KEPT: A Small Town Second Chance Romance Novella (Reckless Falls Book 0) Read online

  “Right,” I said, because there was nothing else to say and I didn’t want to disturb the buzzing connection that rippled between us.

  “You have friends and family here, and um, so do I.” She lifted her chin and sighed. “Xavier is still here,” she said.

  “Who?” the name rang a faint bell.

  “My friend, Xavier. He likes to be known by only his first name, like he’s Madonna or Cher or something, but back in high school, he went by Xavier Tully.”

  I started a little and she noticed. “What?”

  “Nothing. He bought the Abbott house right?”

  “Did he?” she asked, blinking twice. I saw the tightness of regret in her eyes.

  “Yeah, I think so anyway. He and his boyfriend are supposedly turning it into a B&B.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “My brother.”

  “Cole?”

  “You remembered.”

  “He was a grade above me. He was really smart, right?”

  I nodded. “Still is. He works in real estate now. He’s doing some development around here, so he keeps me in the loop about all the goings-on.” I leaned forward and plucked a blade of grass from the shore. “Whether I want to know or not.”

  “Xavier bought the Abbott place,” she mused. “I can’t believe I didn’t know that. He was the only one I still kept in contact with when…when I left, but after a while even that sort of… fell away. He was the best friend I could ask for and I sort of just…lost track of him.”

  She folded her arms around her knees and hugged herself tightly, looking so sad that I had to say something. “You should go there and check it out. They’re doing a really good job.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “No.”

  She blinked. “Why not?”

  “I don’t go into town…much.”

  There was a thickness to her voice when she replied. “I sort of noticed. Why is that?”

  I cleared my throat and looked away.

  “Are you hiding from something, Derek?”

  I opened my mouth and the shut it with a snap. I was doing the right thing now. Walking the sober straight and narrow. But I was never going to be free of the shame, the stigma of what happened. I lived it every time I saw Jesse limping through town. So I’d fucking stopped going to town. I didn’t want to see him, and I was pretty much certain that he - and everyone else - didn’t want to see me. “Aren’t you?” I snapped.

  She sat up. “No,” she said firmly. “Not anymore.”

  She stood up and walked towards the edge of the cliff, stopping worryingly close to the edge. “Hey, careful!” I shouted over the roar of the falls. But she didn’t move away.

  “Fuck,” I said. Because I was already moving to be at her side.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Aria Jane

  I wasn’t hiding anymore. Fuck Killian. Fuck my parents. I was going to live my life on my terms now. Do what I wanted.

  As soon as I figured out exactly what it was that I wanted.

  I knew I wanted Derek. That was the thought that burned in my skull. He was sitting so close to me that I couldn’t take his nearness anymore. My choices were to move away or to jump on top of him.

  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 dipping lower 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 Derek. I wanted to start over again. I wanted to make the music that had been locked up in my brain for seven years while I was a slave to Killian’s ego. I wanted to see Xavier - my best friend for high school and the only person who I’d been in contact with since I left Reckless Falls - again. And I wanted to make my parents stop hating me.

  With the rush of water in my ears it seemed so easy to just go ahead and do it. This close to the edge, I could almost believe 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 was suddenly there, and his hand shot out, gripping my upper arm and 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. “Oh fuck,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Fuck…”

  The way he was looking at me…had Killian ever looked at me this way? With that expression of awe? Seven 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,” he said. 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 seven long years as a bud. Everything I’d thought I’d known to be true was turning out to be wrong, so why the fuck should I hold back anymore? His thumb traced the curve of my lip, dragging it across my teeth and he hissed something that sounded like agony. “Fuck,” he groaned again. He was so close to me. I swore I could feel his heart hammering in his chest. His thumb found my lip again. 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 and he growled again as his tongue 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 feels in 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, fingers tugging 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 ear. “Are you fucking with me right now, Derek?” I demanded.

  “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 fucking 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 asked, pressing my finger to my mouth. The hot scald of rejection was flaming across my cheeks. “Are you seriously telling me you don’t want me?”

  His breath was coming hard and fast. "I've never wanted anything more in my life," he groaned.

  "Then why are you stopping?" I said, 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.

  The sting of 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,” he rumbled. 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, the accident or whatever.” His eyes widened and I realized he didn’t know I knew. Not that I knew…anything other than my mother’s veiled insinuation. “Just don’t toy with me like this.”

  I've seen a lot of bullshit and 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 fucking person, okay? I’m a piece of shit.”

  “Why are you saying this to me?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  I reached out to gently cup his chin. “No, it isn’t,” I murmured gently, even though I’d thought those very words about him not long ago.

  I was bullshitting him and he could see it. He lifted his chin. “Do you remember that email you got?”

  I froze. “Which one?”

  “You know which one.”

  Goosebumps marched across my skin and my stomach dropped. I tasted bright pennies in my mouth, the hot squirt of adrenaline-fueled fear. “How do you know about that?” I hissed. The email, the one that had led to everything falling apart. “Dear Jane," it had said. "Check Killian’s messages. He’s keeping secrets from you. Here is his passcode.”

  I’d meant to close it and delete it, but something, a small suspicion that had been growing without realizing, metastasizing like cancer in our relationship, made me check Killian’s phone while he was in the shower.

  He left it out there in the open. He was that sure I’d never find out about his mistress.

  Mistresses.

  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 the fuck did you know Killian was cheating? Were you fucking spying on me?”

