I wasn’t hiding anymore. I was going to live my life on my terms now. Do what I wanted.
I stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down, enjoying the sheer, visceral thrill of watching the water dive over the edge and plunge down. The sun was slipping behind the western ridge, casting a golden light into the valley below me. The town stretched out below me and I raised my hand in greeting. “I’m back!” I called. “Did you miss me?”
From behind me, I thought I heard Derek say something, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the water or the rush of the blood in my veins. I moved a little further away from him, my mind reeling as I tried to collect my thoughts.
What did I want? I wanted to start over again. I wanted to make the music that had been locked up in my brain for ten years while I was a slave to Killian’s ego. I wanted to see Xavier - my best friend from high school and the only person who I’d been in contact with since I left Reckless Falls - again. I wanted to make my parents stop hating me.
And I wanted Derek.
That was the thought that burned in my skull. With the rush of water in my ears it seemed so easy to just go ahead and do it. All of it. This close to the edge, I almost believed I could do anything. I could even fly.
As I inched out close to the edge, my foot slipped. Just a little bit. I barely lost my footing at all, and would have recovered all by myself with no problem.
But Derek yanked me back.
The force of his tug sent me whirling and then slamming into his chest, as hard as the granite below my feet, and we both stumbled back from the edge, clutching each other.
The roar of the falls was not loud enough to mask the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears as he looked down at me.
His lips caught the edge of my jaw, sweeping upward to press against the sensitive skin under my earlobe. I shuddered to feel his breath across the shell of my ear, even before he whispered, low and guttural. “Fuck,” he said, more to himself than to me.
The way he was looking at me…had Killian ever looked at me this way?
Only when there was a crowd. There was no crowd here.
Ten years I’d been with my ex and I'd never once saw him look at me like Derek was looking at me now.
“Aria.” I could feel the muscles in his forearm as he slid his hand down my spine to rest at the small of my back. “Are you…?”
“Yes…” I panted, craning my neck. “Kiss me.” What I want, my body sang. I finally know it. Give me what I want.
I felt like a flower finally blooming after ten long years as a bud. I was starting over. I was a baby. I was brand new.
His thumb traced the curve of my lip, dragging it across my teeth and he hissed something that sounded like agony. “Are you sure?”
He was so close to me. I swore I could feel his heart hammering in his chest. His thumb found my lip again.
“Yes.” I flicked out my tongue, tasting the salt on his skin before nipping at it.
A growl tore loose from his throat and then suddenly his lips crashed into mine. My lips parted in a gasp.
He pulled back. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You aren’t.”
“I’m not him.”
“I know.”
He growled again as his mouth claimed my mouth. This was no gentle peck on my pulse point. His breath was a ragged gasp and his fingers were in my hair as he devoured me.
He groaned as his hands slid down past my waist. Every nerve ending in my body was alive and screaming, he’s touching me. It was agony and exquisite relief all at once to feel his hands pulling me flush against him. The hard press of his length against my stomach drew a gasp from my lips and I knew that he wanted me, he fucking wanted me as much as I’d been wanting him….
He sank to his knees and tugged at my waistband. I fell forward, straddling him. We were so close to the edge that I was dizzy with vertigo, but when he clutched me close the world spun for a whole different reason. He devoured my mouth like a starving man and I moaned when he impatiently rubbed his hand between my legs. The friction sent sharp sparks of pleasure shooting up my spine and I clutched his face in my hands and rocked against him, feeling the heat begin to coil at the base of my spine. “Fuck, Derek…” I panted as he moved his hand faster. I could feel the heat and the pressure but I wanted to feel his skin, I needed there to be nothing between us. With a cry I stood up and yanked my jeans down my hips, the cold breeze raising goosebumps on my skin.
Derek froze and stared at me. He lifted his hands deliberately from my waist and moved away.
I blinked at him. The blood was still thundering in my ears. “Are you fucking with me right now, Derek?”
“No,” he growled.“But I want to be…” His dark eyes were narrow slits under his heavy lids.
“So fuck me…” I urged him. “I’m here. I’m home. I’m back again. Are you going to make me beg?”
Something rippled across his face and his grip loosened. “You’re upset,” he said, his voice catching.
“I assure you, I’m not.”
“You’ve had a lot of shit going on….”
“What does that have to do with you putting your lips right here?” I pressed my finger to my mouth. The hot scald of embarrassment was flaming across my cheeks. “Are you seriously telling me you don’t want me?”
His breath came hard and fast. "I've never wanted anything more in my life.”
"Then why are you stopping?" I asked, unable to keep the note of pleading out of my voice. I pressed myself closer to him. "You don't need to stop."
"Yes I do," he said harshly, backing away with his hands in the air.
Rejection set my temper alight. "What the fuck!" I demanded. "Why are you fucking around with me like this?"
"I'm not trying to, I swear.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to lie you down and fuck you into next week.” There was something desperate shining in his eyes. “But it’s not right. Not after what I did.”
“Fuck that. I don’t give a shit about whatever hang-up you have. Just don’t toy with me like this.”
I've seen a lot of bullshit in my life, and there was no bullshit in Derek’s eyes. "That's the last thing I want to do, believe me. But you have to understand…"
"Understand what?"
"I'm a bad person, okay? I’m a piece of shit.”
"You're not."
"I am"
"We both have bad pasts. I don't care." I wanted to cry. I was finally feeling good, how dare he make me feel bad?
I was greedy until I saw the look in his eyes. I was a baby stomping her feet, but that look made me grow up. “Why are you saying this to me?” I whispered.
“Because it’s true.”
I reached out to gently cup his chin. “No, it isn’t,” I murmured.
I was bullshitting him and he could see it. He lifted his chin. “Do you remember that email you got?”
“Which one?”
“You know which one.”
I froze. Goosebumps marched across my skin and my stomach dropped. I tasted bright pennies in my mouth, the hot squirt of adrenaline-fueled fear. The email, the one that had led to everything falling apart. “How do you know about that?”
I’d confronted Killian. It wasn't the thought of him fucking other women that made me do it.
It was the thought of him hitting other women.
I’d confronted him and he’d hit me until I crumpled. And then he started kicking.
That email had sent my life into a tailspin and sent me crashing right into…
Here.
With Derek.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
His dark eyes were nearly black as he looked at me levelly, cooly. “Think about it, Aria. How would I know about that?”
I stepped back, twisting, desperate to get away from him. This couldn’t be true. This didn’t make sense. How the fuck…
My boot slipped and Derek’s hand shot out again, but this time I leaped away from him and started backing away. “What are you saying?!” I shouted. “You sent that? How did you know? Were you spying on me?”
He was silent.
“You manipulative…piece of shit!” I sputtered. “How the hell did you even find out in the first place? Why did you know? What the hell are you? What the fuck, Derek? I almost had sex with you!”
“I know,” he said sadly. “That’s why I stopped you.”
I opened my mouth to shout at him but all that came out was a sob. I whirled away and set off in a blind fury, running away, somewhere, anywhere but here.