by Leisa Rayven
“Stay,” I say as step toward him. “Come in and have some wine or whatever. Stay for a while.”
He puts his arms around me again. “If I come in, I won’t want to leave.”
I stroke his jaw. “Then stay all night. Your flight doesn’t leave ’til tomorrow.”
He tightens his arms, and sighs. “Cassie . . . we can’t.”
“Why not? I want you. You want me.”
“Your therapy—”
“Is going really well. Dr. Kate is happy.”
“She wouldn’t be if she knew we’d slept together.”
I trace his lips. “She doesn’t have to know.”
He takes my hand away from his face and kisses it. “Yes, she does. And you dialing your sexiness up to eleven is an unfair weapon to use against me.”
I look up at him and try not to seem as desperate as I feel. “Just five minutes?”
“If I stay here for even one more minute, I’m going to forget all the reasons I shouldn’t make love to you. If I do that, I’ll have no chance of getting on that plane tomorrow, and my agent would murder me, and possibly you. So I’m going.” He doesn’t move.
“Okay.”
“Tell me you’ll miss me.”
“I’ll miss you like crazy.”
He lets out a long breath and grazes his fingers down my face. “See you next week.”
“Okay.”
I watch as he goes to the elevator and pushes the button. Then I watch him step inside and wave as the doors close.
I stare at those elevator doors for a long time.
They don’t reopen.
TWENTY-FOUR
ENCORE
Three Years Earlier
Westchester, New York
The Grove
The shower water runs cold, and I realize I’ve been pressing my forehead to the tiles for a really long time. I get out, wrap myself in my robe, and crawl into bed.
I’ve barely left it for the past three days. Barely eaten.
Ruby is spending the week in Hawaii with her rich Australian boyfriend, so I don’t even have her to kick my ass. I haven’t told her about Ethan. I can’t. She warned me this would happen. I should have listened.
My phone rings, and I check caller I.D. before ignoring it.
It’s him. Again.
He’s called dozens of times, but I never answer. I don’t know what he thinks I possibly have to say. It’s not like I could change his mind. I don’t even think I want to anymore.
Fuck him.
Fuck him and all the ways I still love him.
When it stops ringing, I call the local pizza place and order a large pie with everything. I figure if I’m going to spend the evening wallowing, I need the appropriate supplies.
Half an hour later, there’s a knock on the door, and my stomach rumbles. God bless thirty minutes or less.
I stop dead when I open the door to find Ethan standing there with my pizza.
Every hair on my body stands on end at the sight of him. I want to be hard and unaffected that he’s here, but I’m not. My heart races as my numbness begins to fade.
He holds out the box. “I paid the guy for you.”
I snatch it from him with trembling hands. “Oh, well that makes up for you being the world’s biggest bastard. Thanks.”
I shove the door, but he stops it with his hand. “Cassie, please—”
“Let go.” He has to leave. Now. Before I fall apart.
He steps forward so his body is blocking the door. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I came to say goodbye.”
Just the word is enough to bring me to the edge of tears. Not “see you later” or “see you tomorrow”.
Goodbye.
My breathing is too shallow. I turn away and fight to keep my composure as I take the pizza to the table. I don’t invite him in, but he comes anyway. When the door clicks shut behind him, I clench my jaw so hard, my teeth grind.
I don’t turn around. If he has something to say, he can say it to my back. My face will give everything away.
“I know you don’t want to see me, and I know I’ve hurt you, it’s just that . . . fuck, Cassie, I never wanted it to end like this. Ever. But there’s only so much you can watch someone sacrifice before you realize they’re changing who they are for you, and not in a good way. You were perfect how you were. I’m hoping that when I’m gone, you can go back to that.”
I can’t respond. He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand that by trying to make me better, he’s only making me worse.
I drag in a breath and hate that it contains a sob.
“Cassie . . .” Then he’s wrapping his arms around me. I don’t mean to turn into his chest, but I do, and then I’m not numb at all. I’m a heaving mess of pain and regret, and although I can’t really comprehend that this is the end for us, my heart is telling me it is.
“Cassie . . . God, please don’t cry.”
He cups my face and dries my tears. His lips are on my forehead, and cheek, and it makes me furious that despite everything he still feels so good.
“Cassie.” He kisses me softly on the lips. Once. Twice. I grip his shirt. Press into the skin beneath. He kisses me a third time, and I don’t let him retreat. I kiss him violently. Give him some of my bitterness. He tightens his arms around me and doesn’t even pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on.
He does.
We both do.
As we get rougher and more desperate, we know this is the only goodbye we’ll have. Words are no good to us. They never were. They’re useful at communicating everything that’s wrong with us, but this is the only way to express why we’re so right.
It’s not going to make him stay, and it’s not going to make it hurt less. It’s just going to give us both one last glimpse of what might have been if our story was a romance instead of a tragedy.