  He was silent.

  “You manipulative…piece of fucking shit!” I sputtered. “How the hell did you even find out in the first place? Why did you know? What the hell are you?”

  He spread his hands again but this time he only looked down. “You spied on me?” I gasped. “You… fucking creeper! 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.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Derek

  The whirr and hum of the 3D printer was loud enough that I could hear it as I crossed the lawn after my trail run. It ran all night as I laid awake, thinking about Aria and her red-faced fury up at the falls. Between the noise and my own frustrated thoughts, I got almost no sleep and for one fleeting second, I considered heading down to town to the twenty-four-hour convenience store and grabbing a case of beer. But instead, I got up and put on my running shoes and headed out for a pre-dawn run.

  The lights were on in the great house by the time I got back. I stood on the lawn for a moment, hoping to catch a glimpse of Aria’s silhouette. It had been almost a week since our disaster of a hike, but I could still feel the shape of her under my hands and the gasp she’d let out when I kissed her echoed in my brain. I had been half a second away from throwing her down on the ground just taking her right there beside the falls. Until I remembered why she was there.

  Me.

  She was furious and rightly so. I was fucking furious with myself for snooping like that. I should have told her grandfather no. I should have told him to let her live her goddamn life without his well-meaning interference. But just like with the accident, I thought I had it all figured out. I’d be spending the rest of my life trying to make up for what I’d done to Jesse. I wondered how long it would take for me to make amends to Aria.

  All at once there was silence, and I turned and sprinted back to the house. The printing was done. Six new models ready for delivery. And just in the nick of time too. I was just packing the last elbow joint in the foam packing material when I heard the sound of car wheels on the driveway.

  “Morning!” Sy Tarrington yawned before taking another gulp of coffee from his travel mug. “You sure you want to keep doing these early morning deliveries?”

  I pressed my lips together and tried for a smile, but failed. “You know my terms, Sy.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Secret. Anonymous. I get it. You know my thoughts on that, Wreck.”

  I winced a little at hearing my old nickname. It had taken on a new significance since the accident. “Yeah, you’ve made it clear you think I’m an idiot. But your opinion never much mattered to me.” This time I was able to smile.

  Sy raised his mug in a salute at the insult, then leveled me with his gaze. “It should. There are a bunch of people up at the hospital who would love a chance to thank you personally.”

  I winced. “Not going to happen.”

  “Suit yourself,” Sy muttered, then went around to the back of his car. “How many?”

  “Six,” I replied. “Five custom and the sixth is a prototype. I was hoping you could find a volunteer to try it out.”

  “No shortage of those, especially with the VA up north.” Sy pulled out his clipboard from under his lab coat and flipped through the pages. “Yep, I’ve got a guy who just signed up for the program.”

  I nodded. “Great.”

  Sy looked up. He was getting on in years, but his sharp eyes - the ones that had looked down at me when I woke up in the hospital bed after having my stomach pumped, the ones that winced with sadness when he told me about Jesse’s leg - they were the same. “You’re doing amazing things here, Derek. You should get some credit.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t want it. Not doing it for the credit.”

  “I know you aren’t. You’re doing it out of guilt.”

  I lifted the carefully packed box. “We good here?”

  Dr. Tarrington, Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at the County Hospital, lifted the box from my arms. “We’re good.” He carefully belted it into the backseat of his sedan and then turned back. “Hey, have you seen the weather report?”

  I shook my head. “Been kind of busy.”

  Sy shut the door. “Storm on its way already, can you believe it? This early in the season?”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled, “I can believe it.”

  “Supposed to be a doozy too.”

  “They always make a big deal out of these storms and they’re never that bad.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Sy mumbled,
sliding back into the driver’s seat. “But my wife has me heading out for eggs, milk, and bread anyway. Any time there’s snow she does that. Like we need to be sure we can make French Toast.”

  I laughed at the old, tired joke. Locals made it every winter. I looked up at the still changing leaves. “Roads are gonna be a mess with the leaves everywhere.”

  “Yeah, well, we know how to handle it, right?” Sy said, starting up his engine. “I have to get going, my rotation starts in a half hour and I’m dropping these off at the lab beforehand.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, stepping back. “Make sure they get me the next orders soon.”

  “There’s no shortage of need, don’t you worry.”

  “Good.” I nodded and lifted my hand in farewell as he pulled out of my drive. He backed out at an angle, nearly ending up in the ditch, before reversing into the parking circle in front of the great house. I saw a light switch on over the porch and sighed as the door opened. Sy’s BMW was just rounding the curve of the drive when Aria stepped out.

  She was well over a hundred feet away from me, but the sight of her there in the early morning light was enough to make my heart stop. Her wildfire hair was piled on top of her head, tumbling down in a half-undone coil that my fingers itched to sink into. She was wearing yoga pants that cupped her ass like a hug, and her feet were bare against the wood of the porch. And, thank god and all the angels in heaven, she appeared to not be wearing a bra.

  “Morning!” I called as I walked towards the great house. It had been days since she’d spoken to me and I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to make amends.

  She crossed her arms over her chest as I got closer, but all that did was squeeze her breasts deliciously together. “Who the fuck was that?” she asked.

  I stopped. “Who was who?”

  “The guy in the Beemer, asshole. Don’t play coy.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Mr. Mysterious Hacker, huh? What other shady shit are you up to?”

  I sighed and stopped walking. “Okay, I get it.”

  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What was in the box?”