Rewrite Our Story (Sutten Mountain, #1)

by Kat Singleton

“I feel like I just got you.” I laugh, shaking my head at him. “You’ve always had me. You just weren’t paying attention.” He swallows. Somehow the air becomes even more electrified around us. “I am now.”

“About time.”

“Make sure you make it a good one.” I smile, closing my eyes right before I make my wish. I wish that Cade and I can figure this out together. I wish for this to be the best summer of my life. My biggest wish is that I get to keep him once this summer ends.

A line creases on her forehead. “Zero?” “I haven’t fallen in love with anyone since you left. I’m not able to. You can’t fall in love with someone if your heart still belongs to someone else.” “Cade,” she mutters, her breath hitching.

“If I ask you one more thing, do you swear to not lie to me again?” She nods. “Do you want to kiss me as bad as I want to kiss you?” “No,” she whispers, the one word feeling like a punch to the fucking gut. “I probably want to kiss you more.”

“Call us complicated all you fucking want if that’s what makes you feel better. But stop pretending that, at times like this, we aren’t exactly what we need for one another. It’s always been that way.” I leave her standing there, my hat clutched to her chest as I get in my truck. She knows how I feel. What I want. It’s up to her to decide how to proceed.

All this time I’ve thought Cade forgot everything we were but he was here living in those memories every day of his life. I want to believe every word he’s telling me.

“I absolutely can hold a grudge. It’s not about you leaving. It’s about the fact you never came back.”

“I thought you’d want me to stay away!” she shouts.

“Why the fuck would I want you to stay away when I was in love with you?”

Her mouth falls open. “What?” she asks, her voice breaking.

“You knew that.”

“No.” She shakes her head back and forth, her eyes misting over. “I didn’t know. I hoped. God, I wanted that more than anything. But I asked you if you loved me and you told me no. How can I trust you now?”

“You were my entire fucking world that summer. I wanted to spend every goddamn minute I could with you. How can you not trust me when...

“I fell for you so hard and fast, it was almost like that love had always been there. I loved you, Goldie. I loved you so fucking much that it killed me to watch you leave.”

“I think you did.”

“No! I didn’t. If I did, I wouldn’t have left.”

We suck at using our words to communicate what we’re feeling.

But the kiss says it all. Mare and I are unfinished business.

He kisses me like he owns me. I kiss him back in hopes that I own him.

“There’s so many reasons I’m pissed at you.”

“I could say the same thing to you.”

I’m so mad at him. There’s so much he didn’t tell me. I guess we’re angry with each other. We were so young back then that a lot of hurt probably could’ve been avoided if we both had been more honest with each other. We can’t change it. All we can do is move on from it and try not to let the anger destroy any hope for a future between us.

“Don’t just stare at me…if you like what you see, touch me.”

“With every bite, suck, thrust…your body doesn’t hide how needy it is for me.”

No one would know quiet, broody Cade would say such filthy things with so much confidence.

I’ve spent all these years trying to forget Cade but feeling him claim me all over again only proves one thing. I can pretend all I want, but nothing has changed. He still owns me—every fucking part of me.

I’d tried hiding us before, it ended up with both of us devastated and hurt. I don’t intend to hide anything this time.

I’m too focused on the way Cade looks at me. It’s easy to tell that I won’t get away with pretending this never happened. Not like I’d even want to. The moment I saw that photo in his hat, every reason I was denying him disappeared from my mind.

“You’re sleeping in my bed tonight. If I don’t find you at my door, don’t think I won’t

come and get you and put you where you belong.”

“And where is...

“For tonight? W...

“Just tonight...

“That’s not my decision,” he answers.

It makes me wonder, not for the first time, what would happen if this time I didn’t leave Sutten. What if I stopped fighting the feelings between the two of us and actually gave things a chance? I know one thing for sure. What Cade and I have is undeniable, no matter how much hurt we’ve caused each other—and how much hurt we’ll cause each other if I do end up leaving Sutten again.

Every time he mentions me leaving, I want to tell him that I’d consider staying if he’d just ask. Or we could figure something else

I’d do anything if it meant whatever is happening between us didn’t have to expire the day I move away.

“It doesn’t feel right to say I want you because it’s so much more than that. Saying I want you makes it seem like it’s just a choice. What I feel for you—how bad I need you—doesn’t just feel like a choice. It feels undeniable. Like fate.”

“You feel that?” She nods. “I do.” “Ask me again if I’m yours.” “Are you mine?” “My heart only beats like that for you.”

“For my entire life, my heart has only beat for one person. That’s you, Cade Jennings. Even without knowing if you’d ever be mine, I knew I was yours.”

“I like the sound of that, Goldie.” When she arches into me, I can’t help but let my fingers drift a bit lower. My fingertips trace the swell of her breasts. “I like being yours and you being mine. I want to be yours in every way.” Her voice is timid but sure as she arches deeper into my touch.

“I’m fucking crazy about you. And if you’re sure you’re ready, I want this just as bad as you do.”

“You sure about this?” I’m desperate for her, to know that I’m the only man to ever do this, but I’d wait forever if she needed me to. I want her to be confident in giving me this.

“I’ve always wanted it to be you. I’ve never been more sure.”

Now, I’m his in every single way.

I don’t want to tell her I’ve fallen in love with her weeks before she’s supposed to leave. I don’t want to make her feel guilty for wanting to leave. But fuck, the words are on the tip of my tongue. I kiss her instead of confessing my love to her.

My heart feels heavy in my chest. It aches at the memory of the last time I saw him. I remember sobbing in the airport; strangers stood around and gawked at me as I walked away from him. The truth was, I didn’t want to leave his arms, but he left me no choice. He didn’t love me, and I couldn’t fight for us alone. He made me walk away from us when I thought we’d be more than just one summer.

“Because either way, things ended up the way they did. Whether I hated you or not, you hurt me. You were supposed to be the person who didn’t hurt me. And you ended up being the person who hurt me the most.”

“I’d let you hurt me time and time again if it meant you’d eventually find your way back to me.”