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Dean dropped his chin toward his chest, folding his hands in front of his face, mumbling something I couldn’t hear.
And I kept right on going as if we were best friends. “I can’t be sure he kept it on. I was…” I didn’t want to tell Dean I had been so busy trying not to envisionhimwhile having sex with another guy that I wasn’t paying attention, so I hedged. “After it was over, I didn’t see it, and I was… I just wanted to leave. But I should have been more careful. I should’ve—”
“Don’t say it,” he seethed, his lips curled up so I could see his perfectly straight and white teeth. “Don’t say it’s your fault. Forgetting to take one pill in your entire life is an accident. Purposely removing a condom is sexual assault.”
My eyes stung. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the possibility of someone intentionally doing that to me. Or how I felt like my body wasn’t my own for days after. I didn’t want to face reality. “I did it to myself,” I said quietly, curling up on my side, keeping one hand on the heating pad, and bending my other arm to cradle my head. “I wasn’t as careful as I normally am.”
“So is that what this is?” he asked in a near whisper. “You’re punishing yourself by going through this alone?”
For the first time all day, I felt my mouth threatening to curve up into a smile. “I’m not alone. You’re here.”
He laid his hands on the edge of the cushion by my head, one on top of the other, and propped his chin on them, our faces so close, I could count each individual whisker in his beard. He let out a deep breath that sounded irritated. “We could sue.”
“Who? Ace?”
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you had sex with a guy named Ace. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I rolled my eyes right back at him. “First of all, I already thought about my options, and it’s impossible to prove anything, and there are no laws on the books about stealthing in PA.”
“There should be,” he muttered.
“And second of all, I don’t go around judging your sexual partners.”
“Yes, you do. You’re always disparaging them. At the party, you were talking shit about Shauna.”
“She was wearing a light-up sweater.” That alone was deserving of scorn.
“This from the girl who nearly bit my head off for judging your bartender?”
Our gazes clashed in the thick silence between us, neither one of us concedingthistruth. That we were highly aware of everything the other did, both in and outside of the office. And now certainly wasn’t the time to explore why. Especially when it felt like someone had their fist twisted around my insides and was pulling them out.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I mumbled, clumsily standing up from the couch.
Dean held his hand out to steady me, and I waddled to the bathroom, bent in half. Closing the door behind me, I sat on the toilet and threw away the soiled maxi pad then breathed through the waves of cramps. I was sure Dean could hear my muffled groans of pain, but I was too uncomfortable to care.
After I didn’t know how long, I finally cleaned myself up, put on a new pad, sucked down a few more painkillers, then swiped a cool washcloth over my sweat-dampened skin before opening the bathroom door. The hall was dim, but Dean’s dark form was there, on the floor, back against the opposite wall, legs outstretched, arms folded, chin down.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
He tipped his head up, momentarily stunned, like a guard caught falling asleep on duty. “Everything all right?”
I rubbed at my still-cramping stomach, though it had lessened quite a bit, and I shrugged my answer.
He pushed up to his full height. “I was making sure you were okay.”
“On the floor?”
His gaze shifted behind my shoulder to the bathroom. “You were in there for a long time. I got…” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I was worried, but I figured you wouldn’t want me knocking on the door, so I thought I’d sit here and listen in case you needed anything.”
“You didn’t have to,” I said, even though everything in me wanted to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck.
So I did.
He tensed, arms frozen in understandable shock, but after a beat, he dropped them around me, holding me tight. As if he knew I needed someone—him—to hold me together. I felt his hands lock at my lower back, his biceps tugging me closer, and while I usually took evil pleasure in seeing eye to eye with him in my heels, I was appreciative for the few inches of difference between us now. That I could fit against him snugly, inhale the clean, starchy scent of his clothes, feel the bristles of his beard against my temple when I ducked my forehead against his throat. He was my enemy, and yet I was safe and warm and content.
“You gonna cry again?” he asked.
“No.” The one word was muffled against his throat.
