Undone: The Complete Duology, page 9
I wanted it all.
He roamed one hand up my shirt, his fingers dancing along my spine before he unhooked my bra. I broke the kiss long enough to peel out of my top and discard it with my bra, right onto the blanket of leaves and twigs on the ground. He closed the short distance between us, and I helped him out of his shirt, adding it to the growing collection of clothes.
“Is the forest safe again?” he murmured against my lips, and I nodded, unable and unwilling to explain further.
As I lowered to the ground, I tugged him down with me, then leaned back as he covered me. Still in my jeans, I wrapped my legs around his waist as he claimed my mouth again. I ground into him, bucking, urgent. He moved down to my neck, and I tipped my head back, my hair caught with leaves, and arched my breasts towards him. He took one nipple in his mouth.
I couldn’t do this. I had his brother held hostage in my basement, for fuck’s sake.
I refused to think about that further and gave in to the sensation of his warm skin on mine, his body moving against me as I trailed my fingers down his toned back.
Raindrops, light but cold, plunked down on my bare skin, on my face. I didn’t care. We were doing this, and nothing would take him away from me right now.
He trailed kisses down my abdomen, past my navel, then undid my jeans. I lifted my hips as he tugged my pants down, along with my underwear, going right for the gusto. Maybe he sensed it too: this was forbidden.
He tossed my jeans aside then spread my thighs. Cold raindrops continued to plop down on us, and I shivered a little despite the heat welling up through my body. He leaned down and brushed his lips over the inside of my thigh before biting down. I yelped, then laughed, squirming, as he sucked a bright red spot on my skin. Then he dragged his tongue up, my body prickling with anticipation.
When he glided his tongue up my folds, I moaned, gripping handfuls of leaves at my side. Somehow, this was taking too long and not long enough, all at the same time. I couldn’t imagine this ending, didn’t want it too, but I couldn’t tolerate prolonging it another second.
He poked his tongue at my opening, lapping me up, just to drive me fuckin’ insane. I shifted, trying to guide him, but he purposely withheld until I let out a frustrated sound. He chuckled, his mouth against me, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
When he flicked his tongue against my clit, I nearly yelped. I reached down, ready to finish the job myself, but he clasped his hand over mine and tsked.
Then he flicked his tongue again, right on target. I clamped my jaw, trying to will myself to revel in the moment and not hurry this along, despite the blooming need that had taken over my mind.
He rose up on his knees and undid his pants, revealing his hard cock. He stroked it a few times, then positioned himself between my legs.
“You want to, Gracie?”
“Oh, my god, yes.” I was breathless, reaching for him, begging for the release.
It was far more than just sex.
He slid inside me, and I moaned softly as he filled me deeper, fuller. As he began to thrust, long, hard strokes, the cold rain picked up. I racked with shivers, sensations alternating between the freezing weather against my bare skin and the heat and desire billowing through me. It was painful and beautiful, just like the emotions tearing me apart inside.
I wanted to love Mac. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
It wasn’t allowed.
I urged him down closer to me, our bodies together, my arms and legs around him as he ground deeper and harder, taking us right to the edge and then over. I cried out against his shoulder, savoring every second of the conclusion, of the descent back from space.
Then we were just there, together, with no one else around.
And nothing we had just experienced could ever be undone.
Slowly, we parted, and I became aware of the twigs poking into my bare back and the tickling sensation of something skittering along my side. I brushed it away and sat up as Mac retrieved the backpack from where he’d dropped it. He produced a few paper towels Mrs. Woolworth must have packed as napkins for our picnic—little did she know what they would be used for—then passed one to me before he set about cleaning up himself. When I finished, I dropped the wadded papers aside.
“Litter bug,” he said with a smile.
“I’m not carrying your sperm back to town, thanks.”
He helped me to my feet and brushed off my ass. My teeth chattered as I tugged on my wet clothes, straightening them into place, then frowned down as my shoes squished with each step.
“We should get back,” I said, starting for the well-worn path.
Mac grabbed my arm, and when I turned to face him, he pulled me in for another kiss that beat back the cold of the storm.
I stared up at him, wet hair in my face. “If I get pneumonia, it’ll be your fault.”
“Yes, it will be.” He brushed water off my cheeks. “Let’s go.”
We walked, hand in hand, back to the path. Mac halted, looking back the way we came and then the direction we were headed.
I wasn’t surprised, but I didn’t let on any emotion at all.
The path that had once headed straight into the woods, away from Thorn Tree, now curved with a steep bend, leading us back into town.
12
MAC
Back at Honey and Hive, the renovation team gone for the day, I lay on the bed in my darkened room, staring up at the ceiling. My mind was pulled taut, like fabric right before it ripped.
I’d gotten farther with Grace than I had anticipated, had even dared to hope. The fact she’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted her, that she’d reached out and connected with me on an unspoken, emotional level stirred a weird little hope in my chest. I needed to find Robert, but there was more to this now: I’d come to assuage wounds of the past, but in Grace, I had found a future.
The knowledge clung to me like the pressure of the storm, but it would be just as cleansing when it broke. From the moment I’d met Grace, I was never letting her go. Not for as long as she would have me.
