Citadel (Kindled #5)

by Claire Kent

“I can’t stay.” I’m not sure why he repeats those words, but his voice gets a little raspy as he says it again.

We stare at each for a long time, neither of us saying anything. I have absolutely no right to be disappointed—to feel as crushed as I do. He never promised to stick around. He never even hinted at it. I’m the one stupid enough to want it anyway.

Right now—only in this moment—it feels like Cole needs me. Like he needs what I can give him.

Maybe he doesn’t have the same sense of connection that I do. Maybe he doesn’t want that connection to go deeper.

“You like that?”

He’s still into this. He’s really liking it. It looks like he wants to swallow me whole.

“Fuck, baby,” he mutters after several minutes. “Rub yourself off.”

“That’s my girl. Just like that.”

“Maybe we can do it again.” He strokes my head softly. “Maybe.” I hide my face to say one more thing. “Maybe you’ll want to stay.” There’s a longer pause this time. Then, “Maybe.”

He did have a good time last night, but it didn’t mean anything more than that to him. It didn’t mean to him what it meant to me. Because it’s morning now. The night is over. And the deep connection I was feeling with him must have just been in my mind. Because Cole is gone.

Any time I envisioned encountering Cole again, I saw myself as being cool and controlled and beautiful and dismissive. Proving to him that he means nothing to me, and his leaving didn’t wound me in any real way. But the truth is it did wound me. It betrayed my instinctive trust in him and made me doubt my own instincts about people. And, despite my fantasies about myself, I’m not a cool, controlled person.

Moi

I stare up at him, washed with a familiar wave of pleasure, attraction, security. Like this man—despite everything—is where I’m supposed to be.

“Look, Cole, you’ve said you’re sorry, and I’ve had my say at last, so we can put the whole thing behind us. I wasn’t in love with you back then no matter what kind of story you concocted in your mind that made it impossible to treat me like a rational human being. But I did trust you. I trusted you back then.” I shake my head and turn away from him, glancing over my shoulder to add one more thing. “I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

“I haven’t even seen him in two years.” “I know. But he still looks at you like a blessing come to life. He always did.”

You used to watch him like he hung the stars.”

Something about his eyes is so intimate. It feels like he can see all the way inside me.

“I want to be able to take care of someone else as much as they take care of me.

Our eyes lock. A wave of pleasure, familiarity, excitement washes over me.

It’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t be responding to a man like that—not a man I know can’t be depended on.

“You don’t have to talk to him,” Breanna says.

Breanna why dont you just stfu and mind your own biznaZ?!!?

We’re too far away to see faces, but there are at least three Jeeps and several motorcycles. Far too many men with assault weapons. It bigger than any traveling gang I’ve seen in years. Sixty or seventy of them that I can see.

I'm picturing this shit in my head and its fucking terrifying

No Breanna. That can’t be good. But I don’t see anyone else either. So I step out onto the road. I’ve made it halfway across when I jerk to a sudden stop. Someone has moved out of the shadows on the other side of the highway, and it’s definitely not Breanna. It’s a man. Maybe in his thirties. With long, greasy hair and dirt smudged on his face and both arms. A ridiculously large rifle propped against his shoulder. He’s grinning, and I know that look. Fucking hell, I know that look.

FUUUUCK THIS IS EERIE

Doesn’t stop my body from wanting yours.” He inhales, raising his shoulders, and then blows it out. “Are you gonna pretend your body doesn’t still want mine?”

Shit. He knows me too well. Even after all this time. Even when he has no business knowing anything about me anymore. He can read me like a book.

I’ve never known myself to be a snuggler before. Tyler used to say that he liked how I always stayed on my own side of the bed.

Whatta fucking jabroni

I shouldn’t allow it. It doesn’t seem appropriate. But he starts to stroke my hair gently, and it feels better than anything has in such a long time.

“How the hell am I supposed to just stop? It’s been years now, and I’ve sacrificed everything for this search. I’ve given up… everything. Including any hope I ever had of being with you. I’ve sacrificed everything. How the fuck can I just let it go now?”

“No one is as good or strong or brave or righteous as we’d like to be. I think we’re all a little bit broken.”

If I thought I could have had a life, it always would have been with you.”

“Fuck it all. You have no idea how much I’ve imagined you touching me this way.”

“That’s so good,” he murmurs as I come all over his hand. “You’re so hot. So responsive. You’re coming so good for me.”

He wasn’t this vocal during sex two years ago, and his talking is really doing it for me.

I <3 DIRTY TALK

“There you go. That’s so good. Keep coming for me. You need even more.” He reaches between our bodies until he finds my clit. Then he rubs it in firm circles until I’m coming again.

I do as he says, stretching my body backward. His eyes are on me as he pumps his hips up into me, and the intimate exposure is as hot as anything else. He fucks me like that until I come again. Then he makes me rub my own clit until I come once more.

But if this goes on much longer, I’ll start to lose even the slight curves I’ve developed over the past two years and be as scrawny as I used to be.

Umm or you'll DIE from starvation..??????

“I’m not trying to role-play as your little wife or something like that. I just like to do things for you.”

“Why are you looking at me that way?” “What way?” “Like… Like…” Like I’m the most precious thing in his world.

Appalachian mountain accents

I'm sorry A WHAT????

When he finishes washing, he takes his straight-edged razor and runs it over his jaw and scalp, shaving off a few days’ worth of growth.

STOOOOOOPPPPP ITTTTT

I’m so into it I’m ready for penetration in just a couple of minutes,

Loooooool wut

“Baby,” he mumbles. “Fuck, baby. Need you so much.” He’s rocking his cock rhythmically against me like he can’t stop himself.

“Never knew what it was like,” he finally murmurs. “What?” “To have someone take care of me.”

“I’m going to move into your house and sleep in your bed and make sure you’re safe and happy and take care of you and fuck you senseless every night. That’s how much you’re never going to be rid of me.”

Life would be so much harder without him.