Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

I had climbed off of Tate’s lap before I told him what had happened and now I’m watching him nervously as his hands clench and unclench around the steering wheel. His whole body has gone rigid and I can tell from the way that he’s staring out of the front window that there’s only one thought in his mind right now.

He punches on the engine and grabs the gear stick.

“Tate, no!” I shriek. “You can’t drive like this!” I wrap my hand over his and his head snaps to face me. In the darkness of the car his eyes are burning red. He shoves the car back into Park and pulls me back on top of him.

“I thought that you… all this time I’ve thought that you…” He folds his lips into his mouth and takes a few scarily deep breaths, the rise and fall of his chest so extreme that my eyelids start fluttering. He surveys me up and down, his rigid jaw clenched, and a shiver runs through me. “I want to kill him, River. I really want to kill him.”

I hide my face in his neck, nodding gently before nuzzling into his warm skin.

“I don’t even know if I should touch you right now,” he admits quietly, his voice rough. I don’t know if he means that he shouldn’t touch me because I just told him about being sexually assaulted, or because he’s so angry that he doesn’t know what he’s capable of, but I have had years to come to terms with being touched by Hudson, and now the only thing that I want is for Tate to wipe the memory of him out of my brain forever. I lean forward, pressing my lips to his, and I make the decision for him.

He moans when I stroke my way up his shirt, his hard abs flexing beneath my fingers, and he gently fills my mouth with the length of his tongue. His hands knead me from behind and he slowly rocks his hips upwards, rhythmically sensitising me until I’m panting.

“I’m going to take you to my place right now,” he murmurs, moving his mouth from mine. “We can’t do this out here. No one else gets to see you like this.”

He runs one of his hands over the dip in my waist and then he reaches up to my chest, where he splays out his palm and squeezes, massaging me gently until I’m gripping my fingers into his sides.

“Tate,” I whisper warningly.

“One more minute, baby,” he murmurs, and his lips trail down the centre of my neck.

I close my eyes and sigh. In one more minute I’ll be comatose.

My stomach is swarming with butterflies. I rub my body against Tate’s, thinking about how I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to make it to his house. I have no idea where he lives and I want to see what it looks like. I love that he wants to take me there and have me inside of his secret space. I love everything about right now.

I love it so much that I open my eyes as Tate kisses along my collarbone, but instead of looking down to watch his mouth sucking my skin and his hand softly teasing my breast, my eyes lock onto the face grinning at me straight through the window.

I scream and immediately roll off of Tate’s lap, hiding my body behind his side. “Shit!” I shriek, panicked. Ice drops straight through my stomach and, if I wasn’t about to pass out, I think I would be sick. It takes Tate a moment to recalibrate but as soon as he sees what I’m seeing he pushes me to the other side of the car and whips the shirt hanging over the shoulder of his chair on top of me. He’s out of the car before I even blink.

Hudson is backing away from him but his mouth is still spread into a sly smile. I knew that I saw him. What the fuck is he doing here? How did he know where we were?

My blood runs cold. Does he know that I live here?

Hudson puts the bed of the truck between his body and Tate’s, and they both grip the sides as they stare at each other – Hudson gleeful, Tate murderous. My hands are shaking as I fumble to pull the shirt up my arms and I numbly click the truck door open, ready to grab Tate and get the hell out of here.

“Tight for a little slut isn’t she?” Hudson snickers as I come into view, wrapping my hands around Tate’s tensed forearm and futilely trying to pull him back inside the car.

Tate moves his head from side to side, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders, and then he murmurs quietly so that only I can hear him, “Let go for one minute baby.”

“What was that?” Hudson shouts over, cupping a hand to his ear. His cockiness makes him drift back around to us, seemingly underestimating the muscle mass that Tate keeps hidden under his unassuming clothes. Tate’s body is vibrating under my fingers. The last thing that I want to do is let go of him because I know that, if I do, he will immediately begin pulverising Hudson, and as much as I too have fantasised about strapping Hudson down and cutting him into long meaty ribbons, I don’t want the repercussions of public assault to come back to Tate.

