Chapter 1: Rain and a Reckless Kiss
The rain smeared the world outside the bar’s window into a watercolor of grays and muted neon. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of damp denim, cheap beer, and something deeper—old wood and older regret. Sera traced a finger through the condensation on her glass, watching the ring it left behind. Her whiskey sour was mostly melted ice now, the sour sweetness long gone.Just like everything else.
She’d been here an hour, maybe two. Time blurred when you were trying to forget the exact shade of disappointment in someone’s eyes when they said it wasn’t you, it was them, but actually, yeah, it was definitely you.
The door opened, letting in a gust of wet, chill air and the low rumble of the storm.She didn’t look up. She was in that stage of misery where every new person was just another potential source of irritation.
Then the stool beside her creaked under a significant weight. She felt him before she saw him—a shift in the atmosphere, a solid, quiet presence that seemed to absorb the noisy chaos of the bar. She knew that presence.Elias Thorne slid onto the stool, his movements unhurried, certain. He didn’t look at her immediately. He nodded to the bartender, a guy with a tattooed sleeve and a perpetual scowl.“Two shots of Jameson. Neat.”
His voice was a rough thing, weathered like his hands. It did something to the pit of Sera’s stomach, a low, unsettling pull.Finally, he turned his head. His profile was all hard lines and softened edges, silver streaking through the dark hair at his temples. He’d been a firefighter once. She could still see it in the breadth of his shoulders under his flannel shirt, in the way he held himself, like he was braced for impact but too tired to care.
“Rough night?” he asked, his eyes scanning her face.He saw everything.Always had.
Sera forced a laugh, sharp and brittle. “Is it that obvious?”
“You’re chewing your lip,” he said simply. “You only do that when you think no one’s looking.”
The bartender slid two glasses of amber liquid in front of them. Elias picked one up, held it for a moment, then pushed the other toward her.“Drink it. It’ll burn the taste of him out of your mouth.”
She picked up the glass, their fingers brushing. A static shock, tiny and profound. “You’re presumptuous.”
“I’m observant.” He knocked his shot back in one smooth motion, his throat working as he swallowed. He didn’t wince.Sera followed suit. The whiskey was a fireball down her throat, spreading heat through her chilled chest.It did burn.It felt good.
Silence settled between them, comfortable in a way it never should have been.He was her best friend’s father. He was twenty-one years older. He was a monument to a life she couldn’t fathom, a man carved from grief and silence. And she had spent a stupid, secret part of her adolescence and every year after cataloguing the sound of his laugh, the way his hands looked holding a coffee mug, the sad, quiet lines around his eyes.
“I’m tired, Sera,” he said, his voice so low she almost didn’t hear it over the jukebox twang. He wasn’t looking at her now; he was staring at his own reflection in the bottle-lined mirror behind the bar.
“Of what?”
“Of this.” He gestured vaguely, a sweep of his calloused hand that took in the empty stool on his other side, the whole dim, lonely bar. “Of the quiet. Of pretending I don’t notice things.”
Her heart began a slow, heavy thud against her ribs. “What things?”
He turned then, and his eyes weren’t quiet at all.They were a storm. He looked at her—really looked—and it felt like being seen for the first time in years. “You.”
He stood up abruptly, the legs of his stool scraping against the worn floorboards.He tossed a twenty on the bar. “I’m going to the head.Don’t leave.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a command, and something hot and rebellious flickered in her belly. Who was he to tell her what to do? But her body was moving before her mind caught up, sliding off her own stool, her legs unsteady from the whiskey and the seismic shift in the room.
The bathroom was in the back, a single, grimy unisex door with a broken lock.She pushed it open.
The light was a bare, buzzing bulb. Elias stood at the porcelain urinal, his back to her, shoulders tensed.He didn’t turn. He was in the middle of taking a piss, a steady, powerful stream hitting the water.He was fully exposed, and her breath caught.
She’d imagined, in the secret, shameful corners of the night, what he might look like. Reality was different.He was thick, heavy in his hand, ruddy and solid even soft. A prominent vein ran along the length.He was all masculine power, even in this vulnerable act. She watched, hypnotized, as he finished, gave himself a rough shake, and tucked himself back into his jeans.Then he turned, zipping his fly.His face was unreadable. “Curious?”
Her mouth was dry. “Yes.”
He took two steps and she was against the cold tiled wall, his body caging hers.He didn’t kiss her. He just looked, his eyes tracing her lips, her wild hair, the frantic pulse in her throat. The smell of him—sawdust, Irish whiskey, clean male sweat—filled her senses.
“Elias,” she whispered, a plea and a warning.That was all it took. His mouth crashed down on hers, not gentle, not exploratory, but claiming. It was a decade of silence, of watching, of loneliness, poured into a single, desperate point of contact. His tongue pushed past her lips, tasting of whiskey and something inherently him. She moaned, her hands coming up to clutch at the soft flannel of his shirt, pulling him closer.
He kissed like he was starving, and she was the first real meal he’d had in years. One of his big hands cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling in her curls, while the other slid down her spine, pressing her into the unyielding line of his body.
She felt it then, the hard, insistent ridge of his erection pressing into her belly through the layers of their clothes. It was massive, a blunt, demanding pressure that made her whimper. He ground against her, a slow, filthy roll of his hips that left no room for misunderstanding.
“Fuck,” he growled against her mouth, his breath hot.“You feel that?That’s what you do to me. What you’ve always done.”
He was rock solid, a relentless pressure that promised both ruin and revelation. His hips pushed forward again, the denim of his jeans rough against the thin cotton of her dress. She could feel the specific, daunting length of him.It should have scared her. It just made her wet.
One of his hands left her back, sliding down to grip her thigh, hiking her leg up around his hip. The new angle pressed his cock directly against the aching heart of her, and she cried out, a sharp, broken sound swallowed by his kiss.
“Elias,” she gasped, tearing her mouth from his. “What are you doing?”