and the sheen of sweat that glistened on his flesh.

He grunted a hard breath, and his arm came around the top of my head like he could hold every part of me beneath the hedge of his protection.

His body a shield.

His aura was dark and light and thrashing.

Everything.

Everything.

“Can’t believe I’m here like this with you, Tessa. Can’t believe it’s real. You have no idea what I’d do for you. The lengths I would go.”

The words were gravel.

The grinding of a threat that wasn’t meant for me.

His mind traipsing to the dark places he was terrified for me to see.

“I will follow you there.”

He eased back so our lips barely brushed, our breaths rasping together.

Our hearts meshed.

He pressed up onto one elbow and began to move.

Milo took me in a way I’d never been taken before.

Fully.

Wholly.

“Do you have any idea how good it feels being inside you?” It was a grunt from his mouth.

Energy fired and flashed.

A flame that could never go out.

“Your pussy hugging my dick. So goddamn perfect. Could live inside you forever.”

Air wheezed up my lungs, and I clung tighter to him as he spread his hand around to my bottom.

“You can have me forever, Milo. Always.”

Something flashed through his expression, like his spirit that had been held back by chains suddenly broke.

He pulled out, then filled me with a possessive thrust. “I want it, Tessa. Want to give that to you.”

He picked up a reckless rhythm, and I clawed at his back.

He took me hard. Desperate.

The two of us left without caution.

Pure abandon as we got lost in this relief.

In what neither of us believed we’d ever have, but we’d found in each other.

We became this writhing, thrashing, undulating thing.

Liquid.

One.

No separation.

Nothing to keep us apart.

Not even his past that hovered at the fringes of the room, phantoms that waited for the moment they would consume.

I wanted to possess him the way he possessed me, and I lifted to meet his hips with each desperate thrust, fully giving myself to him with every pitch of my body.

“Milo,” I rasped.

“It’s only the beginning, Tessa. You understand, baby? You’re mine now.”

Pleasure flickered at the edges of my sight, and it only grew brighter with each jut of his hips.

He angled back onto his knees, changing position.

He rubbed his thumb over my clit.

“So good. So good,” I mumbled frantically because oh, my God, it was.

“Told you I was gonna take care of you, Little Dove. You get it easy this once.”

I probably shouldn’t shout how much I really loved that idea.

He drove deeper, harder, faster.

And it all became so intense.

Blinding.

This bliss that built.

It rushed and gathered.

A swarm of ecstasy.

A buzz of rapture.

Beautiful in a way that infiltrated my chest and seeped into my spirit.

Acute.

Profound.

Exquisite.

I gasped and whimpered and begged in the moments before I split.

One second later, I shattered.

Broke apart in the safety of his arms.

Milo had it all wrong when it came to him and me. There were no gilded cages. No clipping of my wings.

Because he touched me, and I soared.

Flew.

He and I together?

We were free.

I trembled all around him as the orgasm barreled through me.

An obliteration.

A detonation.

Every cell slayed.

Complete, blissed-out rubble.

Milo jerked as he came, every muscle in his rugged, gorgeous body flexing as he grunted my name.

We led each other through.

Rocked and shivered in this glorious aftermath.

We slowed as the sensation ebbed, both of us twitching and shaking.

He shifted us onto our sides so we were facing each other in the lapping night.

Everything had grown so still.

Like the earth had been set to pause to honor this moment.

His gaze moved over my face, taking in my expression, his fingertips tender as he ran them down the angle of my jaw. “You believe in me, Little Dove?”

The pain in his voice brought tears to my eyes.

I nodded against his pillow, and I scratched my nails into his beard.

“Yes, Milo, I do.”