Page 52 of Thaddeus

I was holding on to both of her wrists and when I heard her whimper I let go.

Soaking wet with hair stuck to her face she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

“I’m sorry.” Her words spoken in a hushed tone and the water pounding on my back, I barely heard her. But I felt her when she placed her palms on my chest. “So damn sorry. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared and then when we got Autumn back everything went bad. All I wanted was you. I knew you would’ve known what to do. How to help. My life had crumbled and you were gone.”

I wasn’t gone. I hadn’t left her by my choice. She’d run away from me and then stayed away. She could’ve fixed us, put the broken pieces back together, but she hadn’t.

I stepped back and her hands fell away.

No more touching.

“Can you handle the rest?” I asked, moving back another step.

“What?”

“Can you finish cleaning up?”

Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes looked wounded, but worry not, this new Emerson knew how to hide what she was feeling.

“Could’ve done it on my own in the first place.” She snapped straight and pressed her shoulders back, the movement drawing my eyes to her breasts as they pushed forward.

The only sign of distress that I could see was the hammering of her heart slamming against her chest.

“Right,” I muttered and turned to step out.

“Why’d you bother—?”

“Don’t, Emerson.”

“What do you want from me? I answer your questions and the answers piss you off. When you ask and I tell you that the answer is none of your business, that pisses you off. So what is it you want from me?”

Was she for real?

“Babe, this isn’t me pissed. This is me with my heart torn out. And I’m sorry, I think I have the right to be not only pissed, but hurt as well.”

“So what? You wanna draw blood? Want me to bleed?” She pointed at me and leaned forward. “Want your pound of flesh? Newsflash, Thaddeus, I’ve got nothing left. It won’t matter what I say, no answer will excuse what I did. I have to live with that. What I did to you. But hear this, there’s nothing you can do to hurt me. I already hurt. Every day. My soul bleeds. My heart aches. My insides are empty. I did that to myself. I did it for my sister. You wanna beat me down, yell at me, curse my name, hate me, go ahead. I deserve it. But you’re gonna do it knowing that every day, I’ve thought of you. Every day I’ve missed you. Every goddamn day when I wished that someone would hurry up and kill me, because death would be a blessing, I did it loving you. That never changed. And after you and your team take me wherever it is you guys are going to drop me off, it won’t change then, either.”

My hands went to her neck before they glided up and cupped her cheeks. I brought my mouth down a hair’s breadth away and I paused. I could feel her exhaling on my lips.

I wanted to taste her, claim her mouth like I’d done millions of times.

But I couldn’t.

I started to pull away and she whimpered her protest.

“I’m selfish,” I told her. “I wanna take what’s in front of me and drown in the memories of us. What we had, what we lost. Take everything and give you nothing. But I can’t. I’m not that man. And as much as I want to say I haven’t thought of you, I have. And I wish I could tell you I stopped loving you and I moved on, I can’t do that either. I still love you so fucking much it hurts, and now I know it’s gonna hurt until the end of time and I’ve made peace with that.”

I dropped my hands, and with one last look, I walked away.

Touching her was stupid.

Kissing her would’ve been insane.

Sticking my dick in her would’ve been a death sentence.

Emerson

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I was thrust into the seventh circle of hell.