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His tongue slid over my neck, and caught my earlobe. “Shit, you’re hot.”
“I know, I’m a sweaty mess.” My eyes closed and I fought a grin, knowing I was teasing him.
“You’re lucky you’re so damned beautiful.” His lips brushed my neck, where he’d licked me, and then my cheek before he crashed back to the bed. “Are you going to make me put clothes on?”
“No. Stay where you are,” I whispered back, my eyes closing. The lights were already off—we hadn’t bothered turning any of them on except the one in the bathroom.
“Planning on it,” he mumbled back. “Want an alarm set?”
“Shut up and sleep, Lewis.”
His chuckle made me smile. “Got it.” His lips brushed my throat one more time before he grew quiet.
I fell asleep in his arms, our bodies connected, and it was a high unlike anything else I’d ever experienced.
We woke up at noon,and things were even more relaxed than they’d been the day before. The walls I’d put up so long ago were crumbling faster than I knew how to fix them, which should’ve disturbed me. But it didn’t.
I still wasn’t anywhere near ready for commitment, but I was trusting Zed more and more by the day. Hell, by the hour.
Maybe I should’ve put space between us, but… I didn’t want space.
I wanted love.
That damned hopeful yearning had bloomed in my chest again more fiercely than I had ever expected it to. I had no idea what to do about it but hold on tight and hope that Zed was as good a guy as he seemed.
Eventually, we got up, showered, and got dressed. There was another round of sex in there somewhere—okay, fine, it was before we even got out of bed—but it felt like too soon when we finally got our asses out of the hotel and forked over the money for the late checkout.
Zed carried both of our backpacks over his shoulder, and our fingers were intertwined as we walked to my truck. My mind went back to my text conversation with Del the day before, and I couldn’t help but think about Stewart.
I had never forgiven him. And I’d never forgiven myself for believing that he could be different.
And I’d sure as hell never let go of what had happened.
But for the first time in years, it occurred to me that I wanted to let go. That I wanted to move on… if just so that I could be happier in the life I’d found, the one I was starting to realize that I might want after all.
It wasn’t certain—nothing was certain after just a couple of weeks, not to me.
But I was hopeful.
And that was huge.
I’d stalked Stewart on the internet enough times after he cheated on me to know that he’d taken the slow route to graduation. He was finally in the first semester of his last year, and still worked afternoon and evening shifts at the diner we’d spent a ton of time in together when we were friends, and when we were dating.
The same diner I’d found him having sex with another girl in.
So I knew where to find him.
And… I was starting to think that Del was right.
Maybe if I had closure, somehow, I could feel better about men. Better about Zed. I hoped to hell that I would never feel better about my dad, but I didn’t think I would be putting myself at risk with that by trying to get closure about Stewart.
“I think I might want to meet up with my ex,” I admitted to Zed, as we buckled our seat belts in my truck.
“Oh yeah?” He shot me an intrigued look. “What made you change your mind?”
“I think I owe him an insult or two. And I think he owes me an explanation. I want to move on.” I bit my lip.
There was emotion in Zed’s eyes that I couldn’t read, but he nodded. “Right now?”
