Love Me Not

by Villette Snowe

  She looked up at me, met my eyes. My heart beat faster. Yeah, my game, that was out the fucking door with her.

  “You, um…” She rested her hand on my chest and let it slide down an inch or so. “You look really nice in this sweater.”

  My smile was slow and devilish. “So, you do know how to flirt.”

  Rosy color blossomed across her cheeks. I decided I rather liked fair skin. Her hand stayed on my chest.

  Women touched me like this all the time and, usually, without clothes on. Kimber’s touch was infinitely more powerful—too much. I took her hand from my chest and brought it to my lips. She watched me with the softest expression, as if my kissing her hand was something magical.

  She definitely didn’t have much experience with men. I wondered why. Curiosity gnawed at me. I wanted to interrogate her, figure her out. With most women, my curiosity didn’t make it past her bra size.

  At least some of my charm seemed to be working. She looked like she was incapable of looking away from me.

  I held her hand in mine and led her into the restaurant. Perhaps once we sat to eat, I could get her to talk about herself.

  Over the heads of all the people crowded around the hostess station, I saw the usual girl. She smiled.

  I opened my mouth to give my name.

  “Heath,” she said, still smiling. “It’ll be just a few minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kimber and I moved to the side. I hoped the hostess wouldn’t be annoyed that I had a woman with me and not give me a table as quickly as she usually did.

  “She seemed friendly,” Kimber said. She didn’t sound jealous, just curious.

  “I come here fairly often.” Then I answered the question I knew she wouldn’t ask. “I’ve never gone out with her.” I hadn’t even screwed her—she couldn’t afford me.

  Kimber smiled and then looked away as if she noticed something interesting, maybe the Impressionist painting on the wall. I’d always liked it.

  “Mother, we should eat somewhere else.” A young man standing not far from us spoke louder than was necessary.

  Kimber’s head whipped around.

  The older woman sitting on the bench next to the young man stood. “Yes, we can’t possibly dine here.”

  Kimber looked up at me and murmured, “Please can we go?”

  I was about to ask why when the older woman walked past us. She sneered at Kimber. “Whore.”

  Chapter 22

  The Divorcee

  Kimber walked so fast she was almost running.

  “Kimber,” I said, “what was that? Are you all right?”

  “It was nothing.” She wiped a tear off her cheek.

  I took her hand and made her stop. We were standing in front of a line of closed shops.

  “What was that?” I said.

  “Just, um…” She wiped another tear. Then she turned and tried to walk away.

  I held on to her hand. “Kimber.”

  She stayed turned away from me, and her voice barely made sound. “I’m not a whore.”

  “I know.”

  She turned and looked at me.

  “You’re accomplished at rejecting men.” I touched her cheek. “From what I know so far, that’s your best talent. You do it with such vigor.”

  Her lips twitched slightly. The smile barely started and then stalled out and died.

  “Come here,” I murmured and pulled her into a hug. She clung to me as if she hadn’t been held properly in years, if ever.

  I didn’t want to let go. It felt impossible. She fit in my hold exactly right, as if I’d been molded just for her.

  She rested her head against my chest, and I felt as her body relaxed into me. I realized, with startling clarity, that she trusted me. She walked through the dark, deserted mall alone with me, the one man she didn’t want to reject.

  “Are you all right?” I said as I pulled her hair away from her face.

  She took a breath and held a little tighter.

  I moved my hand soothingly across her back. “You can talk to me.”

  She kept her face down. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make me feel better.”

  My lips curved. Trying to stop it would be as impossible as trying to stop the sun from rising.

  She looked up at me, and her expression relaxed. Then she took my hand and started walking. I wasn’t ready to let go of the hug.

  I gave her a few minutes before I pushed her to explain.

  My gaze forward as we walked, I said, “You know I’m not going to let it go.” Someone had called my date a whore. She was lucky I hadn’t hit someone.

  “I know.”

  Another minute passed. I realized she was leading me to the lot behind the shop, to where she parked. Oh, hell no. She wasn’t getting away that easily—without explaining and without dinner.

  Before we reached her car, I stopped her. She didn’t look at me.

  “I didn’t push you,” she said.

  “Excuse me.”

  “About where you live.”

  “And what was that scene in my room earlier?”

  She sighed. “Look, maybe this was a mistake.” She still wasn’t looking at me.

  “What do you mean this was a mistake? The dinner we didn’t have? The fact that you made me talk? Or is it the kiss, the one you enjoyed so much?”

  “All of it.”

  Go, Heath. Get the hell out of here. She was giving me the perfect opportunity. I should just walk her to her car and tell her I hope she feels better. And I could stay away from her—it would be her decision. She couldn’t even hate me for it.

  A tear rolled down the side of her cheek.

  I couldn’t walk away from her like this.

  “Kimber.”

  She didn’t look at me.

  I gently turned her chin. “This isn’t a mistake.” Or it wasn’t a mistake in the sense she thought.

  “Why did you hide, then? You wouldn’t have started this if I hadn’t recognized your handwriting.”

  She had to ask the fucking hard questions, didn’t she? I kept my voice gentle. “This isn’t about that.” I smoothed my thumb across her cheek. “And I really want to.”