We tug and pull at each other as we stumble down the hallway and into my bedroom. Half his clothes are already off. The rest don’t last long. My robe hits the floor. He’s not gentle when he lays me down and buries his head between my thighs. There’s a desperation in him that I haven’t seen since the night before he broke up with me the first time, and I know it’s because he already has one foot out the door.
I close my eyes and grip the bed, trying to keep my emotions from ruining me. I’m successful for a while. He makes me come, and I’m fine. He kisses up my body, and I’m okay. He settles between my legs, and I’m wavering. He looks into my eyes as he enters me, and a giant fault line cracks down the middle of my resolve. He slows everything down so much, it seems like he doesn’t want it to end, and I’m cleaved in two. One part is vibrant and pulsing with pleasure. The other is withering and dying. The trusting part. The loving part.
He thinks I can go back to being the person I was after this? It’s impossible. He’s poisoned the woman I used to be. Long after he’s gone, I’ll still be toxic.
I don’t orgasm again. My body is too busy mourning his loss even while he’s still inside me.
When he comes, his face is buried in my neck, and even though I’d banned myself from crying, it happens anyway. My tears are silent, but I know he can tell. Just like I can tell why he stays so still afterward. Why his arms are so tight around me, his breathing so uneven.
Why he wipes his face on my pillow before he climbs off.
He rolls onto his back. Throws his arm over his eyes.
I don’t move. I can’t. If I do, I’ll shatter like glass.
“Cassie—”
“Nothing you say is going to make you leaving me okay. Nothing. Ever.”
He takes in a shaky breath. “If there was another way—”
I turn my back on him and face the wall. It’s too hard having him here now. It just makes me want to beg him to stay, and that’s something my pride won�
��t allow.
“You need to leave.”
He doesn’t move.
“Now, Ethan.” I try to sound strong, but my voice cracks. It’s no wonder. Right now, all I am is broken pieces held together by sheer determination. I’ll be damned if I let him see me crumble.
The bed moves as he stands, and I just stare at the wall while he collects his clothes and gets dressed. I don’t know how I thought we’d end, but it certainly wasn’t like this. I think in my most stupid, optimistic daydreams, we didn’t ever end.
What a joke.
I can feel him hovering in the doorway. Watching me. Hoping I’m all right.
I’m not. Right now, I can’t even comprehend a time when I will be.
“Cassie—”
“Get out.”
“Maybe one day we can—”
“Get the fuck out !”
My throat tightens when I hear his sigh of resignation. It closes up completely when he whispers, “I’m going to miss you,” before he leaves.
When I hear the front door close, a sob rips out of me. It’s followed by another, and another, until I’m drowning in pain and gasping for air.
Eventually I calm down enough to breathe, and head into the shower. I wash away every remnant of him. As I do, I vow that I’ll never let another man affect me this way.
Never again.
I also vow that for the rest of my life, I will never hate anyone as much as I hate Ethan Holt.
*
Present Day
New York City, New York
The Apartment of Cassandra Taylor
Ethan is due to leave tomorrow, and “restless” doesn’t even cover how I’m feeling tonight. “Climbing the walls” is closer but still not frantic enough. I feel unhinged.
All I’ve done since Ethan walked me home is check my watch and count down the time until his flight leaves. It’s now ten hours and forty-two minutes. I look at my bed and consider trying to sleep, but even though it’s two o’clock in the morning, I know it won’t be possible.
Tristan’s resonant snoring echoes down the hallway, and it’s enough to make me want to scream. I have to get out.
I pull off my robe and get dressed. When I head down to the lobby, I tell myself I’m going for a walk. Just a walk. When I reach the street and hail the first cab that passes, I tell myself I’m just going for a ride. And when I pull up in front of Ethan’s apartment building, I tell myself I’m a filthy, dirty liar for not admitting where I was going and what I was planning on doing.
More specifically, who I was planning on doing.
I punch in his security code and open the door. His building is quiet. When the elevator opens on his floor, I almost lose my nerve and leave. He’s probably sleeping. He’s definitely trying to avoid what I’m going to ask him to do. This is such a bad idea on so many levels, and yet, right now, it seems like the most imperative action I’ve ever taken.
I stride down the hallway and knock on his door. I expect to have to wait minutes before he opens it, bleary-eyed and half-asleep. Instead, it opens within seconds, and he looks even more wired than I feel.
“Fuck, no,” he says, and for a second I think he’s going to shut the door in my face. “What the hell, Cassie?”
“Hi.”
He rakes his fingers through his hair. “You’re supposed to be at your place. Far away from me and sleeping. Preferably in an ugly flannel nightie.”
“Ethan—”
“Do you understand how hard I’ve fought to stay away from you tonight? I’ve been pacing my living room for hours, resisting the temptation. And now you show up looking like that?”
“Like what?”
He waves his hand at me. “Edible. Horny as hell. Fucking beautiful. Choose one.”
I take a step forward, but he holds his hand out to stop me. “No way. If you step into this apartment, all that talk tonight about us waiting, and your therapy, and blah, blah, blah, ‘We shouldn’t have sex’ will be out the window. You need to leave.”
