*Jordan

I sit back in the car seat, stunned. I look around me as if seeing the world for the first time—the first time since I was a little girl, at least. I saw clearly then, too. The beauty, the ugliness, the truth. After years of being told I was to blame for all that ugliness, that it was my fault for being hit, that it was normal I had to keep my mouth shut and my head down, that I would never achieve anything worthwhile, I believed it.

I believed them both—my father and Trey. I kept seeing the world they wanted me to see, long after they were gone. My sisters ran as soon as they were free from our father's razor sharp cruelty, which was only after he died. I suppose Trey ran from his cruel father, too, but destroyed everyone's life he could on his way. Then there was Cole. Another person running from parents and this town as soon as possible.

Well, I am going to stay. I am going to stand my ground.

But I don't want to give up Cole. Not when he's the only man I've ever loved. Broken as me, and beautiful enough to crack my heart wide open, after I sealed it shut for all these years alone.

He might already be gone.

The driver coughs. I had completely forgotten about him. "The work address you gave me?"

"No," I say. I'm an idiot, but I can call in sick. "My home, where you picked me up."

"That's fine, but you booked a thirty-minute drive to—"

"You'll get your money. Just be quiet and let me think."

His mouth snaps shut and he drives in sullen silence, but I ignore his displeasure. It is nothing to me. I have my credit card out and ready the second he pulls into my drive. There is no sign of Cole, and I can't see his camper from here, if it's still in the back.

I don't have the courage to call him, yet. I will decide what to do if his camper is still here.

The driver returns my card and I shudder to think of how much this morning has added to my debt. One thing at a time. I climb out of the car and stand rooted to the spot.

If the camper is here, do I call him? If the camper is gone, do I call him? Or not? Let him go because that's his choice or fight for what I love? I told him he wasn't the man for me...

When the ugliness inside was too much to bear, I lashed out at the one beautiful thing to come my way in years. I'd be long gone, if I were him.

I move slowly across the drive to the corner of the house. The paint is crackled and peeling. I need to change the siding. I glance up at the gutters and see a wad of sticks and leaves hanging over the edge. I need to get up there and clean.

Keep moving, Jordan.

The day is warming up, and the birds are calming down from their full chorus at dawn. My feet crunch softly on drying grass and bits of last year's dead leaves. I should clean up the yard. Plant some flowers.

I stop halfway to the corner. I can't do this. I can't face another empty space.

The empty house after my sisters left. The empty rooms after Trey took Emma. The empty seats at the table. My empty hand when I walk through town. I've been trying to pretend that I'm fine. More than fine, I'm perfect, when the only thing around me is emptiness. That emptiness crept inside, like the lies I believed.

Another empty space where Cole should be will destroy me.

I force myself forward, to be strong this one last time. I am going to stand my ground and fight, and if that means rounding the corner to find him already gone, then so be it.

I reach the corner, go around, and hit a wall of muscle with my face. I trip, falling back, but strong arms catch me.

"Jordan," Cole says. He starts to let me go.

I throw my arms around his neck. And he cradles me close, hand in my hair and whispering my name.

I don't need to hear anything else. My lips crush into his. I'm tearing at his clothes, clutching his shoulders hard when he lifts me. My legs go around his waist as he carries me to the back door. We barely make it inside and the buttons on his shirt hit the floor in a raining patter, followed by the swish of his shirt after he pulls his arms free.

He cups my face, our foreheads touch and our labored breathing mingles. I can sense he wants to move slowly. He wants to make sure I'm all right.

"I'm not leaving you," he whispers. "You don't owe me anything in return. You don't have to do anything for me that you don't want. I will stay and see this through. I swear, I'll help you find your daughter."

"I want all of you, all of you, now," I say.

Whatever will-power he has to move slowly vanishes. His hands yank his belt and top of his pants loose, pausing only to kiss me deeply. His body, the feel of his muscles and bones under my hands, the smooth skin of his chest, the prickle of stubble on his chin, the warm smell of his neck and hair, all of it chases my pain away. We are strong together, where I am soft, he is stone and steel, where he hesitates, I lead. The jagged edges of our broken souls snap together. My heart aches as I mentally trace the gnarled scars our wounds leave, but the healing can start. I know it. I am right with Cole. I belong. No more empty space.

I pull off my shirt and he kisses my breasts through the thin lace of my bra, sucking my nipples until I moan with desire. I reach back to the hooks to take it off. He runs his hands up my back to my neck. He towers over me and I reach to hold his shoulders. He must understand what I want, or he wants better access, because he lifts me to sit on the kitchen table. I lean back to admire his erection standing wide and tall from the V of his open pants. My own pants are still on and I wiggle to move them over my hips. He drags them down my legs until they drop to the floor. My hand flutters as I reach to guide him to me.

We are no longer strangers coming together for one night, or lovers passing the time until we move on. If he changes his mind and leaves me after this, I'm not sure what will remain of my heart.

His hands tangle in my hair and he struggles to breathe as he cups my jaw. "I will never hurt you, I promise, Jordan."

I lean into him at those words, the velvet tip of his dick glistens with clear drops and rubs onto me. I lift my hips to take him in.

"Wait," he groans in my ear. "Not until I taste you."

I try to argue, but then his tongue is covering my pussy, hot and soft and everything I love. I arch back, pressing on the table. My legs start to clamp on his head, and I remind myself he has to breathe. Instead, I fist his hair.

