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Not many people use my full name. The sound of it on Rudy’s lips makes something twist and tighten in my gut. I’m not sure if it’s lust or dread.
“Talk to me.” His voice is patient, but his eyes are searching.
When I say nothing, he spreads his hand over my jaw and neck. Tilting my head up, he kisses me long and deep. He tastes like sunshine and sex, feels like silk sliding over my sensitized skin.
My panties are drenched. Damn it.
Rudy’s kiss is unyielding. He kisses me like he’s trying to tell me something—or maybe like he saw it in my face outside how much I wanted him. When his hand slides down my ass and dips under the hem of my dress, I let out a moan.
There’s a tiny Iliana on my shoulder gripping my ear and screaming, “STOP RIGHT NOW, YOU IDIOT,” but she’s surprisingly easy to ignore as Rudy’s hand climbs up the back of my thigh. His touch is pure heat and desire as he palms my ass and tugs me closer.
We could have sex right now. Candice would fucking kill me for desecrating her bathroom, of course, but Rudy and I could do it. My body is practically begging me to let him in, and that voice in my ear is getting softer and softer as the seconds tick by.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Rudy says, the words sounding ripped from his throat. Desire rides his voice like a low growl, and he drops his lips to my jaw. “All week, I’ve been needing you.” He nips at my bottom lip. “I don’t think you understand what I feel for you, Lily.”
I blink, his words snapping me back to the present. I stiffen in his arms, and Rudy backs his head up to meet my eyes.
“The scared rabbit is back,” he says, but he doesn’t remove that palm from my ass—and damn it, but I like it there.
But I suck in a breath, and the fog clears from my vision. Rudy said he feels something for me. Rudy feels something for me. We’ve blown past the barriers of casual sex right into Feelings Land, which is nothing less than an unmitigated disaster.
And it’s all my fault.
“I can’t do this,” I say, my voice raw.
There’s a pause. Then, “Do what?” He moves his hand to smooth my dress back down, then replaces his hand on top of it right where it was before, smoothing over the curves of my rear.
I wish his touch didn’t scramble my brain so badly. I can only manage one word in response to his question. “Us.”
Rudy goes very still.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake my head. “There’s too much going on, and I need to focus on what I’m going to do. I can’t deal with the gossip and the questions and feeling like I’m out of control every time I’m around you.”
“I make you feel out of control?” The quiet in his voice doesn’t fool me. He’s not calm. Not even a little bit. The absolute stone-hardness of his body is anything but relaxed.
I snort, still not meeting his eyes. “You make me feel like nothing else matters, Rudy, but that’s the problem. Other things do matter. It’s all well and good to say you’ll drive me to my surgery, but what happens then? What happens when I have one breast? What happens when I have to go through chemo for weeks and my hair starts falling out? What happens when I’m throwing up all the time and I have no energy to do…what we did last Saturday?”
What happens when you find out I’m pregnant with another man’s child?
“You think I’m going to walk away because you won’t want to have sex with me?” He sounds…hurt. “Lily, I’m not a fucking animal.”
I shake my head. This is it. This is when I tell him about the baby and put this relationship to bed. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, and the kindest thing for me to do is lay all my cards on the table and show him that things between us will never work. We’ve been dating for what, a month?
This relationship won’t survive cancer, never mind a baby that isn’t his.
But when the thought crosses my mind, my stomach tightens into a knot. Rudy looks so sincere right now. So patient and kind and caring.
What if I told him about the baby, and he broke his cardinal rule? What if he stayed?
I heard his voice when he talked about the child he treated as his own. No matter what he says, he wanted kids. That wound may be old, but it hasn’t healed.
But if he promised me the world and then left me the same way my ex did, it would hurt so much worse. Leaving Phil was easy, because at the end of the day, I didn’t need him. The problems heaped onto my plate were so much bigger, so much more important than a breakup with a man who lied and never truly cared about me.
Rudy is different. If I let him in and he left me…it would break me.
I can’t give him that chance.
Instead, I straighten my shoulders and try to clear the pain from my face. “Rudy, I don’t want this. I had fun with you, but I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m not going to date you.”
