Knotted (Trails of Sin, #1)

by Pam Godwin

The terrain of childhood shapes the soul, and the soul never forgets.

“No matter what, we stay together. Miles, months, cities, years…” Her breath strangles. “We’re bigger than anything that tries to come between us.”

I’m lost. Hollow. Alone. I just need my home. My family. Jake.

💔

I cry until all that remains is a loveless, empty, unfeeling core of nothingness. I become that hardened center and shed the tender, tear-soaked wrapper. It falls off like tattered clothes and litters the ground. Then I step away from the debris.

I didn’t sexually or intimately touch Sara. I didn’t kiss her. Didn’t remove my boxers. I didn’t even get wood. I’m still a virgin, because I love Conor Cassidy.

🙄

I did the only thing I could to protect her. I broke her heart, because I love her.

She gave me a bracelet on her birthday. A precious, invaluable piece of heaven. And I gave her torment, heartbreak, and hell. I made her believe I let her go.

But I didn’t let him go. I don’t know how to do that, and goddammit, it hurts. I feel that pain like the strike of Dalton’s hand across my face.

He doesn’t know my ugliest pieces.

She still wears those scratched-up square toe boots, so that must mean she’s clinging to an irretrievable life.

A pair of boots that lasted 6 years?

I know her blueprint. The intricate, complex design of her. My beautiful girl is still in there, kicking and spitting to break free, and I’m going to help her do that.

“I’m not broken,” she whispers. “You don’t need me to fix you. You need me to sit with you in the sadness.”

To be on the brink of something so momentous and consequential demands diligence. Impatience is my enemy. Insatiable desire is my weakness.

And those jeans fit so low and provocatively around his hips I can see his religion.

“I’ll give you a few seconds to be single.” He bends his knees, putting his face in mine. “But don’t get used to it.”

“You deliberately hurt me, and I’ve been holding that pain for so long.” I clutch my chest. “Right here. Right where I used to hold you.”

“I didn’t return home for buckin’ or bakin’, Jake Holsten. If you’re looking for someone to keep your sheets warm, check the Big Sugar. There’s a table of cheap boots waiting for their seventeen orgasms.”

There are no words. None are needed. She cries and trembles, using my presence to let go and lean, while she mourns the heart I broke. I hold her soft strength tightly against me and mourn with her. I hold her with every breath in my body. I hold her through the sadness.

His assertive, uninterrupted attention on me makes my skin hum and my pulse race. It arouses me.

Lips swollen and hair mussed, he gives me the full force of his eyes. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever kissed.”

In a new pickup truck with a grown man, we recapture our irreplaceable bond. It arches between us, bigger, stronger, and more formidable than ever, extending from one heart to the other.

That was quick 🤨

“You said something to me in the barn.” I feather my fingers along the rigid shape of him through the cotton. “Do you remember? You pressed your lips—” “Against your cheek. I wanted you to feel my voice when I said, I love you. I belong to you. No matter the time or distance, I’m yours.”

We’re famine and drought, starving and wanton, fucking like our lives depend on it.

I fell in love with him when we were kids, before I understood the language of love. Tonight, I fall harder than ever before. With every kiss, glance, smile, and evocative word, he doesn’t just stitch my heart back together. He welds it to his own.

“Maybe?” Jarret rests his forearms on the table and captures her gaze. “That’s your name?”

What kind of name is Maybe? Yeah lets hear you say Fuck Maybe during sex.