AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Closing his eyes, he searched for the strength to share her. To not march into the room and drag her into his arms, because she was soft and alive and warm, and he’d gone so cold and dead inside.
No, not dead. Not fucking dead. And for Ricki’s sake, he could wait.
He turned from the doorway and moved into the room opposite his sister’s. His old room had been stripped down to nothing but his old bed and some junk they hadn’t had a space for anywhere else. He stepped over and around it and went straight to the bare mattress in the corner. His bed frame squeaked as he sat down, and he winced the same as he always had. The damn thing had made it almost impossible to sneak in a girl, though he hadn’t bothered overmuch with the sneaking part. His pop had been blitzed out for so long he wouldn’t have cared if he’d banged a chick on the living room floor.
So long ago and somehow it felt like yesterday.
He dug his keychain out of his pocket and reached for the tiny corkscrew. And rolled across the bed to etch something in the old weathered paint beside the stupid scribblings he’d notched in a few fits of teenage rebellion. Scraps of lyrics and girls’ names were carved into the wood, and painstakingly, he blurred them all out and wrote the only thing that mattered.
“What are you doing?”
Her voice was so cool, like a blast of aloe vera on skin scorched with a burn. But he didn’t stop writing.
She yanked up the skirt of her fancy suit and climbed on the old, crappy mattress without a thought. Kneeling beside him, she read the words he’d forced onto the wall. And covered her mouth as her eyes filled.
“Don’t,” he demanded, dropping the corkscrew. It rolled away under the bed and he didn’t bother to fumble around to try to find it. He rose on his knees and shifted toward her to grab her shoulders. “Don’t you fucking cry. I’m not, so you aren’t allowed to. Not today.”
“You’re supposed to be mad at me.”
“I am? Shit, that’s right.” He slapped himself in the forehead. “You didn’t blow me this morning after I went down on you. That’s it.” He pretended to erase what he’d written with his fist, and she grinned through the tears brimming in her eyes.
Anything was worth seeing her smile.
“Normally I would yell at you for saying that in earshot of Ricki, but today you get a pass.” She slid another sidelong glance at the words he couldn’t obscure with the slide of his hand. “You get a couple of passes.”
He slid his hand up her hip and fisted it in the expensive fabric she hadn’t thought twice about wrinkling. He moved his mouth close to her ear. “Enough that you’d let me make love to you on this bed?”
“Depends.” She coasted her hands up his chest and framed his face. “How many women have been here before me?”
“In this bed? A few. More than a few,” he amended at her hard stare. “But as far as how many women have been here in this exact spot before you…exactly none.” He mirrored her pose and cupped her cheeks, meeting his thumbs over her damp lips. “There’s never been another woman before you. There won’t be after you either.” If therewasan after her, which he had no desire to think about on today of all days.
But if it happened, he knew he’d be another Nicholas Crandall Senior, pining until the end of his days. Existing solely to mentally relive a time that would never come again.
“You can’t know that for sure,” she whispered.
He grabbed one of her hands and held it to his chest. There was no slowing the rampage of his heart. No reason to try. “I know.”
“You make me crazy. I’m not used to feeling like this. Every time I try to be rational and slow things down, to think of how things seem and how it can’t possibly be the way it feels, you just blow me apart and break me open. You let the light in, and I don’t want the dark anymore.” Her starred lashes fluttered as she closed her eyes then opened them again wide. “I want you to move in with me.”
“No.” He dropped his hand from her face and released her hand he’d held over his heart. “That isn’t on the table now.”
“Says who?” she asked, advancing on him as he kneel-walked backward. “We were in the middle of a discussion this morning, and we need to finish it.”
“It is finished. You’re not ready. I have a house. Everything is fine. There’s no need to rush.” He reached the edge of the bed and would’ve stood if she hadn’t reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Li,” he pleaded, because he wasn’t strong enough to say no when she was offering him everything he wanted.
Even if it was for the wrong reason.
“It’s not rushing if we’re right on time. Listen to me.” She tugged on his shirt. “Just listen. You know that text I sent you tonight? The hungry one? I sent that before the note. I was planning on inviting you over to seduce you with wine and Chinese food, then asking you to live with me.BeforeI saw your note about your dad.”
“I made you feel guilty—”
“You made me think about what I wanted. Not what other people might think or say, but whatIhad to think and say. The one thing that kept coming back to me over and over was how right it felt having you in my space. Making it ours.” She hissed out a breath. “I don’t want to sleep alone anymore. Don’t make me.”
“Like that ever happened anyway. I’m over there every night.”
“Exactly. So just…leave more stuff there. All your stuff. Including you.” She tipped her forehead against his and released his shirt to curl her hands around the back of his neck. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
As much as he knew he should argue, he couldn’t. How was he supposed to fight against something he wanted with every fiber of his being? Especially now, after today had reminded him the importance of time and using it wisely. Not wasting a minute, because there were never enough.
