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“I’m not trying to dredge up old hurts—”
She opens her eyes and they’re hard, cold. The way I’ve never seen them. “But you are. You are. Right now, you are.” She leans f
orward. “I’ve gotten past it. Truly. It’s not the same as it used to be. I don’t feel angry or hurt. And now that you’ve explained yourself I understand the situation better. It’s good … having closure.”
“Closure? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I never understood what happened and now I know.”
I wait for more. Nothing more comes. “And that’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
She blinks once, twice. “Why should I have anything to say?”
I have to admit, she has me at a complete loss. I watch her face and hope for some sign of encouragement. Anything to hang onto, work with. “I’ve never stopped thinking about you. Did you never think of me?”
She looks down at the table. “I’ve never stopped thinking about you, either.”
Yes. I knew it. “You mean that?”
A casual shrug—or a shrug that’s meant to look casual. “Of course. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
“Then you can’t pretend that being here with me doesn’t mean anything to you. That Fate bringing us together like this doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does mean something. It was horrible when I thought I had misjudged you. That you never meant to meet up with me. That you had gotten what you wanted and were moving on. That you didn’t know how to let me down easy back at the hotel.” She shrugs. “It took me a long time to get over you. Then I grew up. I appreciated that it was just part of life. Hurts that we have to go through to become the people we are. It’s all in the past now. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did, for you, your friend, and us, but that’s the way it was. We can’t change anything now.”
I watch closely. She can’t mean it. It’s not in the past. I refuse to accept the idea that we didn’t run into each other to give us the second chance we deserve.
The bell on the door tinkles and she jumps, her eyes flying to the door and again I see the unguarded fear in her eyes, but it disappears so fast it is almost as if I imagined it. You can’t work with horses and not have great intuition. Something is not right. I wonder who or what makes her so afraid?
Chapter Twenty-One
Izzy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzIE3mRFypQ
Baby Can I Hold You Tonight?
I can barely hear him over the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears. My heart is pounding so hard it is like a drum in a marching band.
Why did he have to come back into my life?
I don’t need this complication. For two entire years, I’ve gotten by without him. I don’t need him. I don’t want him, but my palms are sweating and I can’t get my heart rate under control. Something else too. Butterflies. Hundreds of them in my stomach. Making me feel nauseous with anxiety. I should leave. He is so big and distinctive. Anyone could see me here.
“Izzy …” he calls urgently.
I look up into his eyes. I can stand sitting here across from him as long as I’m not looking in those impossibly blue eyes. They’re just as beautiful as I remember, but there is something else in them. A bitter sadness. A sadness that makes me want to hold him close and rock him as if he was my baby. It isn’t right for us to sit together the way we are.
It definitely isn’t right that I feel exactly the same right now about him as I did when we first met—only now, I can’t blame the giddy, dizzy feeling, the breathless excitement, on alcohol. Worse, I can no longer hate him for taking advantage of me, of being a coward and a user of the worst kind.
He will never know how difficult it is for me to shake my head and say, “It doesn’t matter. Life has moved on for both of us. We’re not those people anymore. I’m not that girl anymore.”
“I don’t believe you.” His voice is soft, low, but deadly serious.
I wish he would. It would make things so much easier. His food arrives, but he doesn’t touch it. He just keeps on staring at me.
“That’s too bad. Because it’s the truth.” I shift in my chair, suddenly extremely uncomfortable. I’ve never lied to him before. Also, I’ve been sitting here too long. I look out the window again, just to be sure nobody’s watching. The coffee sours in my mouth.
“Why do you keep looking out?”
I whirl my head around. “Because I’d rather be out there than here, with you.”
“That’s a lie, too.”
“Don’t call me a liar,” I warn, my voice unsteady.
“But it is a lie,” he says calmly. “You don’t mean it. You want to be with me just as much as I want to be with you. I can feel it, and fuck anybody who says different.”
I bite my lip, angry with myself for being so transparent. “You’re so full of yourself. Doesn’t it hurt, being that full of yourself?”
“It’ll stop hurting when I’m inside you.”
My mouth opens in a gasp of shock. I can put on a show to everyone else, but I can’t try to hide the desire his words produce in me, there is no hiding from him. He could see right through me. From the very first moment we met.