That beckoned all kinds of problems, ones I couldn’t even begin to count and name, the least of which was getting Grace out of this town when I was ready to leave. Something unusual was happening here, but I couldn’t explain it, not yet. I was getting close to solving the puzzle. The veneer that presented the townspeople as wholesome folks was too full of dings and scratches to be convincing.
The mild earthquake this afternoon had tipped my growing unease over the edge. West Virginia didn’t have earthquakes, at least not often or big enough to count. It was possible we’d experienced the rare event in such a tectonically stable state, or perhaps it had been the results of an explosion from a nearby mining quarry.
These were all possible, but Grace’s put-on smug and cheeky disposition had faded. Fear had flashed across her face. Genuine fear, not the kind that expressed confusion and uncertainty, but that of someone who knew exactly what was going to swallow them whole.
She wasn’t going to tell me more than she already had. I didn’t quite understand her loyalty to Thorn Tree’s secrets, but if I knew anything about Grace, pushing her for answers was not going to win me over to her. She had been cracking already, and bit by bit, she would let her guard down, let me in.
Then, I would know what I was up against.
The earthquake—or whatever it had been that caused the earth to shake—had been disorienting enough I’d gotten turned around on the path. I needed to keep that in mind when I went wandering around the woods alone. Even now, lying in the dark in my room, I couldn’t make sense of how I’d wound up on a path that turned back towards the town, when we’d been hiking towards water moments earlier.
My mind went a little foggy over the whole ordeal.
Among that haze was the perfect clarity of Grace’s bare skin against mine, the feel of her legs wrapped tight around me, the taste of her on my tongue. The moment had been unlike any other. It was a shame she had insisted I return to the bed and breakfast, and not spend the night with her at her home.
She was just showing good boundaries. I could respect that. Even if I would have liked to have kept her company through this storm, the rain tapping against the roof and window panes while I tapped…
I muffled my groan into the pillow. This woman was going to be the death of me. I might have a take-charge personality at times—why else would I be here, doing my own investigation of my brother’s disappearance?—but even I knew there was nothing endearing about being pushy to women. And if it was endearing, that was probably its own red flag from both sides.
We weren’t going there, even if I wanted to beeline straight to her house and throw all my cards on the table. It was too much, too soon. It wasn’t how I wanted to look back on this relationship in five, ten years from now. Like a feral cat, Grace would come around when she was good and ready. In the meantime, I would just keep offering shelter.
Hushed voices filtered down the hall. There wasn’t much privacy in these old houses. Mrs. Woolworth had probably heard me tossing and turning on the bed and the involuntary flustered sighs. I would need to watch myself a little more closely.
The voices rose and fell in a soft cadence, but the edges of the words blurred until they were just barely unrecognizable. I listened harder, trying to catch any clue as to what was transpiring out in the living room.
If I wanted to lie to myself, I would pretend I was worried about Mrs. Woolworth. Perhaps she needed my assistance.
No such thing was happening. There was no yelling, no banging, no tension in the air.
But I had to find my brother still, and the townspeople—even kind, sweet Mrs. Woolworth—hadn’t offered up much by way of where he might be.
The town was hiding something, that much couldn’t be denied, and I couldn’t rule out that it didn’t include the whereabouts of my brother.
I slid out of bed, careful not to make any noise, and eased across the floor, avoiding the board that squeaked every time I stepped on it. At the door, I stilled my breath and listened, but I couldn't quite make out the conversation.
I gripped the doorknob then turned it slowly, smoothly. If she heard me come out, I would simply say I needed to use the bathroom, or that I wanted to go for a night stroll to enjoy the rain, but I didn’t want to alert anyone of my presence and interrupt the conversation. It was probably nothing, but it couldn’t be less than what I already had.
The door cracked open with barely a sound. I leaned my ear towards the sliver of an opening.
“It’s all the same to me,” Mrs. Woolworth was saying. “I thought it was a bad idea from the beginning, but no one listened.”
“It’s just Roberta, you know how she gets,” a man replied. I didn’t recognize his voice, but that didn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t know most of the people around here by sight, let alone sound.
“Pish posh,” Mrs. Woolworth said. “It’s not like everyone doesn’t know that she’s earned her say in this town on her back. That’s none of my concern, never has been, but I’ll tell you this—if the Reverend has to get involved, we’re all going to wish we’d managed this situation better.”
The creaking of a chair punctuated the uncomfortable silence that permeated down the hall.
“It’ll be fine,” the man said at length, though he didn’t sound confident in his words.
“You mean, if we can keep him away from Grace.” Mrs. Woolworth brooked no argument.
“Judging from what Brian reported about their little walk today, that is becoming more difficult.”
My heart thudded harder.
Me. They were talking about me. Someone had watched Grace and me in the woods earlier.
Oh, god. They’d probably seen us…
That redheaded guy. Grace had said his name was Brian, the mayor’s son. He couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one. I’d caught him spying on me when I dug up the empty grave in the woods near Grace’s house. I should have guessed he was still around, reporting back everything I did.
So, that was what this was all about? They were monitoring my interactions with Grace?
