Even though somewhere in the dark reaches of her mind, the parts that she’d tried to shut down, she hoped that it was love. That even at its dirtiest and basest, it could be love.
The physical didn’t lie. Even this kind of sex with Jack felt like love. She wished she could get that notion out of her head, but she didn’t want to let go of it, either. She wanted both. She wanted it all. She wanted everything with him. And she couldn’t deny that she felt the flicker of hope that he wanted it all too.
“Oh God, I’m going to come, too,” he groaned. “Can I come in you?”
“Yes,” she told him, loving that he asked her permission before he released himself into a new part of her body.
* * *
Some point later, after he’d cleaned her with the towel, he drew a warm bath. He carried her to the tub, then washed her all over, dried her and brought her back to bed.
“Thank you,” he murmured as he kissed her neck.
“Thank you?”
“For giving me all of you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. Then he brushed her hair from her ear.
She wished he were whispering in her ear right now. Telling her he felt the same way she did. God, it was so fucking pathetic to want to be loved this badly.
But there was only silence. A silence she wanted to fill with all she felt for him.
She could taste the words she wanted to say. She could feel them take shape on her tongue. They were longing to escape her lips.
I want you to have all of me. I’m in love with you.
She’d tried. She’d tried so fucking hard to put the genie back into the bottle. She’d worked so hard to treat this only as sex. But it was impossible. The heart wanted what the heart wanted, and that was him. All of him for all of her. She swallowed thickly, trying desperately to get rid of that lump in her throat. But then an errant tear slipped from the corner of her eye, landing on the sheets.
He watched it fall, then kissed her eyelids. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes,” she said, because it was true.
She wished she could slide Jack back into the slot she’d reserved for him. But she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her back. She had no one to blame but herself.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Blunt
He was a world-class asshole. He couldn’t do this to her. He was a ticking time-bomb, and he could explode at any minute. He didn’t trust himself. He didn’t trust his instincts.
Awake since four in the morning, he sat parked on the couch, his head in his hands. He’d worked for a few hours, pounding out answers to emails, dealing with business issues with Casey. He’d gone for a walk, leaving behind a note that jet-lag had beaten him and he would be back with bread and croissants. He had them in a bag on the coffee table, and now he was waiting for her to finish her shower. She didn’t know he’d returned, and he didn’t know what he was going to say. But he had to tell her the truth. She’d opened up to him on everything, and he’d given her nothing.
Soon, he heard the water stop running, then a few minutes later she emerged, her hair sleek and wet. A towel was wrapped around her body.
She smiled the second she saw him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “See? Two mornings in a row. I’m still not a dragon.”
He could barely crack a grin in response. But he tried. For her. “And you still have ten toes.”
She wiggled them. “Have you been up for a while?” she asked and joined him on the couch, tucking her feet underneath her.
He shook his head, heaved a sigh, and bit the bullet. “Listen, Michelle,” he began, and she sat ramrod straight.
“Listen, Michelle is never a good way to start a sentence.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, trying to ease her concerns. He reached for her hand, clasping it between his, but she drew hers back. She pressed her lips tight together and motioned for him to keep talking.
He had no choice. This was it. But hell, this was why he came to see her in the first place. He hadn’t been able to get the words out with Kana. They’d circled it and danced around it, but he’d never told her about the chain reaction his lack of love had set off. “I need to tell you the truth about Aubrey’s death,” he said as quickly as he could. This was the only way he could manage. Heave it up. No doubt it wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard someone toss his or her distorted emotions at her feet.
Her eyes widened in shock, and her features froze. Oh, shit. She thought he did it? Well, he might as well have. She scooted away from him.
“I didn’t kill her,” he said, backpedaling faster than he’d expected to.
She jumped up from the couch, one hand clasping the ends of the towel. “I didn’t say you did. And I’m honestly not even sure why you would say that.”
“Because of how you reacted,” he said, pointing at her retreating from him.
“I’m going to get dressed,” she said crisply, and he understood the implication loud and clear. She was not going to let herself be vulnerable during this conversation.
She moved to her suitcase and pulled on a bra and panties faster than he’d ever seen a woman slip on clothes.
Fuck this. He wasn’t going to mince words. “I broke off the engagement fifteen minutes before she died,” he said blurting it out, and he wanted to scream from the pain. It was worse than ripping off a Band-Aid. It was like slamming his hand into a car door. Everything he’d held inside for more than a year was exposed, and it hurt like a motherfucker.
“What?” she asked, blinking.
Even with the ache all over, the open, bleeding wound, he had to keep going. Get it all out. “It was a week before the wedding,” he said, each word like gravel in his mouth. “I took her to the mountains for the weekend, thinking that would be the best place to tell her the news that I didn’t want to marry her.” The bitter sting of regret rose up again. How wrong had he been? He should have told Aubrey in her apartment. He should have told her at a park. Anyplace else.
“You picked the mountains because she was a skier,” Michelle said softly, seeming to understand as she tugged on a skirt and a shirt. But even if his choice had made logical sense, it was the wrong choice.
“The mountains were her favorite place,” he said, with a scoff directed at himself. “I wanted her to be near something she loved when I delivered the news. After I told her, she got on the slopes, tore down the hill, and hit a tree,” he said, getting the last part out as clinically as he could so he wouldn’t have to feel the fresh devastation of the moment he learned she died all over again.