Free One Night in the Ice Storm by Noelle Adams Page A

serious for you—especially after you started going out with guys all the
time your senior year. He thought you’d been fine in ending things with him.”
    “I
wasn’t fine,” she rasped. “I was…heart-broken.”
    “But
you never let him see that. You never let me see it either, by the way. I knew
it bothered you more than you said, but I didn’t know how much. What were we
supposed to think?”
    It
was too much. Just too, too much. She couldn’t begin to process it.
    “I’ve
got to go,” Brad said in a different voice. “Mom’s coming down. We’ll be there
in a little while. I’d suggest that, if there’s any way you can fix this, you
try.”
    He
hung up then, and Rachel just sat on the couch, staring down at the silent
phone in her hand.
    She
was so dazed that she didn’t even hear a car pull up the drive. And she barely
processed the sound of the side door opening and someone moving through the
kitchen and into the living room.
    She
blinked when she saw David stride toward the couch, looking intent, determined,
and simmering with nameless emotion.
    He
leaned over and pulled her to her feet. Then he cupped her face with both
calloused hands. “I have something to say, and you’re going to listen to me,”
he told her, almost roughly.
    She
blinked at him again, excitement and something deeper rising in her chest like
a flood. She opened her mouth.
    “No,”
he continued, as if he needed to keep her from saying words her throat was
incapable of articulating. “You’re going to listen to me right now. What
happened last night was not casual. It wasn’t just physical. I don’t care what
you’re trying to make yourself believe, but it wasn’t. There’s something real
between us. There’s always been something real. I know I blew it when we were
teenagers, but you don’t know the whole story with that. I can’t explain it to
you, but I never wanted to stop seeing you back then. I never wanted to not be
with you. What we had then was real, and what we have now is real too. And I’m
not going to just give up on it because you’re trying to run away.”
    She
gaped at him, rather stupidly. Her mind and heart and body were all a whirl of
feeling.
    “I
should have said something before, but I didn’t think I mattered to you
anymore. But after last night…I do matter to you, and you’re not going
to make me believe otherwise. Maybe I pretend to be completely self-sufficient,
and maybe you pretend to be invincible. But neither of those things is true. I
need you, Rachel. And—you might not want to admit it—but you need me too.”
    Something
about his hoarse, earnest declaration broke through the stupor in her mind. She
gasped out, “You need me?”
    He’d
been gripping her upper-arms, as if she might try to slip away, but now he
moved his hands back up to her face again. “I need you. I want you. I’m just no
good without you. I’ve wanted to be with you for most of my life, and that’s
never going to change. Can you please at least consider the possibility?”
    She
opened her mouth one more time, but the words were trapped in her throat. Her
vision was blurry with tears, which she tried to blink away, since she wanted
to keep seeing David’s hungry, tender eyes.
    “You
can talk now,” he murmured, with an irresistible twitch of his mouth. “I’ve
said my piece.”
    A
bubble of amusement burst, and she threw herself against his chest. “I need you
too. I want you too.”
    With
a rough groan, he wrapped her in his arms, hugging her so tightly her ribs
hurt.
    “Oh,
thank God,” she heard him murmur against her hair.
    She
was smiling as she finally pulled away, happiness flooding her heart, her
expression. “I talked to Brad just now. He told me.”
    David
lowered his brows, despite the fact that he was clearly spilling over with the
same feeling she was. “He told you what?”
    “He
told me what happened. About Grandpa. And everything.”
    “He
shouldn’t have told you. He