by Staci Hart
Court Lyons. Joking.
Trust me, I was surprised too.
Of course, the one thing we didn’t talk about was the only thing I could think about—us. And I didn’t even consider bringing it up—the thought of getting dumped on an international flight didn’t have a single iota of appeal.
The ride home was long but not long enough, our conversation drifting away in favor of quietude, though my mind was full of questions. I leaned into his chest, resting my head in the curve of his neck, his arm around me and his free hand entwined with mine. I tried to take comfort in his touch—nothing in his body was saying goodbye, nothing warning me he was slipping away. And when we pulled up to my building, I very nearly wanted to cry out of exhaustion and sheer aversion to finding out what saying goodbye would mean.
He carried my suitcase up the steps, stepping back down to put me above him, And he took my face in his hands, looking up at me like I was a sacred relic.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said quietly as I fiddled with the edge of his leather jacket, my eyes on my hands, overwhelmed by the feeling that when he walked away, the magic would disappear and Court along with it.
“We should get some rest—work is going to suck tomorrow. If I’m in your bed tonight, neither of us is sleeping, and you know it.”
I sighed. “That’s fair.” I met his eyes, felt the recognition of the moment, of our hearts. And I took a breath, steeling myself. “Court, I—”
“Can I pick you up in the morning?”
My mouth closed. Then frowned. “That’s not—”
“I know it’s not. Everything’s fine, Rin. Okay? Tomorrow. Come home with me after work and stay the night. Pack a bag.”
I watched him for a moment, biting back the questions tumbling through my head, the arguments rolling around beside them. “And then we’ll talk?”
“I promise,” he said, and like an idiot, I believed him. “And I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t make any sense—you live on the Upper East.”
An elegant shrug. “I don’t mind. Just promise me you’ll wear a skirt tomorrow.”
“All right.”
“And the red heels.”
I chuckled. “Anything you want.”
He hummed, smiling as he brought his lips to mine. “I like the sound of that.”
The kiss was hot and heavy with intention he had no plans to follow through on, that bastard. It all but erased my fears—his body couldn’t lie to me. He couldn’t pretend. If it were over, I’d know. He just didn’t want to define things, and I could do that. Be the easygoing, non-needy girl who just went with it. I didn’t need any proof beyond his kiss and his promise of tomorrow.
I leaned into him, my arms around his neck and his hands on my hips, sighing when he broke away.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice husky. “And tomorrow night, you’re mine.”
“All right,” I agreed, assuaged and beaming.
He kissed me once more before letting me go, turning for the car. But he stopped before getting in, hooking his hand on the top of the door, smiling back at me in a way that hit me right in the chest.
I raised a hand, and he disappeared before the car drove away.
I floated into the house, sighing wistfully as I closed the door behind me.
Three mutinous faces were waiting when I turned around.
“You kissed him!” Val pointed at me, declaring me a traitor.
“I can explain—” I started.
Amelia folded her arms. “No mean guys. That is one of the top rules, Rin!”
“Well, we said no butt stuff either, but—”
All three of them gasped.
“Judas!” Val cried.
“Seriously, just let me—”
Katherine shook her head. “God, Rin. I can’t deny that he’s hot, but I really thought you’d stick to your guns.”
I frowned. “Now, hold on a minute.” They started to talk again, and I held up my hand. “That’s enough! No one gets to speak until I’m finished. Got it?”
They nodded, but they didn’t look happy about it.
When I moved toward the kitchen, they held the line.
“I’ve been traveling for upwards of fifteen hours. Can we at least sit down?”
They let me pass, following me into the kitchen where I poured a glass of water and got myself an oatmeal cream pie to fortify me as they sat expectantly in a row at the island.
“He apologized.” I took a bite of the Little Debbie as they burst into noise. I held up my hand again to halt them, and they scowled but quieted. “It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the heart of it. He apologized, and he meant it. He’s broken because he’s been hurt, so he has trust issues.”
Katherine’s eyes narrowed. “So, he’s an asshole because he’s so sensitive?”
I laughed at the realization. “Actually, yes.”
“That is ridiculous,” she said.
“It really, really is. But after that, he…I don’t know. He changed. He was sweet and happy and kind while somehow still being bossy. But not like mean bossy. Just sexy bossy.”
Val frowned. “Are you sure it wasn’t the vacation effect?”
Amelia’s face fell. “Oh no.”
“The vacation effect?” I asked, my brows drawing together.
“You know,” Amelia started, “when your vacation is so amazing and perfect and you’re all caught up in it, but when you go back to the real world, everything goes back to the way it was.”
My mouth dried up. I set the pie down. “No. That wouldn’t happen. It was too…”
“Perfect?” Val said.
I tried to swallow, but the lump in my throat didn’t move. “It was more than that. He…he…we…”
“Why do you think he was so different?” Katherine asked.
“Well…” I thought., “He apologized, that was probably the biggest thing. He promised to try, to see what happens—”
Katherine snorted. “That’s noble.”