Desire and dread fight back and forth in my heart. I don’t know which is winning, but I don’t wait to find out. I stand so fast I almost knock the chair backward. He stands too, his movements quick as a cat.
“I need to go now. Please, please don’t follow me.”
I leave the coffee and hurry to the door before he can stop me. I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe. I can’t think straight. For a second there, it almost seemed like a good idea to let myself fall for him again. He’s tempting. As tempting as the Devil himself, but that would have been the worst mistake imaginable.
I’m halfway down the street, rushing and weaving between people casually strolling along, when I hear him calling to me. “Izzy! Izzy, wait!”
Shit, I can’t have him following me and yelling for me like that. He must be crazy. Just to stop him from shouting my name, I come to a halt and whirl around. He’s running, holding out one hand. He comes to a stop in front of me.
“Please, leave me alone.”
“You forgot your gloves.” He holds them out.
I take them from him, feeling confused and saddened. He only ran after me to return my gloves. I shouldn’t feel sad. I can’t have him, anyway. I take the gloves from him. “Thank you. I love these gloves.” I tuck them into my purse rather than put them on. “And thank you for explaining what happened. I hope it’s made you feel better. It’s definitely made me feel a lot better.” He doesn’t say anything so I plough on. “Right. So I’ll be off. I really have somewhere else I need to be.”
“You can bullshit yourself, but not me. You gave up the most precious thing a woman can give, and you gave it to me. That means something. Nothing can ever change that. There is nowhere else you need to be but with me. Now.” He takes a step closer and I know I should push him away. I need to. I ought to. But I don’t. I let the magnetism of him pull me in all over again.
“Please, don’t do this.” It comes out as a weak, pitiful whisper.
“Come with me.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
His smile is just as bright as I remember it, just as sexy, and warmer than the sun. It warms me from the inside out. “Yes, you can. You know you want this as much as I do. We deserve this. Both of us.”
He is another step closer to me. I feel his warmth and smell his cologne. I want to fall into his arms here and now and never leave. What is the spell he has on me? I wish I could break it.
“I shouldn’t …”
“You should, and you will.” He is inches from me and I’m drowning in his eyes. I can’t breathe. There’s nothing in the world but him—nothing at all. Him and me. Just this once, Izzy. For everything you have suffered.
I’m in a taxi before I know it. His arms are around me and he’s crushing his mouth to mine. Everything else is disappearing. I want him to do more. My body melts against him when his arms tighten. I never feel so wanted, so safe, as I do when I’m in his arms. I sense his heart pounding under my hand when I
slide it over his T-shirt. He’s just as firm and strong as I remembered, but no memory is as good as this. The sheer bliss of his lips pressed against mine—moving, demanding, taking. And I want to give. I need to give.
His tongue slides into my mouth, and from the back of his throat comes a growl. I remember the growl. I used to hear it in my dreams. I used to wake up with a rush of raw heat between my thighs. Heat and wetness. My body starts singing a song it forgot the words to. He knows my body, he knows what I need.
We don’t say a word as we hurry through the lobby of his hotel towards the elevator.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Izzy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkLUBxLMMio
Lost on You
There is a feeling of deja-vu as we wait for the lift. I remember the feeling of his cock inside me and desperately need that again. I know I shouldn’t indulge myself like this but it’s all so good, so right. Nothing has ever felt so right as it does when I’m with him. I stare at the lift doors remembering our first night. I’ve replayed every moment of it so many times. Even last night.
Nothing has changed. Everything has been perfectly preserved.
He barely waits until the door of his room closes before grabbing me and pushing me up against it. Pressing his body to mine, he devours my mouth. With one rough movement he strips off my coat. I don’t hear it fall. The blood is pounding so hard in my head.
I let my palms slide over his broad, powerful shoulders. God, I’ve missed him. My fingers around his neck. His hands run up and down and all over me until every nerve in my body is screaming.
Uncorking the passion I’ve kept bottled up since that night so long ago, I hook one leg around his and pull him in until his thigh is between mine. Fire races through me, lighting me up, reminding me how dead I’ve been without him, what life is really all about. I moan as I grind myself on his thigh.
