He killed the engine truck’s engine and got out and she sat for a second before following him out of the truck and heading toward the cabin. It was small, and she knew that there would’ve been no cooling or heat running in it for a while, but it didn’t matter. The heat of the day was done, and it would be perfectly nice inside. And still she shivered.
She went ahead and pushed the door open. It was simple and small inside, a bed that was barely big enough for two shoved into the corner.
And it loomed large.
But she wasn’t going to let nerves have this moment. She wasn’t going to let anything but desire have it. Because hadn’t she been through enough? It didn’t matter that he was leaving. It didn’t matter what he thought. It didn’t matter that he was saying all these things about wanting to know her. None of it mattered. What mattered was this. What mattered was her finally getting what she wanted, and maybe, just maybe, it would be the thing that she needed in order to get some closure. Yeah. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe it was what she needed to be...to be her again. To be the woman that someone wanted to be around. To be the Arizona she’d been before she’d had her heart broken, and then broken herself.
So she banished all of her misgivings. Pushed them to the side. Because this was her moment. Her reclamation. Because nobody got to decide what this moment was except for her. And she decided that it was going to be liberating. That it was going to be fun, and that she wasn’t going to overthink it. So she was the one to close the distance between them this time. She stretched up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. And she felt... She was breathing him in. Tasting him. This man who had been her deepest, darkest fantasy all those years ago. And it wasn’t even because she had wanted him. Or at least, not simply because of that. It was because she had cared. And she had always wanted to keep that part of herself protected.
Always.
It was just so damned difficult. All of this.
All of it. But this didn’t feel difficult. It felt wonderful. It felt glorious.
And yeah, he would find things out about her when she took her clothes off. But she couldn’t worry about it. She couldn’t make it about him. She wouldn’t make it about him. So she kissed him, and she luxuriated in this moment. In this moment where she was getting what she wanted. This moment where she had this victory. Because she did. This wonderful, decisive victory of this man being here after all these years. And maybe, just maybe, if she saw this moment as inevitable, it took away some of the sting of regret.
Just maybe.
They weren’t meant to be. She wasn’t quite that foolish. And anyway, they were strangers.
Effectively.
Her teenage love didn’t matter. Not now. But her adult desire did. So she kissed him. With everything she had. With everything she was. And she luxuriated in the textures of it all. The heat of his mouth, the feel of his stubble beneath her fingertips. And she was lost in it. In him.
She kissed him like she might die if she didn’t, and considering she had very nearly died when he left, it didn’t feel like a totally overdramatic metaphor. No. It didn’t feel overdramatic at all. His hands were rough, and suddenly she realized they were coming up beneath her shirt, and internally, she cringed. Because while most of the scars were concentrated on the lower portion of her body, there was some pretty significant scarring on her torso as well.
But she wasn’t going to act like it mattered. She wouldn’t. He paused, and her heart stopped beating.
“Micah...”
“Condoms,” he said.
“Do you not just have them in your wallet?”
“No.”
Well, shoot. She didn’t have any form of birth control, because she had never needed it.
“Let me just...” She separated from him and scurried over to the nightstand next to the bed. Praying that she wasn’t going to open it to find a scorpion or a mouse, she did so quickly, and breathed out a sigh of relief when she found a box of condoms. And inside there were several perfectly sealed packets.
“There’s a rotation of guys who come through here. I was hoping that I could count on men to be men.”
“I guess we should give thanks for the predictability of testosterone.”
“No kidding,” she said.
Because if she would have come this far only to be stalled out by birth control, she would’ve been pretty angry.
He was kissing her again, even more passionately than before, and this time, when his hands went beneath her shirt, they didn’t pause. She tried to keep her breathing steady, but it became difficult. She was aroused, and she was nervous, and the cocktail of the two was pretty undeniable.
It created the swirl of adrenaline that couldn’t be denied. And frankly, she had no interest in denying it.
Then he pushed her shirt up over her head, and her breath caught and held. He didn’t say anything. He moved his hands over her back, around to the front. His fingers skimmed the deep, biting grooves where twisted metal from the car had tried to take a bite out of her. But he said nothing.
His eyes moved to her breasts, his gaze going hungry. But he didn’t just grab her there or anything like that. He took his time. Rough hands skimming over her curves, working their way up, until his thumbs brushed her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra.
She shivered.
“Yes,” she whispered.
It was a soft sound, and she almost couldn’t believe something quite so pleading had come from her own mouth.
She almost loved it.
Almost loved it because it reminded her of another time. Another moment. And maybe she could cast herself back and be eighteen-year-old Arizona, who had wanted all of this with so much passion that the end of it had...
And suddenly all this emotion welled up inside of her, and she understood why she wanted to run from it. Because when she’d been hurt before she had been self-destructive. In a real, serious way. Because when she had been hurt before, she had done her level best to destroy her own self.
Because when she’d been hurt before, that had been catastrophic. But not here. Not now. And it felt like justice that he was the one that had to contend with the scars. And right in that moment, she took it as justice. As her due.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice verging on reverence and awe, and that small mean thing inside of her seemed to evaporate.
Because he didn’t make her feel like a punishment. He made her feel like a gift. And that wasn’t anything she was familiar with. Not now. Not anymore.
“Micah,” she whispered.
He reached around and unhooked her bra, his eyes hungry as he took in the sight of her.
And she wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t let herself. Because Arizona King didn’t cry, not anymore.