“Sex. Sex works. But other than that … I don’t trust you!” As if I wasn’t vulnerable enough, a sob broke through as more tears streamed down my cheek. “You broke my heart.”
His eyes connected to mine. The emotion shining back at me was unmistakable. Shame. It was so real, so raw, I almost went to him. Almost. “Please,” he whispered.
“After I gave you everything I had,” I shouted. “It’s been sixteen years. And my body, my soul, my heart still feels that pain as if it happened yesterday. The loneliness. The self-doubt. Why would I want to put myself back in the position to go through that again.”
“It won’t happen again.” He reached for my hand, but I pulled it from his grasp. “I’m not the same person I was then.”
“And despite what you think,I’mnot the same person I was then.”
“Tell me who you are, then. Because I want to know you.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed the tears to stop falling. “That’s where we differ, then. Because the only thing I wanted to know about you was how good your dick would make me feel.”
He rocked back on his heels, his eyes wide. “Wow.” To my surprise, a slow smile spread across his lips. He stalked toward me, pressing his erection against my stomach. “Is that so?”
Shit, he still smells good.Like soap and sin, and something unmistakably Wes. And my body reacted to him, to the heat of his skin. “Move.”
“Nothing can match what we feel for each other.” He nipped my ear lobe. “No one.”
My heart raced as my body skipped ahead to the potential orgasm. I was burning up, consumed with need for him. But I was also a stubborn bitch. Taking a deep breath, I backed away. “Maybe so. But I’m willing to risk never feeling it again.”
“Why deny it? I’m part of you, just like you’ll always be part of me. You used to say we were meant to be, that we were soulmates.”
“I was a teenager, obsessed withDawson’s Creek.”
“You were #TeamPacey.”
The fact that he remembered that made me want to rethink my earlier position and throw myself on him. “That’s neither here nor there.”
“So you say.”
“Last night, you said we didn’t have to make promises. You told me to set the pace. Now, you’re playing dirty.”
He lifted his arms up. “You’re right. I meant everything I said. I never want to make you feel pressured. If you want me, you have to tell me.”
Searching his eyes, I fought the urge to lean into him, to wrap my arms around him.Where would that get me?“This was a mistake. I thought I could do this, but I … I can’t.”
I walked to the door, pausing at the threshold. Turning around, I walked back to him, stood in front of him. Even now, I wanted to drown in him. I stepped closer, so close I felt the steady beat of his heart against mine. He brushed his thumb over my cheek.
Damn tears …
He placed a gentle kiss to my forehead, trailed his mouth down the ridge of my nose and over my mouth. “Bug, stay.”
I pressed my lips to his one more time. “Bye, Wes.”
I didn’t mean to laugh.
Well, it was more like a tiny snicker. In my defense, though, I was hot—and a little hungry. The church thermostat had been set to hell, and I wondered if it had been done to scare us into accepting Jesus as our Personal Savior.
“Look at him,” Grandma muttered, gesturing toward the huge picture of my grandfather in front of the sanctuary. “What did I see in him? Looking like a broke Barry White. Hair looking thin and greasy. I should call him Slick Back. Yep, that’s my new name for him.”
I tried to hide my mortified yet slightly amused facial expression under a handkerchief. Grandma had been like this all morning, making little comments with a straight face while I … Yeah, my poker face was still asleep.
“I just don’t understand how he cheated on me with his small ding-a-ling.”
I snorted—loudly. Several pairs of eyes landed on me, and I sunk into the pew. It was already bad enough Grandma called me at five o’clock this morning, after I’d spent the night fucking Wes, to tell me we were coming to the memorial for a man I’d never met, a manshecouldn’t even stand.
The pastor’s wife glared at me. The older woman had been terribly rude since we walked into the temple. Of course, that was probably because Grandma swatted her hand away when she attempted to hug her.