He growls in approval and delves deeper in my pussy. He drinks me in like I can save him from dying. I'm shaking. I don't know what to do with myself. All I know is I need him in me.

Then an orgasm blooms in my core. I call his name, rocking back and forth on the table, an aching, crying puddle of need and pleasure.

He takes my hips and nails me to the spot. He fills me, stretches me, hits the back of my pussy at the same time as the base of his dick hits my clit. I'm spiraling further up. He leans forward, hand on the table next to me and other on my hip, and pounds into me. My legs meet his hips and I take him in. He rasps my name, moving faster.

A second orgasm rips his name from my throat. As I cry out, he buries himself as deeply as possible in pussy and shudders with his own orgasm. His hands fist. I'll have a bruise on that hip, a mark that he's mine and I'm his. The world slows and stops, until, with a ragged inhalation, I return to the kitchen. I cradle his head as he falls into me. He kisses my shoulder and my neck, up to my lips. I taste myself on him, as well as the pure salt water of tears. I think they are mine, but I'm not sure. He draws away and I see for the first time he had managed to put on a condom without me even noticing. He finds my shirt and his from the floor and carries me to the sofa.

I cuddle, curled on his lap. "I thought you would be gone," I say finally, breaking the silence. "When I came home just now, I thought you had already skipped town."

"I almost left." His arms tighten on me and I lean into his strength, letting him support me. "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. Falling for you is the first thing I've gotten right. I won't let you go."

I nod, not trusting my voice. I don't want him to know I'm crying because he won't understand why.

He takes my hand and studies it. The small scars and marks. My narrow fingers and smooth skin against his rough, much larger hand. After a moment, he continues.

"There's something we have to do. I can't promise I'll be here for you, not yet. There's something we have to take care of together."

Cold fear spikes my heart. My spine stiffens. After this morning, I had just assumed he would be here, that this was it—we were together now.

"What do you mean 'take care of together'?" I have to drag my voice out of me. "Why can't you be here for me?"

"Because there's something I have to help you with. Jordan, there's one person who is more important than me, and I'll do whatever I have to do to get her back for you."

"Cole, wait."

But he lifts me to set me aside and finishes getting dressed, although his shirt buttons are gone. He leaves it hanging open over his tee and rolls the sleeves. I dress as well in silent foreboding.

"There's somewhere we have to go," he says, ushering me out the back door. "I need you to trust me."

He opens the camper door and lifts me inside, and shuts the door before I can protest any more. I'm instantly sick with anxiety. This is about Trey and my daughter. For some reason, Cole thinks he can solve this nightmare. But I know better.

The second he appears on the driver's side, I try again. "There is nothing more you or I or anyone in this town can do. No one knows where he went. Everyone who might have kept some contact would have turned him in for the money or the good press. You don't have to prove anything to me, Cole."

"I'm not proving it to you."

"I'm not asking you to do something that will get you in trouble for no reason."

"This is the reason." He leans over the arm rest to kiss me—a scratchy, hard kiss full on the lips. He puts his forehead to mine again. "Every person in this town failed you and because of that, they failed her. Too many of us knew who Trey was, and even if I never thought he would kidnap his own child, I knew he was a black-hearted son-of-a-bitch. And I let him have you. No more mistakes. No more running."

"Let's talk about it."

"We can talk while I drive." He maneuvered the camper off my drive and onto the road and pointed for the town. He didn't say anything, though.

I clear my throat. My hands are shaking and I hide them in my lap so he won't notice. "What are we doing? Going to the police?"

"Not exactly. But he has a lot of family on the force, and I'm counting on the fact that he doesn't want his shady past exposed to the light too brightly. Some crimes can't be swept under the rug, no matter how many cousins have your back."

"No. He is a liar and a manipulator, Cole. Whatever he said to you was what he thought you wanted to hear. That's how he operates. Hell, he almost convinced me that he had a falling out with Trey."

"If there is one thing Brandon is useful for, it's getting you what you want, not just talking about it." Cole has his eyes fixed on the road and determination is etched in his stern expression. One hand is on the wheel and the other in his lap. His arm muscles are ropey from the tension I can feel pouring off of him.

I take his hand. "Just promise you won't do anything stupid and get in trouble."

The flicker of a dark grin teases his lips. "I can't promise anything of the sort. All I promise is to do whatever it takes to make this right for you and her."

I gulp, a ring forming in my throat. No one has ever fought for me. I don't know how I feel about it. Angry? Happy?

Overwhelmed. I can't risk losing him.

But I need Emma back. And she needs me, more than anything else in the world.

We pull into a dilapidated neighborhood that I remember vaguely from my high school days, riding around with Trey. It's fallen into disrepair since then, though. Worse than my own house.

Is that who we are, my classmates and me? We use things up and let them fall to pieces?

He stops the camper in front of a house with aluminum foil on one of the back windows and a broken screen door. The lawn is overgrown with weeds, they choke the steps to the front door.

No. I decide. That's not who I am, in any case. That's not who Cole is. Life has been swinging punches in our direction since we were kids. We aren't using anything up. We are going to build something. Together.

*** What does Cole have in mind and will it backfire? He stands to lose everything now that he has Jordan again! Thanks for reading and hit the star!!! ***