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“Still“—I sniff—“if I'd told you sooner, then you wouldn't have gone all this time thinking you weren't good enough for me.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs behind me, making the water ripple around us. “But then you might not have the career and the success you do now.”
I don't tell him that I'd give it all up in a heartbeat to get that lost time back. That even though it's been over half a decade since the night we confessed our love for one another, my feelings haven't changed even a little.
The man with oil on his hands from working with cars all day and rough stubble on his jaw owns my heart just as much as the boy with dimples in his smile skipping senior prom to lie with me beneath the stars.
Years have passed and we're older now, but Cole Mesaric still holds my heart in the palm of his hand, whether he knows it or not.
Takinga bath with Thea was a bad fucking idea, but she could have asked for anything in that moment and I'd have moved heaven and earth to give it to her.
I hadn't anticipated quite how difficult it would be to feel her wet and supple body lying between my legs and not be able to touch her the way my dick was begging me to. Christ, it had spent the whole time digging into her back, desperate to find its way inside her. I can't imagine it was comfortable for her, but she had the good grace not to mention it.
My self-control would have snapped if she did.
All she wanted was comfort after reliving the worst thing that's ever happened to her and all my dick could think about was burying itself deep inside her body. It's still all it can think about. Even now, as we eat Chinese takeout in the living room, it's hard as fucking steel.
“Thank you for tonight,” Thea says gently from where she's sitting cross-legged in her favorite armchair, a plate of barely touched chicken and vegetables on her lap.
Her eating habits—or lack thereof—make my jaw clench, but it's an issue I'll tackle another time, another night when her eyes aren't still puffy from weeping in my arms.
“What for?”
She looks at me shyly with doleful eyes and freckles on her nose. I wonder if she still has three hundred and fifty-eight, or if she's gained some new ones in the years she's been gone. Maybe I'll get a chance to recount them before she leaves.
“Listening to me.” She stabs aimlessly at the food on her plate but never lifts it to her lips. “Understanding why I didn't tell you. Not making me feel like a whore. For holding me. For making me feel...” She pauses, then whispers, “Safe.”
My heart stutters on that last word, a feeling akin to pride warming me from the inside.
“You don't need to thank me for any of that.” I shrug. “It's what any decent man would've done.”
“But still“—she gives me a small but genuine smile—“thanks.”
“Don't mention it, princess.”
We fall back into companionable silence for a little while until I've finished eating and Thea gets up to take our plates to the kitchen. I tell her she doesn't need to clean up, but she insists on the basis that I paid for dinner and am giving her a place to stay for the week.
“I think I'm gonna turn in,” she tells me, shifting from foot to foot the very moment she's finished loading the dishwasher.
Her nervousness is so unlike anything I would have ever expected from a famous actress, but I guess that's an indication of my own ignorance. We're all just normal human beings with feelings and insecurities, no matter what it is we do for a living.
Her self-consciousness in this moment, though, is more apparent than usual. It makes me think she wants to say something but, for whatever reason, is too anxious to actually do so.
I lean with my arms crossed against the breakfast bar and raise a single eyebrow.”Something you wanna say?”
Her eyes widen and she fiddles with the hem of her top. “I was going to ask if....” She trails off. “Actually, no, never mind.”
I push off the counter, eating the space between us in three long strides. Running my finger down the length of her nose, I bop it with a light tap and rejoice in the way it makes her giggle.
“I can't give you what you want if you don't tell me what it is.”
She studies me, eyebrows pulled tight over the greenest of eyes. I feel her gaze move over every inch of my face, not leaving even a pore untouched.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.
“You just look so different.”
“Different than what?”
