Page 67 of Playing With Love

“Kicked all the covers off while hilariously mumbling how hot I was. You stripped your sweats off, threw them at me, then plopped yourself on me and went back to sleep. Shortly after that, you sat up, declared you were cold, and pulled the covers back over us.”

His fingertips still gliding over my skin made it hard to follow his story of my nocturnal activities.

Still I managed to push out, “I told you sleeping in the same bed as you wasn’t a good idea.”

After Taco Bell was consumed and the wrappers were cleaned up, Tucker had declared it was time for bed. I didn’t fight this. Not only was I exhausted but if he was asleep he couldn’t instigate conversation and I’d been all talked out. What I did argue about was the sleeping arrangements. I wanted to spend the night in his guest room or alternately, the couch. He wouldn’t hear of either. I suggested I go back to the hotel. His eyes turned scary mad so that suggestion died quickly. I only gave in when the scary look dissolved into a look I’d already seen twice that day—he was going to kiss me to shut me up. I knew that kiss wouldn’t stop with his hand on my breast, but with my nipple in his mouth, and that would lead to me begging him to fuck me, so I gave in to his demand that I sleep in his bed. However, I did this under protest and bitched about it all the way to his room. I quit complaining when it appeared he was going to be a gentleman and slipped into bed then stayed on his side. Then I laid there awake wondering why I’d bitched and how much better it would be if Tucker held me.

Eventually with my thoughts driving me insane I fell asleep only to wake up and be the one who broke the invisible line in the middle of the bed.

“Seems to me it was a really great idea.”

At this point I really wished he was the one giving me mixed signals. I wished it was him and not me who was running hot and cold. And further, I wished I wasn’t totally broken and could believe in what he was offering me. I wished that in the past I hadn’t hoped with all my heart only to get it broken time and time again. I wished I was brave enough to take everything Tucker was offering, and throw caution to the wind and ride it out.

“I’m sorry,” I told his chest.

“Baby—”

“Just that, Tucker. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want you to know I’m sorry. I know I’m…that I’m being…” I stalled because I didn’t know what I was being beyond crazy, and I’d rather not point that out even though he couldn’t miss my cracked behavior. With a mighty heave I spat out the rest. “You mean everything to me and I lost you once. I did it on purpose. I did it on my terms; that way I was in control of how I lost you. That was how I needed it to be. I wouldn’t survive you leaving me. And when you declined my invitation to come into my room it hit me, you weren’t interested in me that way. I knew one day, I’d lose you, or at least parts of you when you found a woman you were serious about. That’s why I ran. That’s why I stopped taking your calls. I knew there would come a time when I’d lose the most important parts of us. The intimacy I only had with you. One day that would belong to someone else. It would be taken from me. That’s the man you are. You’d never give me the important parts of you if you were committed to someone else. That’s the difference between us. I was married to Arnie but I still belonged to you.”

I fell silent knowing there was a good possibility I’d opened a door I wasn’t prepared to have Tucker walk through. But knowing if nothing else, he deserved the truth—the undiluted truth. And an apology.

It took a few moments.

Then it happened.

I felt his fingertips dig into my waist, his mouth dropped to the top of my head, and there he muttered, “Thank you, baby.”

He was thanking me for being honest.

As he would, that was the kind of man Tucker was.

He was honest.

He was forgiving.

He was kind.

He was good-looking, great in bed, a phenomenal kisser, great with words, open with his feelings, and didn’t hide his emotions.

In other words, the kind of man who would pulverize your heart into dust when he walked away.

I’d known this from the beginning. I’d tried hard not to fall for him. The problem was, it was impossible not to love Tucker.

And that had led to ten years’ worth of torture.

With another squeeze, he announced, “We need to get rolling, Lizzy.”

Wait.

That was it?

He wasn’t going to push his way through the crack I’d created?

The relief I felt could only be measured against the confusion. Possibly even a little despair he wasn’t going to force me to open up.

“Will you start coffee while I take a shower? I’ll be quick.”

“Woman, you think I’d start a six-hour road trip with you without you topped up on coffee?”