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I’d thought I could deal. But lately it had been one long continual slide in reverse, starting shortly before I’d found the calls on her cell. I hadn’t been snooping. All I’d wanted was her sister Carly’s number. Instead I’d found the long list of calls from an unknown number.
A few days later, I’d told Mia I was moving out of my parents’ building. Bad timing or good, I still wasn’t sure. When she’d asked me, half-assedly, if I wanted to move in with her and Carly, I’d said yes, because some sense of self-preservation or just good old-fashioned possessive instincts had insisted I needed to get closer to Mia instead of stepping away.
Living together hadn’t stopped the questions in my head. Who was calling her so much? Why hadn’t she called them back? Or was she seeing them—him—in person?
“Fuck.” I shoved the bag out of my face and sent it careening into the wall, taking out a chunk of the plaster with it. Something else I’d have to fix. At least that I could fix.
Grinding my damp palms into my eyes, I braced as the knob turned. The door flew open and bounced off the wall, probably opening up another crack. Mia never eased into places. She came in balls out every time.
I dropped my hands and turned to meet her, my lover and my opponent all in one.
From her combative stance, she wasn’t startled to see me standing there with my hands clenched and my shirt off. Perspiration poured off me in rivulets, soaking my hair, running down my back to my waistband. I wore sweatpants, like any good gym rat getting his sweat on.
Or a dumbass boyfriend who’d sent a text five hours ago about dinner and hadn’t even been given the courtesy of a two-word reply.
Carly was at work and Vey was staying overnight at the groomers, so why bother getting back to me? Dinner would wait. I would wait. I’d promised her that, and she knew I wouldn’t take it back no matter what crap she pulled. She trusted me that much.
Or maybe she didn’t care if I walked.
Her lips parted then she shut her mouth again. Somehow I could still make out the slightest change in her features even though the room was almost pitch black. Twilight was my favorite time of day. The rolling dark turning the sky red before night descended, full and absolute. Covering up all the shit we didn’t want to deal with in the light.
Instead of encouraging her to say whatever she’d cut off, I bent at the waist and blew out a breath, gripping my knees to keep from picking up the nearest dumbbell and heaving it through the window. I didn’t consider myself a violent guy by nature, but considering I’d gotten my rocks off and padded my wallet by making people bloody for years, maybe I needed to do some soul-searching. In more ways than one.
Silence hummed between us, heavy with things neither one of us were willing to say. If I spoke right now, something would probably come out that I’d regret. Eventually.
I knew she expected me to ask her where she’d been. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know if she’d gone off to clear her head after therapy or if she’d been off screwing some other dude. Worry had come first, as it always did. That something had happened. That she was hurt.
But she was here. Whole. Strong. Completely unreachable, at least by me. And I couldn’t bear to ask questions, in case she’d tell me the truth. Right now I couldn’t take it.
I couldn’t lose her too.
I turned my back and picked up my shirt off the floor. Fuck this. I couldn’t handle any bullshit tonight. But where the hell could I go?
Since I’d been with Mia, I’d let some of my other friends fall by the wayside. The ones who only wanted to fight or fuck or were looking for a wingman for either. I hadn’t become a complete hermit. Some of the guys from the gym had remained close. And there was Slater.
Slater didn’t have a choice when it came to letting me crash on his couch. Best friend privilege. I didn’t know how long I’d be gone—how long until I gave in again—but if I didn’t get out now, I’d regret it. I just knew it.
I tugged on the shirt and mopped up my face with the hem. I needed a shower. Later. I’d worry about that when I got wherever I was going. Probably Slater’s. I’d stop by the bar first. Not the one where Mia and I worked. Another one. Someplace anonymous. I’d drink and brood and hope like hell that the alcohol would stop this burning in my gut.
When I turned back, I nearly collided with Mia. That had been weakness, needing to suck down one more greedy glimpse. She was right there, a heartbeat away. Her eyes huge as they locked with mine, as she shrugged off her backpack and grabbed the bottom of her shirt.
“No.” The denial was instantaneous. It had to be.
If I didn’t stop her before she showed me even one slice of her perfect skin, made even more so because it wasn’t perfect, then I’d give in. She was my drug and I wasn’t strong enough to resist a fix. Not when I could smell her clean, pure scent and see the glint of gold at her ears that meant she was wearing the earrings I’d bought her. She so rarely let me buy her things. But those earrings, tiny boxing gloves, meant so much more to both of us.
We’d met because she’d wanted to fight me. Maybe it had been fate. I didn’t believe in crap like that normally. She made me believe in too much. Maybe that was why I held on so damn tight.
Without Mia, too many of my dreams would die.
“Yes.” She stepped closer and stood in the path of the streetlight outside the window. The beam lit up her eyes. Thick makeup shadowed them, made them twin black holes. Her lips were red and darkly sweet, like strawberries coated in chocolate.
I couldn’t—wouldn’t—take a taste.
She stroked my chest, her touch so much more sure now than it had been when we’d first gotten together. Back then a no from me would’ve made her back off during sex. Or pre-sex. Or whatever the hell this dance was that brought her long, lean body so close to mine.
She arched against me and sank her teeth into my shoulder. It shouldn’t have made me instantly hard. I shouldn’t have grabbed her long braids in my fists and yanked her head back to claim that wild, hungry mouth with my own. This wasn’t the way. We needed to talk. I needed to shift back from her hips pressing so insistently into mine. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t. I knew what she craved because the same craving streaked through my blood.
Breathing fast, she yanked up her shirt, knowing I’d pull it off. I’d help her as I always did. Together, we were both weak. And when my hands closed over hers and tugged the material higher, then when they greedily slipped lo