“Tate, let’s go,” I whisper, my eyes pleading up at him.

He stares down at me and I almost shiver at how intimidating he looks. His body is rock solid and I can feel the pheromones radiating from him as he eyes me up and down, his breathing heavy. “Get back in the car,” he tells me. “I need to take care of this, and then, after that, I’ll…” He inhales deeply as he drags his eyes away from my lips, up to my eyes. I can read his mind. I know exactly what he’s thinking.

And then, after that, I’ll take care of you.

I nod and slowly let go, but as soon as my fingertips leave Tate’s arm I hear the sharp smack of skin on skin.

My eyes flash in shock to Hudson’s fist, which only two seconds ago was meeting Tate’s jaw. Unflinching, Tate hasn’t moved a millimetre. His eyebrow arches as his hand goes up to stroke his cheek and a bemused look crosses his face as his eyes finally flick back down to Hudson.

And then he smiles.

In the next moment Hudson is shoved down and pinned to the blacktop, with one of Tate’s hands wrapped around his throat and both of his thighs straddling his waist. His other hand is squeezing Hudson’s wrists together, unfazed by his attempts to free himself, as he grits out to him, “You touched her? You touched my girl, huh? And now you’re waiting outside my truck as if I’m not about to fuck you up?”

Hudson spits blood out of his mouth, as if he’s badly bitten his tongue from when his head hit the road, and with a hint of smugness in his voice he rasps out, “You know that you can’t do shit to me.”

This time Tate laughs. “Oh yeah?” he asks, and then, letting go of Hudson’s wrists, he pounds his fist into his cheek. Hudson’s head smacks sideways into the road, both sides of his face split and swollen when he twists back around to Tate.

Hudson makes a low pained sound but he keeps his hoarse voice neutral. “You know, I didn’t expect you to bring a girlfriend to your dad’s housewarming, so things must be pretty serious there.” He spits again, and then loudly whispers, “But just remember, I got there first.”

Hudson’s head is yanked forward and then Tate slams it back against the road. Tate stands up, hovering over him with his hands clutching the loop-holes of his jeans and, for one moment, from looking at Tate’s face, I think that he’s about to piss on him.

But then new lights and noises appear from Mitch’s house and three people come running out. The first person looks so much like Mitch that I realise he must be the uncle – Jason – who I hadn’t got around to meeting. His brow is sterner and his stubble is darker, making him appear formidable as he storms towards us. Then behind him-

Oh no. No, no, no.

Behind Jason is Mitch and my mom, holding hands as they run over to us.

“Jason heard you through the fucking double-glazing, Tate,” Mitch thunders, and they all abruptly stop, seeing Hudson tentatively trying to sit himself upright against the curb. Mitch’s eyes are wide. “What the hell is going on?”

I’m thinking the exact same question. Why the fuck is Hudson here?

Tate’s eyes flick from Hudson to his dad, but just as he opens his mouth to speak a completely unexpected voice rings out.

“Why are your pants open, River?”

My mom has stepped away from Mitch, and she cocks her head to the side as her eyes linger on my crotch. I look down at myself as if I’m not about to see my fly wide open but, sure enough, my jeans are exactly as they were five minutes ago, when my mom’s boyfriend’s son was one minute away from fucking me in his truck.

As my head snaps up to try and explain this to my mom, her eyes have already made their way across to Tate, whose clothing is in similar disarray, his open belt swinging rigidly down the long length of his groin.

Her hands shoot up to her mouth and she stifles her gasp. Her eyes meet mine and she’s disbelievingly shaking her head. Her voice is garbled behind her hand but I can hear her loud and clear. “Oh you stupid girl,” she whispers. I cringe as her words slice through me.

Tate moves his body in front of mine and I take the reprieve from their eyes to fasten my pants. I want to grab onto Tate’s shirt and press myself into him but now isn’t the time.

