AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He slows to a walk but I don’t move to see where we are. I quickly rub at my face to remove any further evidence of tears, and the tracks sting icily as the night air touches them.
I feel my back press up against something hard and Tate slowly lowers me to my feet. I can’t bear what I’m about to do so I quickly reach up to his neck, entwining my fingers into his soft hair, and drag his mouth down to mine. My haste elicits a groan from his chest and he doesn’t fight me like I expected him to. He never denies me. My eyes sting because I’m going to have to give him up when I only just got him back.
His hands move to my shoulders, re-securing his jacket carefully over them, before allowing himself to give in completely. He holds my face to his with the expansive grip of his hand, keeping me in place, before sliding his palm down the column of my throat. He holds me more firmly than he ever has before and the unyielding domination makes my body grow limp, sweet liquid heat swirling around low in my belly. His other hand dips under the back of my t-shirt and roams upwardsuntil he’s between my shoulder blades. Then he uses his forearm to press into me, making my cold skin blaze with heat, and he pushes me flush into his solid torso.
I pull away slightly so that I can begin to say what needs to be said but he forces my mouth back to his. He knows what’s coming and he’s determined to prevent it. I mumble his name against his lips but it only makes him press against me harder. My eyes flutter as he unleashes all of the strength that he usually keeps under such tight reins against my body, so much smaller than his and therefore so much easier to control. He slides his tongue into my mouth, filling me so deeply that I feel the movements in my womb, and his hands work together to restrain, control, and reward the involuntary movements of my body. I know what he’s doing and it’s so achingly unfair. He’s reminding me of who he is and what only he is capable of.
He’s showing me what I’m going to miss when I let him go.
And I don’twantto let him go, that’s the tragedy here. WhatIwant is for Tate to go get his truck, drag me inside, then take me to his secret home and never let me leave. I want to give him all of his fantasies because, somewhere along the way, they becamemyfantasies too. I want to play his spoilt little girlfriend and then become his ravished little wife, watching him obsess over me as I make him his beautiful tousle-haired babies. I don’t want to go back to Mitch’s house, pack up my belongings, and then head to my mom’s, wherein I’ll spend my days studying until I finish high school, and then get shipped off to college to fulfilherdream for me.
But that’s what I have to do.
“Tate,” I moan, pushing with all of the strength that I can muster at his chest. It doesn’t move him an inch. His head is buried under my hair at the sensitive curve of my neck and he’s inhaling me so deeply that I now understand his earlier reaction. Icanfeel it, the magnetic pull between my soul and his, ashe consumes my pheromones that are inviting, taunting, and begging for him to do whatever he wants. His body is rippling as he decodes the message and sounds that are more animal than human rumble gruffly in his chest.
“Tate, please, we have to talk about this,” I implore, but my voice is weakened in my lust. “You know that I-”
“I know,” he says, his face suddenly looking down at mine. The timbre of his voice is so low that I whimper, and his eyes become half-mast upon hearing the noise. He swallows hard and leans back down so that he can give me kiss after kiss after kiss. “I know,” he whispers, cupping my cheeks in his hands.
As if a faucet has been turned my tears begin to fall again and Tate wipes at them with his thumbs as his lips try to chastely console me. His brow is contorted and his eyes sparkle, as tears of his own glass over the surface. It has always been like this, this abnormal connection that sometimes doesn’t even comeoncein a person’s lifetime. My pain is his pain.He’s hurting because I’m hurting.
I have been blessed to know Tate Coleson but my time is now up. Nothing this good ever comes without a price, and God knows that I have had my fair share of pain to balance against his goodness.
I wish I could stop crying. My eyes are too blurry and I can’t see him properly which makes me cry even harder, because this is the last time that I’m going to see him and Ican’t even see him. I wipe my fingers over my cheeks and under my nose. It’s not pretty. All of the happiness that I have had as a result of Tate is bleeding out of me in every form of liquid that my body can conjure up. It’s so painful that I rub my chest, worried that this agony will never end and my heart will be permanently severed. I’ve read stories about people dying from broken hearts, old couples leaving the world only days apart, because it’s like their body knows – it knows that the best part is over now and thereis no longer any reason to stay. And that’s how it feels. Leaving Tate feels like the best part is over... and there is no longer any reason to stay.
