Hell Without You Read Online Free

front of the house, turning into the driveway.
    They walked inside together, bodies beaten by the driven rain. Inside, she dripped on the kitchen tile, her chest tightening as she looked around.
    Some of the furniture was gone, as were all the pictures, but otherwise, it was just like she remembered it. Even the smell was the same, a part of the house. “Thanks for letting me wait out the rain here,” she said when a not-so-small puddle had formed at her feet.
    It felt weird to say, even to Donovan. Her heart didn’t recognize deeds or closing papers any more than the house itself did. It was her grandmother’s place – always would be – no matter who owned it. Everything surrounding her was familiar, from the old hand-carved crown molding to the wide arch that separated the kitchen from the hallway. The cherry wood cabinets were ones her grandmother had chosen during a kitchen remodel a decade ago, and the oven was the same one she’d used. The kitchen fixtures sent dual pangs of nostalgia and guilt sailing through Clementine.
    Donovan wasn’t the only person she’d missed after leaving Willow Heights, or the only person she’d shortchanged.
    “Plenty of extra rooms.” Donovan pulled off his boots and walked past her, all traces of song and humor gone from his voice. “No reason why you can’t stay in one.”
    She stiffened inside her wet clothing, her thoughts drifting automatically to the second room on the right upstairs, the one with the grey and cream fleur-de-lis wallpaper. “Surely I won’t need to stay that late. I’ll just wait out the rain.”
    Donovan paused at the foot of the stairs, turning. “Like you said, it’s flooding.” He cocked his head toward the nearest window. “But yeah, you’re welcome to wait it out. However long that takes.”
    Judging by the tone of his voice, he had a very different idea of how much time she’d need to spend there than she did. It was hard to argue convincingly when she no longer had a drivable car. But it didn’t matter, at the moment. She could ask him for a ride across town when the weather cleared, probably in a few hours.
    He retreated up the staircase, leaving her to continue dripping on the floor. When he returned maybe two minutes later, he was dressed in dry jeans and a t-shirt.
    Unfortunately.
    “Here.” He tossed her a towel.
    She caught it and clung to it, wrapping it around her shoulders. It was half-soaked within seconds.
    “You should take off those wet clothes,” Donovan said.
    Something flashed in his eyes, and it wasn’t clear whether he was teasing or giving her another safety lecture, like he had with the tires.
    “I would if I had something else to put on.” No way was she going to lounge around in Donovan’s presence in nothing but a towel, even if the idea did have her entire body tingling. Especially because the idea had her entire body tingling. God knew that after the afternoon she’d had so far, she needed to hold on to whatever vestiges of dignity she had left. “I should’ve gotten my suitcase out of the trunk of my car.”
    She couldn’t have pulled it behind herself, not through the floodwater. She could have retrieved it when Donovan had driven her back to her vehicle, but she’d been too distracted then to think of it.
    “I’ll go get it.” He was halfway to the door before she could protest. “You stay here. Take a shower or something. Just get out of those clothes.”
    “Be careful,” she said after hesitating. The roads were bad, but he had that big four wheel drive truck, and she longed for a dry pair of jeans, a fresh sweater.
    Silent, he held out a hand.
    “What? Oh.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her key ring.
    Her fingertips brushed his palm as she surrendered her keys. Like a flash of lightning, heat swept through her, sudden and striking. She would’ve sworn the hair on the back of her neck stood up, warning her that something life-altering was imminent.
    The feeling was gone as