Will I ever have the chance to do that again?

As if he can read my mind, Tate moves his right hand so that it’s resting palm-out against his lower back, and he flexes it in invitation. I don’t know who needs the comfort more right now but I immediately envelop his hand in mine, and I wrap the other tightly around his wrist.

Hudson heaves himself up from the ground and he makes a spluttering laugh, despite the lopsided stance that he is currently sporting. He makes a vague gesture between me and my mom and then says, directly to Tate, “Wait. Are you… No way. Are you two, like, step-siblings?” His eyes are glinting so brightly they look radioactive. He coughs wetly after another laugh and then he says with unabashed glee, “Please tell me that that’s her mom.”

My mom speaks up. I can’t see her from behind the protective muscle-shield in front of me but, from her tone, I can tell that she’s talking to Tate. “Are you serious? Is this a joke to you?” I hear her step closer. “You know how smart she is, right? You know that she’s going to be leaving for college.”

Tate’s shoulders bristle and I immediately have a new-found understanding for why he’s been so cautious around me whenever he saw my pre-college work and applications.

Aware that this might be a sensitive subject for Tate, especially considering what he told me tonight, Mitch steps in.

“Come on, they’re just kids,” Mitch says, his tone placating. Then it turns stern. “I’m more concerned about why my son is beating up the kid of a cop.”

I pause. Hudson’s dad is a cop?

Tate rolls the muscles in his back and says, low and gruff, “Self-defence. He threw the first punch.”

My mind rewinds back to Tate’s predatory patience with Hudson, and I marvel up at the smooth caramel skin above the neckline of his shirt. So that’s why he was waiting him out – so that when he did hit him back, he wouldn’t be obliged to stop. A warm sparkle spreads through my chest and I feel a primal sense of belonging, almost enough to make me smile, even in this hideous situation. But just as quickly as the little swarm of butterflies flutter in my stomach, a cold chill of premonition begins to still me, trickling slowly down my body.

How does Mitch know who Hudson’s dad is?

Worse still, how does Mitch know who Hudson is?

I don’t have time to process this information as my mom incredulously spins to Mitch, a dry laugh choking out of her. “‘They’re just kids’?” she repeats, her voice deadly calm. “Maybe your son is just a kid, but my daughter is anything fucking but.”

I squeeze Tate’s hand in mine as his arm grows rigid with tension, and he manages the tiniest little press in response. I peer around his shoulder to look up at his beautiful face and its intentional blankness makes my heart constrict painfully.

My mom whips around to face me as soon as I come back into view. “Please tell me that I’m wrong about this,” she demands, her brow raised into a venomous arch.

I have no intention of saying anything in front of Hudson so the only word I say is, “Mom.”

She’s shaking her head. It’s worse than disbelief – it’s disappointment.

Why is the one thing that I want the most, the thing that my mom wants for me the least?

Mitch exchanges an unspoken dialogue with his brother, and Jason retreats up the driveway, heading to the garage. Mitch looks between my mom and me, his authoritative big-dick calm apparently here to save the day. “Look, I didn’t mean it like that. River’s a great kid, very smart, I know. I meant that they’re young and they have a history-”

“A history?” My mom’s eyes are electrocuting. Mitch flinches and looks away from her, his hands shoved in his pockets. She spins back to me. “What the hell does he mean, ‘a history’?”

Hudson stifles a guffaw and suddenly I wish that Tate had urinated on him.

My mom turns back to Mitch, her voice far too controlled. “Why are you so calm about this?” she asks. Mitch looks down at her narrowed, searching eyes and his responding gaze is hard. She tilts her head as if she’s navigating her way through his brain and then she crosses her arms, her brow softening. “Tell me you didn’t know about this,” she says, her tone so unnervingly gentle that even I wince. “Tell me that you weren’t aware about what your son was doing to her.”

Doing to her? I recoil. The irony of my mom demonising Tate, especially when he’s stood right in front of Hudson, is not lost on me.