“Baby,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
My tears continue to run down my face and down my neck until they are deep into my cleavage, anointing Tate’s silver cross. I pull out the pendant and we both look down at it as it glistens with my tears. He can sense that I’m about to pull it over my head and give it back to him because he grips it in his hand and slides it back into my top, wrenching my chest to his so that his necklace rests finally between us. He presses his cheek against the top of my head and tightens his arms around my waist.
It’s a long time before either of us moves again.
Chapter 29
Present
It’s only when I look up to see Mitch’s truck pulling around the corner that I realise where we are. My back is pressed up against the stone walls of Tate’s church. I’m supposing that he was looking for a little divine intervention tonight, but even as I stand with a tear-soaked cross digging into my chest I’m not so sure that that’s how it works.
Tate turns his head towards the familiar rumble of the engine and I can see that he’s scoping the cab interior, to ensure that Mitch is alone. Satisfied, he dips his head back down to mine, pressing a light kiss to the tip of my cheek as he hauls me up and around his waist. He walks us over to the truck and he opens the door to the backseat before setting me down and guiding me in by my hips. Once Tate closes the door he pulls me onto his lap and then straps us both under the belt. Mitch turns one-eighty so that he can get a look at us in the seat behind him. His eyes flick between us for a few seconds and then they finally settle on me.
“He’s gone, just so you know,” he says, and I let out a low whistle of relief, despite Tate growing tense beneath me. I don’t ever want to see Hudson again so I’m grateful that he’s gone - but the remembrance that he will forever be an eternal fixture in the life of Tate’s mom, and by extension the life ofTate, makes the situation bittersweet – heavy on the bitter.
“This shit with your mom…” Mitch continues, running his hand anxiously through his hair. “Because you aren’t eighteen yet you don’t have much leeway in terms of independent choice. Your mom’s so livid that she wants you wholly moved out by tomorrow morning.”
Tate’s arms, which are wrapped firmly across my chest and stomach, tighten significantly. I feel like a child’s favourite toy as it’s being taken away from them, when their parents believe that it’s time to grow up.
“Not happening,” Tate bites, and his hands begin to clutch at places that are frankly inappropriate to have Mitch’s attention drawn to.
Mitch’s eyes flash to mine as if he’s thinking the exact same thing that I am, and he inhales sharply, turning around so that he doesn’t have to watch. He props one elbow on his doorframe as he wipes his other hand down his face. After a moment of torn contemplation Mitch twists the key in the ignition and kicks the car into gear.
Tate claps his palm over his dad’s shoulder rest and husks out in a gravelly voice, “I want you to take the long way home.”
Mitch snorts. “Ha. If you think that I’m gonna chauffeur you around so that you have enough time to get it inside of her then you’ve gotanotherthing coming.” He’s shaking his head but I swear that he takes a wrong turn on the road from the church.
“Then let me help her pack up her room,” Tate says.
Mitch breathes out another laugh. “Real subtle, Tate. You think that her mom isn’t going to be able to hear you cracking my walls when you’re ramming her headboard into them a mile a minute? Not to mention my house full ofguests.” He makes an anguished sound as he rubs his forehead. “If you’re looking for a place to carry out your goodbye sex then you’re gonna have to think up something real crafty, ’cause her mom isn’t gonna letyouanywhere near that girl. Like, I’m serious. You go over to their house and she’s gonna slash your tyres. She told me.”
Tate’s breathing is so irregular that I’m actually worried for him. I turn my head so that I can look at him and his eyes have gone glassy. As soon as my mouth is in his proximity he takes my chin and lifts my lips to his, the hand in my lap suddenly stroking harder. The pained look on his face is splitting my heart irreparably. When he pulls away he holds my cheek against his chest and I can feel the quick thudding of his heartbeat as he mutters, “It’s not goodbye sex. I’m keeping her.”
