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She swallowed hard.
“There is nothing you could ever tell me to justify shutting me out. Nothing. Tell me you fucked someone — you sign his death warrant, but you don’t lie to me about it. Tell me you killed someone — I will make the fucking body disappear. Never try to tell me again that you don’t love me — because I will never fucking believe you. Our souls are two ropes that will never be unknotted. It’s too late, Winter.”
A tear dashed down Winter’s cheek, and her eyes were unguarded and full of emotion. I helped her to her feet and kissed her hard, tangling my tongue with hers. She was shaking.
“Do you understand?” I tilted her chin up.
Her eyes dropped from mine and she stared mulishly at my chest. “Asher. We can’t. This doesn’t change anything.”
Fucking hell.
It looked like Winter had decided to hold out and make this harder on herself.
I was going to spend the rest of the night fucking that lesson into my little brat, but not out here, where she was cold.
“Wrong.” I crouched and grabbed her, throwing her over my shoulder.
She pounded on my back. I unlocked the door and shouldered inside. As soon as I let her down, she went for the door. I locked it as she tried to take the key from me. It was a tiny key. I had another one on my motorcycle key ring, not that she knew that. I bent down and dropped it through a crack in the floorboard, plunging it into darkness.
Winter’s eyes widened. “You lunatic! Why did you do that? I can’t stay here with you.”
“You can and you will.”
“Asher!” she shouted.
“Shout all you want. No one can hear you. No one is coming to save you from me, Winter, so you best accept that now.”
“You idiot! What’s wrong with you?”
She pushed at my chest, and I took the opportunity to wrestle her out of her thick jacket and toss it away. She stumbled back.
“Lose the rest, or I’ll do it for you, and I won’t be gentle.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said in a trembling voice.
I advanced on her. She turned and tried to get away from me. We tussled, me ripping her boots off and yanking down her skirt and the tattered remains of her leggings. Her kicking and scratching for all she was worth. She tore a deep scratch along my cheek when she was down to her underwear and cried out like it was her who’d just started bleeding.
“Your face!” she exclaimed.
I used her distraction to take her panties off and rip her T-shirt over her head. She was left in just her bra. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
A delicate chain lay around her neck, glimmering in the firelight.
A chain with something on it. She froze as my eyes fixed on it.
I reached for it, and she tried to squirm away but stopped at my lethal look. She’d been caught. Now, the lies ended.
The grapevine knot ring lay on the silver chain, just long enough to rest against her heart.
Protected and safe, cherished under her clothes.
A sob left Winter, and I picked up the ring.
“Care to explain?”
She shook her head, tears falling down her face. I smoothed them away from one cheek and then the other.
Then I kissed her. I couldn’t wait one more second. I’d really fucking missed her. I couldn’t stay away a moment longer. I needed to come home.
