“It’s not that simple,” I whisper, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t believe that for a second.” His voice and eyes, even his touch, are slowly breaking my heart. “All I know is you’re all I think about. I can’t not have you in my life because you and Brenna are the only two people who give a shit about me.”
“Still doesn’t make it simple, babe.” Dragging my palm across the center of my chest, I close my eyes. “I was stupid for thinking that I can just walk away from us and pretend like the last eight years never happened. It’s impossible.”
He bends his head so that our lips practically touch. “Then we start-over, fix things.”
“It won’t be easy, and it sure as hell won’t be quick,” I point out, but he shrugs.
“Nothing worthwhile ever is.” As I take a second to digest what he’s just said, he inches his mouth a little closer. His piercing touches my bottom lip, sending a ripple of pleasure through me. “I f**king love you, Ky. That’s about all I need to know. We can work through all of the other shit as long as we have that.”
Even though he’s said it before, both in the messages he left for me and on the night we argued in Phoenix, hearing him tell me that he loves me now takes my breath away. Somehow, I manage to force my voice to sound confident when I respond. “I love you, too.”
So much that I’ll put myself out there one last time to see if one four-letter emotion is enough.
His muscular shoulders sag in relief as he grips me closer to him. He kisses me—this simple and yet powerful touch that lasts no longer than ten seconds. “I’m not perfect, Ky. I won’t ever be because I’m f**ked up, but I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“I know you don’t,” I say. Ignoring the nervous fluttering in the pit of my stomach, I circle my arms around him tighter, losing myself in the way he holds me to him.
“Can I come out now?” Brenna shrieks from the back. I can’t help but laugh as I wipe the backs of my hands over my cheeks to get rid of the tears that have started to fall.
“We’re good now,” Wyatt yells back. Her bedroom door flies open and she races down the hallway, jumping onto the couch. She ignores Wyatt’s pointed frown and eyes me suspiciously.
“Is everything okay?”
I glance at Wyatt and then to her. “It’s going to be.”
“Are you staying for dinner?”
“If your dad is paying.”
We both focus our gazes—her blue eyes and my brown—on Wyatt until he nods his head. “But we order in tonight,” he says, and she suppresses a groan. “And no making Kylie play that fuc—”
“Dad!” she says sharply, and he groans.
“Your video game.”
It’s much later, after Brenna falls asleep on the floor playing her video game, that Wyatt goes to the back room. He returns a few minutes later holding two guitars and extends one out to me. At first, I start to decline since Brenna’s only a few feet away, but he places the Fender in my lap. Taking my hands in his, he wraps my fingertips around the neck of the custom black guitar.
He sits across the room from me on the loveseat, gripping his own guitar, and a tiny smile builds on my lips when he strums the opening of Send The Pain Below. It’s one of those songs that I’ll never forget—that will always have a special meaning for me—but it seems so wrong when we’re supposed to be trying again.
Grabbing my pick off the side table, I start playing a new song. He pauses, and it takes him a moment to figure out the chords I’m struggling to strum through. Even though he doesn’t know it well because he’s never been an Incubus fan, he catches on quickly as we pick through the song about love surviving the bad things.
When we reach the last line of the song, I can’t help but sing along softly. “Without love I won’t survive.”
His eyes never leave mine, and I think about our bad times and our good. I savor every memory. And I’m hopeful that this time, things will work so that we can make new ones that won’t hurt so damn much.
Disclaimer
The following page is a bonus scene from the novel Devoured told from Lucas Wolfe's point of view. If you have not read the book, please be advised that the scene contains spoilers.
Devoured Bonus Scene
EPILOGUE
Lucas Wolfe
It’s exactly 8:57 p.m. when I ease my Audi A8 off the highway and down Sienna’s driveway. It’s almost dark outside, but someone—I’m betting her grandmother—has installed two rows of the solar lights Home Depot sells down the length of the path, leading all the way up to the front steps. I start to drive forward, let the slight glow from the garden lights draw me in to Sienna, but then I think better of it.
I need her to be surprised.
I shift the car into park and kill the ignition. When I get out, quietly closing the Audi’s door so Si won’t hear me, I realize that I’m closer to the road than to the cabin. Ironic, when I think about it, because at one time, this entire damn property belonged to me. I had wagered it away to get Sienna close to me, and in the end I’d lost both because of fear and stupidity.
“Fucking idiot,” I mutter to myself as I begin to make my way to her front door. I’ve timed my arrival precisely, but I still feel like I’m horribly late, like I’ve already ruined shit all over again before I’ve even had the chance to fix it.
On the way over here I’d thought about getting flowers or a gift, but I’d axed that idea quickly. Sienna’s never been that type of person. She’ll either take my apology or she’ll tell me to piss off, but she doesn’t want what my money can buy.