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Really, she assured herself. Tonight was her chance to have Jay one last time before she set about curing herself of caring about him. Curing herself from wanting that hot body of his pressed against her again. Curing herself of the broken heart that she’d never been able to heal.
5
“THE REAL WORLD?” he said, grasping her hand and stopping her before she got too far away. “I know more about reality than you do. You are about to go happily back to your safe, happy life never knowing what I’ve done to keep you secure.”
“That’s not what I meant. You think you can plan out every detail and I’ll just fall in line like a good little girl.”
“God knows that you are a good girl, aren’t you?” he asked sarcastically.
She stopped abruptly. He knew he was pushing her into a corner. He didn’t care. He felt so out of control right now he wanted to see her lose it a little, too.
“I always have been, but then following the rules didn’t exactly help me out with my marriage,” she said.
“I never intended to hurt you,” he said.
“Well, you can’t be blamed then for your actions, is that it?” she asked.
He pushed his hands through his short-cropped hair and realized this conversation was on a downward spiral. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean? You have no defense, you walked away and left me and now you’re back... I’m entitled to be angry.”
“Yes, you are,” he said, letting his own anger abate. He knew Alysse hadn’t meant that the way he’d taken it.
“Come on, let’s go back to my room and we can talk about it. This isn’t the place for us to do that and we have too much to hash out.”
“No,” she said as she deliberately pulled her hand free. “I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.”
“Why not?” he asked, but he already suspected he knew the answer.
From the second they’d met in Vegas he’d promised her the world to get her into his room and kept her there as long as he could. Not just because of the physical pleasure but because in his room, when it was just the two of them, he could keep the real world at bay. The reality that spoke of the group of friends she had who wanted them to go clubbing or gaming with them. The reality that spoke of the community of people that she surrounded herself with. The reality that spoke the truth—that he didn’t really fit in her life.
“Jay, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but you have to know that I had sex with you tonight to regain my ego, the ego you bruised so badly when you left me. I needed to prove to myself that you still wanted me.”
“Ah, hell...”
He could see the slight red abrasion that his beard had left on her neck. “That about sums it up.”
He had wanted tonight to be the romance he needed to get back into her life and he feared that once again he’d underestimated the parameters of this mission.
“I’d say I’m sorry but I don’t think it would help,” he said at last.
“You’re right. I know you’re searching for answers for your future and I get that, believe me, I do. But for me, right now, I need to... I just need to figure out some things about myself.”
Jay looked at this woman and knew that if any other girl were standing there he’d write tonight off as a one-night stand and let her go. But this was Alysse. The one woman in the world who had haunted his dreams for the last five years, and somehow, if she needed to use him, well, then he was okay with it.
“So you want to use me for sex?” he asked, a teasing note in his voice that he hoped would mask his own desperation for her not to dismiss him. Sex was the one place in his relationship with her where he felt secure.
Finally, he understood a little of what she must be feeling and he was humbled by her courage. The fact that she must feel at least a hint of what he felt and she’d stayed and had dinner with him anyway...well, that spoke to him.
“Leave it to you to boil it down to sex,” she said. “But yes, I am going to use you to figure out why I don’t want another man to touch me, why I haven’t been able to go on more than one date with any guy. I’m stuck and I’m ready to move on.”
He nodded. It was a gamble he was taking and he knew that. What he didn’t know was if Alysse would ever be able to really forgive him. And what about a future for them? Was that even possible? After everything he’d been through, could he stay here and live some kind of normal suburban life? For now though, he could help her out and maybe figure himself out at the same time.