I frowned. “He was like a totally different person. Happy and easy and free. He let me in, and all these days, we’ve been together. Like, together, together.”
“Banging?” Amelia said.
My cheeks flushed. “Yes, but not just that. We talked. We saw art. We enjoyed each other’s company beyond just that. Although that was enough to have me wondering what the hell I’ve been missing all these years.”
Their eyes widened, and smiles touched their lips.
“That good?” Val asked.
“Better. It was too…much for it not to have been real. He…he was so happy, and…” I shook my head, emotion brushing the base of my throat. “He said it was because of me.”
They softened at that.
“He’s been hurt really bad—not only by a woman, but by his dad, too. He’s been used, and he thought I was someone else who wanted to take rather than give. But I’m not, and I think he realized that. I think I’ve earned his trust. He…he let me in, and that changed him too. And I refuse to believe that’s a passing phase, that I was just someone for him to…to…sleep with in Italy. I trust him. I believe him.”
Amelia reached for my hand. “Then we’ll believe him, too.”
Katherine added, “But if he hurts you, I’ll hunt that asshole down.”
Relief washed over me, and I smiled. “You’ll have to get in line.”
“So,” Val started, “you guys are a thing? A real thing?”
Discomfort niggled at my mind. “I don’t know. We haven’t…defined anything. But he asked me to come over tomorrow, and he’s coming to pick me up for work, so…we’re something. Of course, that’s a whole other issue. We’ve got to be careful—technically, we’re not supposed to mess around, and Bianca’s gonna be on our asses. Plus, his father is the president of the museum, and I don’t even want to think about what would happen if he found out.” A shiver skittered down my back.
“Well, that should be interesting sin
ce you’ve had two orgasms at the museum so far,” Val joked.
“I can only hope we can get our fill after hours. Maybe it’ll be easier since we’re sleeping together for real.”
“Or maybe it’ll get harder,” Amelia said with a salacious waggle of her eyebrows.
And I laughed, too high on the trip to understand how dangerous the whole thing was or how far I’d put my heart on the line.
And I wouldn’t until it was too late.
Court
A ghost of a smile rested on my lips the whole way home, my mind turning over every second that had passed since I left the city with her only a few days before.
Had it only been a few days? Could so much have happened? My apartment felt foreign, the man who’d lived here a stranger. A man who had barely lived here at all, barely lived. Being alone for the first time after spending every minute with Rin, awake and asleep, drew a hard, dark line under my loneliness.
I should have asked her to come home with me. The words had been on my tongue, but I’d held them back, knowing we could use a minute apart, as much as I hated it. I needed to think about how to answer her. How to tell her I wanted her, but I couldn’t give her all of me.
I should have told her sooner. I should have given her a choice before we spent the weekend together.
But I hadn’t. I’d been so sure we’d get it out of our systems, that we’d be tired of each other after five days. But we weren’t. In fact, I already missed her. I imagined her slipping between the sheets without me and resisted the urge to hop in a cab and go over there right fucking now.
I’d hedged the conversation we had to have. I knew we did, that she needed an answer, an explanation. She needed to know what she meant to me. I just didn’t know what to say or how to say it.
Rin, with her easy smile and open heart. With her beautiful mind and her inviting body I couldn’t get enough of. I’d built a levee around my heart to keep everything and everyone out. Kissing her had cracked a fissure in the wall. Florence had taken a sledgehammer to that crack, and when the wall had crumbled and the water rushed in, my thirsty, hardened heart had soaked up every drop.
All because of her. And I realized with a blinding flash that she could be the one to make me believe in love again.
I stopped dead in the hallway, my heart speeding, thumping, aching.
Love.
The pain in my chest was acute, a hot tear in my ribs at that word, those four little letters that held the power to ruin me.
And my thirsty heart was drowning, the water rushing over me suffocating, oppressive. And I did the only thing I knew to do.
I threw sandbags on the breach to make it stop.
I couldn’t fall in love again—I wouldn’t.
Love was not on the table, and it never could be.
So, I devised a new plan to take back control, bolstered by my regret, underscored by my mistakes. Because I should have been wise enough to walk away before I hurt her.
I’d warned her, and she hadn’t listened.
But it was me who should have known better.
24
Shut Up And Kiss Me
Rin
The second I saw his text, I knew something was wrong.
Sending the car for you this morning. I don’t want to draw any attention. See you at work.
It’s fine, I told myself. He wasn’t wrong. Was I disappointed not to see him? Absolutely. Was I going to make a big deal about it? Absolutely not.
Instead, I got ready for work, putting on the clothes he’d asked me to wear in the hopes he’d obsess over them all day and strip me of them tonight. I daydreamed of his face the moment I walked into his office, knowing the power I held over him simply by doing what he’d asked. So I walked out of my bathroom in a pencil skirt and blouse and those gorgeous Italian heels with the ankle strap he’d gotten for me in Italy.
Italy.
My heart sighed the word, a hundred memories drifting through my thoughts in its wake as I packed a bag for tonight. I couldn’t wait to get through today, anticipating the moment when I could fall into his arms and stay there. Sleeping alone had been horrible and restless and lonely, and I was thankful that tonight, I wouldn’t have to do it again.