“It’s not like that,” I say, no longer in control of the words coming out of my mouth.

“Don’t talk,” my mom snaps.

“Hey,” Mitch barks and he moves to stand in front of her. If Tate wasn’t so tall, Mitch would be blocking my mom’s view of both Tate and me completely. “Enough, alright? They aren’t doing a damn thing wrong. There’s no need for you to be going in on her like this, because these are two trustworthy kids-”

“You want to talk about trust?” she replies, her voice cold.

The silence grows and grows until I’m suddenly aware of how freaking freezing it is out here. I look at my hands wrapped around Tate and I’m ghostly. When I exhale through my mouth a dove-grey wisp billows and evaporates into the clear black night.

My mom steps to the side so that she can see me behind my wall of Coleson men. Her eyes are disappointed but I know that there is a maternal sentiment in there. “Get inside and pack your things,” she tells me. “We’re going back to ours for a little while.”

My breathing pauses. We are literally at the housewarming party for her and her boyfriend, and she wants us to move back into her old house now?!

Tate’s hand is suddenly a vice and I’m not sure that I could pry myself away from him even if I wanted to.

“Now,” she shouts, with more severity this time.

“You should let go of her Tate,” Hudson burrs, dawdling along the curb so that he can catch my eyes. I absolutely refuse to look at him, and I inch further behind Tate. “Don’t want me calling my dad out here, do we?”

The threat would seem embarrassing for a nineteen year old to be throwing around if I hadn’t just become aware that Hudson’s dad is a cop, but something about the insinuation behind his words has the dip between my shoulder blades prickling. Why did he say it like that?

My mom twists her head to appraise Hudson and she cocks an eyebrow. “Exactly who are you?”

Hudson grins at her and then looks back at Tate. “Yeah, Tate. Who exactly am I?”

Mitch folds his arms across his pecs and glowers over to Hudson. “Shut up.”

Hudson looks at my mom again and I want to shove my fist down his throat. “Tate and I go way back. We’re, like-” he stares pointedly at Tate “-really close.”

Tate flexes his free hand, itching to put it to work, and he grits out, “Not by choice.”

There’s an uncomfortable palpable tension in the air and my earlier fears are resurfacing. What is not being said right now? What else don’t I know?

Hudson jerks his chin at me and it causes me to instinctively glance at him. I know he’s speaking to me but I look away anyway. “Wanna know how I came to be here tonight?” he taunts. “Albeit, I actually didn’t know that you would be here. But word got back to me from town that you’d been together at the diner, so I thought, seeing as there was a party going on, it was the perfect opportunity to come and see. And lo and behold…” he trails off, a triumphant smile on his face. It looks sinister when juxtaposed to the blood drying on his cheeks.

I’m still standing behind Tate but my eyes are locked in with Mitch. He’s got that apprehensive worried-for-me look on his face that makes my intestines constrict. My face is so ashen you would think that I was dead.

How did Hudson know about the party at Mitch’s house tonight?

Sensing the secret dialogue happening between Mitch and me, Hudson turns to Mitch with renewed vigour. “Thanks for the invite by the way. Obviously Pam wasn’t gonna come, but it was real gentlemanly of you to ask.”

Pam?

Hudson’s eyes hone in on Tate, and I feel his entire form swell. My mom is looking between the two of them, unaware of the significance of the exchange but suspicious about the mounting testosterone levels. Mitch keeps his eyes on me the whole time, shaking his head slowly as the realisation finally punches through the surface.

The reason why Mitch knows Hudson. The reason why Mitch knows Hudson’s dad.

The reason why Tate and Hudson had to be friends at school. The reason why they shared everything.

The reason why Hudson left school at the exact same time that Tate did, when Tate was moving house with his mom.

I stumble one step backwards as it all falls into place.

Pamela is the name of Tate’s mom, and she just so happened to be dating a guy who was a cop three years ago.

It can only mean one thing.

Hudson is Tate’s step-brother.