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“Okay. Do you have everything you need? She still has clothes in my room here.”
“You packed a very thorough bag before we came,” she reminds me with a soft smile.
“Call me if you need me,” I tell her. “Goodnight.”
I don’t see my dad, meaning he’s probably out in the garage with some of the other guys, but I don’t head that way after walking out the front door. Ali will have to come home soon, and when she does, I’ll be right there waiting for her.
Anxiety with a hint of bubbling need settles low in my stomach when I pull up to the house to find a second SUV in the driveway. Then it hits me that she may not be alone. Boomer wasn’t outside with all the other guys by the pool.
My hands are shaking, my anger multiplying as I approach the front door. I didn’t take her for the kind of woman to sleep with two men in the same night, but I’ve been wrong about people in the past.
My hand trembles as I reach for the doorknob, and I spend a second telling myself that we’re all adults, and we get to make our own choices. There’s no commitment between her and me, and my possessiveness is uncalled for. I have no right to it. We haven’t made promises, and if I’m honest with myself, we shouldn’t have had sex earlier.
The door opens before I can do it myself, and Ali jolts at the sight of me standing there.
Although I promised myself to remain calm, I crowd her until she backs further into the house.
“What are you doing?” My question comes out on a growl, only she doesn’t back down like she has in the past.
My cock threatens to thicken at the prospect of her shouting at me or getting angry enough to open her mouth and use it for more than just her keen ability to agree and comply.
I glare at the duffle’s strap on her shoulder before darting my eyes down to the hand she has wrapped around the handle of her rolling suitcase.
“We talked about this earlier.”
I have no fucking clue what this is, so she has to be wrong.
“Remind me,” I hiss.
“Since you’re back home, I’m going to take the room at the clubhouse.”
Just the mention of that room makes my blood heat. Before today, it held nothing but sadness and sorrow. I’ve cried so many tears in that room, stared at the gun on the bedside table too many times. I thought it would always hold only those memories, but she changed that for me. What happened in that room burns inside of me, the hot need to do it again making me want to pack a bag and insist on driving us back.
But the look in her eyes tells me she isn’t interested. She looks more regretful than I feel, and that’s saying something, because despite the urgent need inside of me to get her on her back once again, I feel pretty shitty about what we did.
“Because you want to be closer to Boomer?” I snap instead, since she doesn’t seem like she’d be very receptive to the other suggestion my body demands of me.
Her head shakes as her irritation visibly grows, but she doesn’t argue, doesn’t open her mouth to tell me to fuck off. God, if she did, I’d have her naked in a flash and rutting into her like a lunatic.
She drops her eyes from mine, and the loss of her attention makes me cold and lonely despite her still being right in front of me. When she tries to walk around me, pulling her suitcase behind her, I move instinctively in her way, blocking the path to the door.
Warmth spreads across my chest when she lifts her eyes to mine once again, and for the very first time, I can accept that there’s something about this woman that I need, not just desire. I can’t quite get a handle on it, so I can’t open my mouth to speak about it.
“You love your wife, Harley.”
I nod in agreement because I do.
“You will always love your wife,” she says, a sadness in her eyes that speaks more of my pain than hers for knowing this fact.
“I will,” I confess, the words sounding broken and pained.
“I would never ask you to stop loving her.” She swallows as she looks away, a spot on the wall becoming much more interesting. “We wanted each other. We had each other. And now it’s done.”
“You need to stay here,” I manage, regretting I’m not man enough to confide in her my mixed emotions about everything she just said.
She looks completely exhausted when her eyes find mine once again. The irritation is gone. Any argument she might have been formulating washes away as she sighs.