Maybe it wasn’t just about me. Perhaps they always kept an eye on her. Now that I thought of it, that meshed well with what I already knew about their opinion of her. Grace Miller was not to be trusted. That was the prevailing sentiment around here.
And I, as the newcomer to town and accidental stirrer-of-pots, was just as much suspect.
Somehow, that unity with Grace made me even more attracted to her. It was us against them.
I just hoped she could see the situation that way.
“There’s not much else I can do,” Mrs. Woolworth said, terse. A dish clinked. “It’s not like I can lock him in his room.”
“No, you’ve done just fine, Emma.” The man’s voice softened. “You know we all appreciate you taking in the occasional visitor passing through. It’s hard on all of us, but you do a stellar job.”
Mrs. Woolworth scoffed.
“I mean it,” the man said, and then the chair scooted across the floor. “I need to head out, but if you need anything, anything at all, you just let me know.”
“Will do,” she said.
The floor groaned under their footsteps before the front door opened.
“Have a good night, Emma.”
“Good night, Frank. Stay dry out there.”
I eased the bedroom door shut but stood, lingering with my hand on the knob. No one in this town had gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable, except perhaps my host with her lemonade and cookies, but catching them chatting about their opinions—discussing it—put everything in a new perspective. They didn’t just individually dislike me.
They were collectively opposed, not only to me, but to my growing relationship with Grace. I wasn’t normally the kind to stand down to such pressure, but here, I was at a disadvantage. No one in power wanted me here poking around, except Ms. Roberta, who didn’t particularly like me. She was just leaving no stone unturned when it came to her son. The only real ally I had was Grace, the pariah of Thorn Tree, and that was tentative at best still.
I held no favors with the sheriff or mayor, either.
The town’s barely concealed irritation with the development between Grace and I was a bad turn of events.
As it stood now, my ability to navigate the situation with Grace was directly related to my chances of finding my brother.
I needed to try to wrangle this situation before it got entirely out of control. None of the key players in this—the sheriff, the mayor, not even Mrs. Woolworth—were worth confronting. Their minds wouldn’t be swayed so easily.
Brian, however, was too young to be a veteran of fuckery. Perhaps I could lure him out, talk to him. Even if he couldn’t be convinced to join my side, chances were high he would slip up and reveal more of the motives driving this town.
Pieces were still missing. I understood they wanted me to stay away from Grace, but why? What did she know, and what power did she hold over them that they feared me finding out? What was I going to do to them? I was just here to find my brother.
My thoughts were cyclic in this topic, and I needed more information to break the loop, to let me turn onto the right path instead of covering the same ground over and over.
Brian might be my only hope. He was the only option I had at the moment, anyway.
I pulled on my jacket, then hesitated. If I went out the front door, it would alert Mrs. Woolworth that I was awake. Would she worry that I had overheard her conversation? Did it matter if she knew? It wasn’t like they had taken great pains to meet somewhere besides a few feet from where I had been lying in bed.
Nothing about this town added up, and I was already annoyed with their sneaking about. It wasn’t time to blow everything wide open yet though. I didn’t have enough knowledge or resources on my side to show my hand.
I slid open the bedroom window, which stuck and ground in its track, my fingers digging into the old wood that frayed into slivers as I forced the pane open. It wasn’t a silent endeavor, but Mrs. Woolworth either didn’t hear or didn’t care that I wanted to let in a little of the storm.
Cold rain brushed against my face before I ducked out the window. My soles sloshed in a puddle as I surveyed the distance. Only the front lights on the house and the moon peering through heavy gray clouds provided any light. I should have brought a flashlight. Instead, I flicked on my phone light and shielded the device with the edge of my jacket to help protect it from the pouring rain.
I made my way towards the center of town. Honey and Hive was right on the outskirt, the opposite direction of where Gracie lived. Here, the woods were thicker, the brush greener. Hills flowed along the distance, peeking through the branches of the surrounding trees.
Somewhere nearby had been a stream, but Gracie apparently had a fear of water. I would investigate the source later, on my own, but for tonight, I had no desire to get lost among the trees. The strange occurrences of earlier were still a bit too fresh in my mind.
Hopefully, out on the street, word of me wandering about town would get back to Brian faster. He knew more than I did, and that was enough to make getting drenched worthwhile.
The rain was surprisingly icy, a reminder that winter was right around the corner. No doubt we were in for a heavy freeze this year and no shortage of snow. I could only hope I was out of Thorn Tree before the worst of the weather hit, but I doubted everything would wrap up so nicely before.
I couldn’t get that lucky.
The fleeting thought of leaving Robert to his fate crossed my mind. This really wasn’t my job. I wasn’t even working on behalf of any organization here. Just me, by way of Roberta.
But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to find him. If I didn’t poke every crevice and peer into every dark alley. I had to keep hope that he was around here somewhere.
Besides, it would take a while longer to convince Grace to come with me. I couldn’t imagine any scenario where I would be willing to leave her behind. She might take a while to come around though. As much as she disliked this town, they had surely managed to brainwash her at least a little over the years. She would need to be eased into the idea of running away with me, letting me help her.
