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But I’d never kissed anyone that I loved so deeply. And it felt different than any other kiss I’d ever had.
Sawyer had been the most uncomplicated love I’d ever known. For years and years, everything with him had been so easy, so real, and so effortless. A love that was uncomplicated by desires—even if I had desires, I shoved them down, somewhere deep and far away.
And suddenly, now, nothing with Sawyer felt effortless.
It felt like a great, big chaotic mess inside my heart and my head. I loved him too much.
And now I didn’t know where the fuck to put all of that love. I didn’t know if I should want to kiss him again as much as I did, if I should tell him I wanted him more than I could comprehend, or if that would shatter everything we’d built over the course of years.
I lifted my head from the steering wheel and stuck the key in the ignition. I hauled ass back home, shoving my thoughts and feelings into some dark corner of my mind. The thing I was best at.
6
SAWYER
I was on the farm again.
In the dream, everything felt off-kilter, in an eerie way that dreams can feel when they’re infused with some unfamiliar feeling. It was dusk, the wind was blowing, and the sky loomed overhead, heavy with a coming thunderstorm.
I was walking and walking in circles in one of the fields, circling a tractor that had gotten caught in mud. And then it hit me: I didn’t belong here. I’d been fired. That even as I stuck a shovel in the mud, trying to pry the thick tire out of dense mud, I was doing it for no reason at all.
I wasn’t needed here.
A light rain started to pour, and thunder was in the distance. My hands were blistered from work and I dropped the shovel, heaving slightly as I leaned over onto the cold metal of the side of the tractor, moments away from giving up.
“Quitter,” I heard from beside me. And even though I’d been alone until then, through some dream logic, Harlan was now by my side.
And instantly everything that had been eerie or off-kilter became okay.
It was like old times, when he and I had both worked on the farm. But this was also the current version of Harlan: older, wiser, aging like a damn good wine. The rain still started to pour, but now he was here. He smiled up into the rain, letting it get him wet. The two of us both grabbed shovels and got the tire out of the mud easily.
When I took one step wrong in the mud I tried to catch myself, but my hand slipped down the side of the tractor. I went down hard on the ground. A tiny swirl of shame encircled me, but when I looked up at Harlan, his warm brown eyes were still so full of love.
“You go down, I go down with you,” Harlan said. He dropped to his knees right next to me in the mud and planted each of his hands on either side of my body. He leaned in toward me.
And even though it was just a dream, my body still took a second to catch up.
Harlan was on top of me.
Kissing me.
And I was harder than a fucking rock. He was reaching for my wrists now, pushing my arms into the mud, clearly not caring that we were drenched and filthy. I loved every second of it. I loved that we wanted each other so damn badly, and I loved that right here, right now, none of my usual worries seemed to matter.
“I want you,” I whispered near his ear, gripping the front of his soaked flannel in my fist. I pulled in a shaky voice, feeling like electricity was in my veins.
“Do you?” he growled, and everything about his low, deep voice just turned me on more.
“I want you and I don’t know why.”
“Better figure it out,” his low voice said against my skin. “I’m right here, Sawyer.”
His hand trailed lower on my thighs, and I was pretty sure I knew where it was headed. I felt like I might explode. My cock was aching. For something.
For him.
And then I woke up. The dream fell away from me all at once and I realized I was actually in my bed alone, hot and confused and instantly wishing I could melt back into that world.
My whole body was heavy, like I’d been sleeping underwater. I could tell by the light coming through the slats of my window that the sun had only just started to come up. I groaned and tossed off my too-warm bed sheets, breathing deep and looking around my empty bedroom like I expected some sort of answers that I couldn’t find.
