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She scrubbed at her eyes again. “There’s no point going over all this, Travis. Our connection is gone. It’s severed. And it can’t be fixed.”
“It can.”
She stared at him in silence, shoulders hunched forward, eyes filled with tears and pain and…regret?
This was not going the way he wanted it to. But then what had he expected? For Ruby to fall into his arms and forget the past?
“Let me prove it to you.”
He got up from the massage bed, uncaring that he was fully nude, and crossed the room in three steps. She didn’t move, but then she didn’t really have anywhere to go. The door was at her back.
Travis stood in front of her, his heart aching, his body trembling with emotion. He reached for, breath held, sure that she was going to turn from him. When she didn’t, that small sliver of hope burst into flame, and he sank his hands into the hair on either side of her head.
“Sex won’t solve anything, Travis.” Her words sounded small.
“This isn’t about sex,” he said, watching her closely. “That would be too easy. You know it. I know it. We both still want each other. There’s no getting around that.” He leaned forward, his warm breath caressing the side of her neck. He felt her tremble, and his body answered with a shudder.
He paused, and when he couldn’t stand it anymore, when he felt like was going to break apart, he pressed his mouth to that spot just below her ear. The one where her pulse pounded crazily. Where her skin was silky soft. Where her scent was killer.
“Let me prove to you that there’s still a chance to…”
“To what?” She made a sound of disgust. “What is it you see happening? What are we doing here?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “But there’s something here. Can’t we at least see what it is?”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Why?” he answered roughly, pulling her closer. “Because this is me fighting, Ruby.”
“Fighting for what? You’ve already lost, Travis. We’ve already lost.”
“I’m not giving up.”
She offered a small, sad smile. “You should. What you’re feeling is guilt. And maybe I had a hand in that. But it’s time to put this all behind us. We’re no good for each other anymore. Maybe we never were.”
Long seconds ticked by. Seconds when Travis felt his world tilt crazily. Seconds where his body tightened and his mind raced. This was it. The game was in overtime, and the clock was about to run out.
“Can we at least be friends?”
She turned her head. “I don’t know.” Ruby extricated herself from his grip and pushed him away. Truthfully? She could have pushed him onto his ass with one finger. She
grabbed her water bottle from the table and left the room without another word.
He wanted to follow her and make her see that he was right. But he knew she needed some space, and he couldn’t screw this up. He would give her space. All the space she needed.
For now.
Chapter 14
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Ruby had just dropped off her brother and was about to back out of his driveway. Leave it to Ryder to let her get through the entire morning without asking the question he’d been dying to ask.
They’d spent an hour or so looking at cars, and he’d settled on a used Civic. It was a newer model than the one currently in the garage, with low mileage and a price that made it a no-brainer. They’d been lucky enough to have the credit people push his application through, and with Ruby cosigning, he would be able to pick up his new wheels in a few days. All in all, the exercise had taken less than two hours.
“Nothing is going on.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
