Read Online Forbidden by Abbie Williams - Free Book Online

someone pounded down the porch steps.
    Bryce froze.
    Quick, quick, quick! Her heart kickstarted and then proceeded to slam into her breastbone like a fist. For a second she didn’t think she would be able to swallow the food in her mouth. Holy shit, holy shit . Think of something, quick , Bryce!
    â€œI’ll help,” she said, keeping her voice level with tremendous effort. She could not think past getting out of the kitchen and seeing for herself.
    Erica looked over at her in surprise. “That’s all right, honey, you don’t have to—”
    â€œI don’t mind,” she said, and forced herself to walk rather than sprint from the kitchen; the second she was in the hall and out of their sight she raced, out the screen door and down the steps and then…and then—a man, a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man was walking back up to the house with an armload of paper bags—
    She whimpered in the back of her throat as she realized that it was him, her blood reversing course with the strength of a tidal wave, pounding into the channels of her veins, blooming in her cheeks and lips and nipples, and before she had total control of her feelings, joy swept in with a force all its own, singing through her blood for a burning instant in which her arms were reaching for him…
    He stopped abruptly and the paper bags fell to the ground. He crossed the distance to within 12 inches of her, his hands reaching for her, too. He breathed hard through his nose, his eyes intensely dark as he gripped her upper arms almost painfully and blinked once, a man trying to convince himself otherwise. No words. He stared into her eyes as though hypnotized, clutching her arms in his huge hands, his heart crashing against his ribs.
    â€œIt’s you,” she whispered, fisting her hands around the material of his shirt, trying to bring him closer to her against all reason. She could feel the way his heart was thundering and her own responded in kind. “Oh my God, it’s you.” She was babbling. “What are you doing—how can you be—”
    â€œBryce,” he spoke her name as though it was beloved on his tongue. “Bryce.”
    â€œTell me your—”
    â€œMatthew,” he told her, his voice shaking slightly. “Matthew Sternhagen.”
    And her hands fell away from him as she fully understood.

Chapter Four
    Rose Lake, Minnesota – Monday, June 19, 1995
    A mazingly, everyone inside the house was still calmly eating. Matthew opened the screen door and called, “We’ll be right there,” to no one in particular, keeping his voice steady and lighthearted with immense effort. Bryce was standing rigid in the small orange glow of the front porch light, around which moths were already beating. Above her head the evening sky was a mellow baby-blue, a perfect backdrop to crisply outline the pine trees in solid black. Bryce hugged herself hard enough to leave bruises and yet still without enough pressure to keep her heart from spilling out onto the grass at her immobile feet.
    Matthew came down the porch steps and asked her quietly, “Will you come with me for a second?” Politely, as though his tongue had never traced butterfly wings between her legs, as though her ankles had never been locked around his hips. His back probably still had scratch marks from her fingernails; her right shoulder still bore a pink, ragged-edged circle from his teeth.
    She couldn’t bring herself to speak and he couldn’t bear the look in her eyes in the porch light, so huge and distraught, ripping him straight through the heart. He wanted to grab her and run away from here, run anywhere…and just as desperately, he knew he could not. She didn’t move, and he whispered, “Please, Bryce?”
    She could tell he had spoken her name aloud since two days ago. Finally she whispered, “Okay.”
    She followed him, staring at the back of his shirt in