Then I pull out and stand abruptly.
“You’re leaving?” she asks, straightening up and staring at me as I pull on my clothes in a rush.
I hate the disappointment in her eyes, so I look away, zipping up my pants, then reaching for my T-shirt.
“I can’t stay.”
“Why?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. Nothing I say will make sense. It’s taken three years for something to happen that’s allowed me to feel peace again.
Jude is that something. Kissing her, touching her, feeling her come apart beneath me.
Looking into her eyes as she gazes at me like she sees someone worth looking at.
But with peace comes hope. Hope for more. Hope for the future. And hope is a useless emotion for a man like me.
“You don’t have to leave,” she says, pulling the sheet over her chest and covering her beautiful breasts that were in my hands and mouth only minutes ago.
I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand. What happened?”
When I say nothing, she sighs. “Did someone do something to you? Didyoudo something?”
My jaw clenches, and she homes in on it like it’s an admission of something.
“What? What did you do?” she whispers.
“This is over.” I pull my T-shirt over my head, using it to shield her eyes from me as I deliver the words flatly without emotion.
“What?”
“You and me.Fucking,” I deliver harshly.
She doesn’t react, doesn’t even flinch. It’s like she knew I was going to say it. It’s like she already knows me. But she’ll never know everything. If she did, she wouldn’t be looking at me the way she does anymore. Like I’m worthy of her. Like I’m redeemable.
She’d only be able to look at me with pure hate.
“Right… because I think your rules about being nothing to each other are shit? Because I want to know a little more about the guy I’m sleeping with? A guy who acts like he has a billion regrets, and they all lead back to an identity he’s turned his back on?”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you fuck like you’re angry at the world, then kiss like you dream about not having to be anymore. I know you’re talented and make money from your art but wear the same three old T-shirts like you never spend any. And I know there’s a sweet old lady from the hotel who comes to leave money for you that she says is yours and talks about you like you hung the moon. Yet you act like a grade A asshole to me most of the time. Like you’re purposefully trying to make me hate you.”
“Leave it,” I hiss.
“Fine.” She shrugs. “I’ll leave it. Because you’re right. This should end between us. Right now.”
I jerk my head at the finality in her voice.
“I’d ratherhavenothing thanbenothing,” she says, looking at me in pity.
I walk to the door and pause.
I look back for far longer than I should, tracing over her eyes, so full of her fire, over her little upturned nose, and her full pouty lips. And over her hair, flowing in wild waves around her shoulders.
She’s fucking beautiful.