I stop at the threshold. When I’d fantasized about telling him I was ready to be intimate, I’d anticipated him being a little more enthusiastic. I mean, I know he’s trying to do what’s best for me, but historically, he sucks at knowing what’s best for me.
I take a tiny step. “Ethan, listen—”
He backs up. “Seriously, I won’t be held accountable for my actions. It’s been three fucking years, Cassie. The things I would do to you . . .” He shakes his head. “You don’t even understand.”
“What if I do understand? What if I have things I want to do to you as well?”
He closes his eyes and drops his head back against the wall. “Jesus, seriously with that comment?”
I step through the door and close it behind me.
He opens his eyes. “Cassie, we’ll undo everything—”
“I don’t care.” I put my hands on his chest. “I need this. And as you keep saying, so do you.”
His breathing is fast. “I don’t want to screw this up.”
I stroke his face. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“You find the intimacy too confronting and panic. Shut me out. Shut our relationship down.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“Do you forget that I’ve been exactly where you are right now? It might.”
“Ethan, I love you, but you really need to stop thinking so much.”
He freezes. Eyes wide. “What did you just say?”
I take a step back. “Uh . . . what I meant was—”
“You said you loved me.” His panic seems to have vanished. “Did you mean it?” He moves closer so he can stroke my cheek. “If you didn’t, it’s okay. Or if you did, and you’re not ready to admit it, that’s okay too. Just . . . tell me.”
A strange sense of calm comes over me, and I remember something he said a couple of months ago: whether or not he loved me wasn’t dependent on a word. It was just fact, pure and simple. Even if I don’t say it, it’s true, so why bother denying it anymore?
“I meant it,” I say quietly. I expect to be hit by an anxiety attack, but instead all I feel is relief. Intense, long-overdue relief.
His smile is blinding. “Yeah?”
I take a deep breath and smile back. “Definitely.”
He stares at me with so much joy, I want to kiss him all over. Instead I pull his head down and settle for his lips.
The initial shock stops us both in our tracks. This isn’t a stage kiss. No choreographed emotions filtered through our characters. This is us. The way we should be. The way I never thought we could be again.
We draw back, just a little, and stare at each other. We’re actually going to do this. After all this time.
I feel like I should be more nervous, but I realize all of our moments, even the painful ones, have been leading us here.
I look for hesitation in him. Instead, I see concern for me and overwhelming love. It’s more than enough.
It’s everything.
He cups my face. Kisses me harder. There’s a thrill of familiarity about what we’re doing but with a completely new edge. The lust is still there, as knee-buckling as ever, but there’s something deeper. It winds through my body and anchors me to him. In the past, this soul-deep connection came and went in fleeting, infrequent moments, but now it’s where Ethan lives. I’m still terrified, but I want to live there with him.
Make him the first and last man I’ll ever have.
We keep kissing as we stumble down the hallway into the living room. I tug at his shirt, but he pulls back and tries to catch his breath. “We don’t have to go so fast.”
“You haven’t had sex in three years, and you want to slow down?”
“The last time I had sex, it was with you. I’ve waited a long time for this. I want to
savor it.”
“You’re getting on a plane in,”—I look at my watch—“nine hours and thirty-eight minutes. Are we really wasting time discussing this when we could be getting naked?”
“You make a compelling case.”
He pulls off his shirt and kisses me again. God, I’ve missed kissing him, which is crazy because we kiss every day onstage.
But what we’ve been doing in rehearsals is a world away from how he’s kissing me now. If he’d kissed me like this during the show, the sex scene wouldn’t be simulated. It proves just how much he’s been holding back to avoid scaring me.
He presses me against the wall and reacquaints himself with my breasts. I grip his shoulders to keep myself upright. Shimmering heat whispers under my skin. It curls and releases in my stomach, making my heart hammer and my blood sing. Everywhere Ethan touches me burns brighter than the rest.
Every other man who’s ever put his hand on me fades from my memory.
It’s always been him. Even when I wanted to forget, my body remembered.
He pulls off my T-shirt, and when his mouth connects with my chest, I anchor my hands in his hair and pull him forward. Urge him to take more.
Everything I am is for him.
He lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist. Then he’s moving, grinding, unashamed of how hard he is.
We get more frantic. Desperate and impatient, we communicate with low sounds and needy hands.
He pulls me away from the wall and carries me down the hallway. When we reach his bed, he’s barely laid me down before he’s tugging at the rest of my clothes.
I kick off my shoes, and he attacks my jeans. His concentrated frown as he works them down my legs is all kinds of sexy. When I’m in only my underwear, he pauses and stares.
“Goddamn.” He shakes his head. “No matter how much I fantasize, the real you always takes my breath away.”
I sit up and remove my bra. He swallows hard.
“Shall I remove these?” I ask as I hook my thumbs into the waistband of my panties. “Or do you want to?”
His expression turns predatory. “Oh, I want to. I very much want to.”
He grabs my ankles and drags me to the edge of the bed. Then he pulls my legs up onto his torso.