I kept my smile up as I headed out of the house and into the hired car he’d sent, enjoying the quiet and the legroom never afforded on the train. And I floated into work, my worries gone, replaced by imaginings of the day to come.
Hope left me in a dry puff of smoke when I walked into his office.
He sat behind his desk, his eyes bloodshot and face hard, stony, closed. Hurt. Angry.
When he met my gaze, it was with a look of silent torture that sent a chill through me.
“Hey,” I said, stepping into the room. “Get any rest?”
He straightened up, his eyes on his hands as he stacked papers up and moved them arbitrarily. “No.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t sleep well without you either.”
The temperature in the room dropped. The muscles at his jaw bounced. His eyes darted to the empty, open doorway.
“I need you in the library today, working on citations for David. I have a publication to write and not a lot of time to do it, so please get it to me as quickly as possible.”
I blinked.
“Are you sure I can’t help you here?” I dodged, not knowing why I wanted to stay, not when I could feel everything slipping away. I should have wanted to run. But I didn’t. “Didn’t you need—”
His face snapped up, his dark brows drawn and glare flinty. “I need you in the library.”
I sucked in a painful breath. “What’s going on, Court?”
“We’ll discuss it later,” he said, dismissing me.
But I wouldn’t be dismissed. I stepped toward his desk, my hands shaking and stomach in my shoes. That he had bought me. In Italy. But the man he was in Florence had been replaced by the old, cruel version of him, and that asshole was as distant and demanding as I remembered.
I stared at him, wondering which side of him was real.
“So now we’re back to this?” I said with my breath trembling. “You dismiss me? Send me away?”
“We’re not talking about this here.”
I turned and used all of my reserve control to close his office door without slamming it before storming back to his desk.
“There. Now tell me what the hell is going on.”
Anger flared in him, surging through his heaving chest as he stood, blazing in his eyes. “What do you want me to say, Rin? That wasn’t me—I wish it were, but it’s not. I don’t want to hurt you, Rin, but I can’t do this. I can’t just change.”
“You can. I saw you do it.”
“This is who I am, and you don’t want a man like me.”
Furious, betrayed tears stung my eyes. “That’s not really your decision to make. You don’t get to decide for me and tell me how it is.”
He didn’t speak.
“I get that you’re freaked out, I really do. But don’t you dare pretend like what happened wasn’t real. Don’t tell me that was a lie. Don’t do that to me.” I turned for the door.
“Rin—” My name, a warning.
I didn’t stop walking until I flung open the door. “Come find me when you’re ready to be a fucking adult. I guess I’ll be in the library.”
And to my credit, I didn’t shed a single tear until I was exactly where he’d sent me.
He’s not going to come.
I cannot believe he’s not going to come.
I stared at the door as I had been for the last four hours, willing it to open and reveal his long body in the frame, to hear the words of apology that I had begun to think would never come.
I’m sorry I’m a fucking idiot, Rin. I really don’t want to make all your decisions for you, I’m just a stupid son of a bitch who can’t handle his feelings.
He thought he could decide I shouldn’t be with him, a thought so overbearing and ludicrous, it made me feel crazy.
Like destroy his desk with an ax crazy. Although I supposed I hadn’t exactly conditioned him otherwise. I had on the exact outfit he’d asked me to wear, down to the lipstick. Because I’d thought it would make him feel as powerful as it made me feel. Because I liked being his, and I liked him wanting me to be his. Certainly not because I couldn’t make up my own goddamn mind about what I wore or whose heart I did—or didn’t—want to take a chance on.
I twiddled my pen in my fingers, annoyed with him, annoyed with myself, annoyed at the stupid tapping of the pen on my notebook.
Of course, under that annoyance was hurt and rejection and confusion. I just wanted him to stop hurting me. Five seconds apart, and he’d regressed to the animal he’d been before we left.
I should have known it was too good to be true.
I’d been left to consider how the man I’d fallen for—because I knew that I’d fallen for him just as well as I knew my name and zip code—and the man who sat downstairs could exist in the same body, in the same brain. How could he have opened up so much, only to shut down the second he got scared?
Because that was what it had to be, I’d deduced. He was afraid. It was why he’d treated me this way before and why he was doing it now—because he was afraid to care, afraid that I’d mistreat him as whoever had come before me did. I just had to show him I wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t give up simply because he told me to. Not even when he dismissed me like I meant nothing to him because that was the greatest lie of all.
If I’d learned anything, it was that the only way through to him was by way of a fight. And I had no fucking problem with throwing down—something I had plenty of practice in, thanks to him. After sitting here stewing all day and doing twenty minutes of work in four hours, I was ready to fight.
I packed up my things, reciting my argument, manifesting ways to get him away from his office and Bianca where we could speak freely. And I slung my bag over my shoulder and stormed out of the room.
Listen, you impossible beast, I rehearsed, turning the corner to the elevator’s hall too fast.