  The fight in her eyes lessened. “You do?”

  “Pretty is easy,” I said. “Even beautiful isn’t hard to come by, but interesting, someone who can really challenge me, that’s someone I want to know more about.”

  Another tear fell down her cheek.

  “Please,” I said, “talk to me, even if just a little.”

  She took a step and sat on the curb that ran along the side street. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. I sat next to her, very close.

  “Who was that woman?” I said.

  A pause. Kimber stared at the grate across the road. “She belongs to my church, the one I used to belong to.”

  I waited.

  “She’s close to my parents. She used to babysit me when I was little.”

  Babysit her? Whenever Penny saw someone she used to babysit, she treated them like her long lost children.

  “Penny said you left your church,” I said.

  “I was thrown out.”

  “Like excommunicated? Don’t you have to do something really horrible?” What in the hell could sweet Kimber have done?

  “It was horrible to them. I just couldn’t…live like that anymore.”

  I smoothed my hand down her arm and took her hand to hold it on my leg.

  She glanced at our hands. “He never did that. All I wanted from him was a little affection.”

  “Who?”

  “My husband.”

  “You’re married?”

  “Not anymore. That’s why they threw me out. You don’t get divorced in my church, and women don’t disobey their husbands.” She paused, and I rubbed her hand to let her know I was still listening.

  “He wasn’t mean, really,” she said. “He just…I told my mother once th
at I wasn’t happy. She locked me in a closet and lectured me about obeying and respecting my husband. She kept quoting the same passages.” She looked up at me. “All I kept thinking was everyone seemed to skip certain passages. Shouldn’t we obey all of God’s word?”

  As if I’d know. I just smiled a little at her.

  “I didn’t talk to my mother again about it. I didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “How long were you married?”

  She took a breath and turned back to the grate across the road. “Eight years.”

  “You couldn’t have been older than—”

  “Seventeen.”

  “That’s legal?”

  “If your parents consent. I shouldn’t have done it. I wasn’t ready to make that kind of decision.”

  “Your parents forced you.”

  “I didn’t fight them. They kept telling me what a good man he was, that I was lucky someone so high in the church wanted me. The pastor told me it was God’s will that I be with him. Who am I to question God, or men?”

  I leaned forward to catch her eye and smiled. “You question me.”

  She smiled a little. “And I frustrate the crap out of you.”

  “Better than being with a doormat.”

  She looked down at her knees. “I don’t know what it is about you. I thought for sure I was done with men. I just couldn’t…I couldn’t go through that again.”

  I wondered what exactly she’d been through, why she wasn’t happy with her husband, but I decided to shut up and let her talk about whatever she wanted. I had the feeling I knew more than anyone else. I didn’t want to push too hard.

  “I’ve gotten used to being alone,” she said. “I thought that would be harder.”

  “But you don’t like being alone.”

  “Sometimes it’s nice, quiet.” She shrugged. “This is what I’ve chosen, and I don’t regret it.”

  “You also chose to be out with me.” I lifted her chin. “Do you regret that?”

  She met my eyes as if she could see clear through me. I almost looked away.

  “No,” she said. “You were a good choice.”

  My lips curved as if some invisible puppeteer was tugging at the corners. I stood and helped her to her feet. “I promised to take you to dinner.”

  “It’s late.”

  “Restaurants are still open. What kind of food do you like?”

  “Um…what about, like, Arby’s or something?”

  “Sure.” Well, at least it was a tiny step up from McDonald’s. I really didn’t care where we went, as long as she was happy.

  I kept a hold of her hand as we started walking. The rational part of me, the smarter part, knew I was an idiot. She’d given me the perfect opportunity. I could’ve let her go, been free to continue my life as I pleased. But the other part, the part I could never seem to get rid of, reached for her. It was that part that told me she was something special, something I shouldn’t let go of.

  But I knew it was the right thing to let her go. I could never really let her know me. I couldn’t be the one she stayed with forever.

  “Heath,” she said as we passed the now closed Starbucks.

  I stopped and looked at her.

  “Would you…would you kiss me?”

  I smiled a little.

  She kept looking at me with the question in her eyes—not trying to entice or be alluring, simply asking the question.

  My whole body yearned for her, perhaps simply because she asked. She wasn’t trying to control me, wasn’t trying to assert her feminine wiles. There was no game. She simply asked that I give her something, and that made me want to give it that much more.

  With my hands on her neck and the side of her face, I leaned closer.

  My lips touched hers. They were soft, giving.

  Her scent invaded my head.

  I couldn’t breathe, but I kept kissing. I moved closer and pulled her against me. She had to feel how hard I was.

  She opened her mouth farther, let me in.

  Entering her, just in this small way, was more erotic than all the sex I’d had in months, maybe years.

  She lifted onto her toes and wrapped her arms around my neck.

  Her tongue against mine, her lips, all of it felt different than what I did every day, different than all the women I screwed. Perhaps it was the intensity of my attraction. Perhaps it was something intangible, something even I didn’t understand.

  Finally, I found the strength to bring the kiss to an end. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been standing there.

  I kept her pressed against me and took a breath.

  She opened her mouth but didn’t talk.

  I brushed my thumb across her cheek. “As good as last time?”

  “I…I’m glad you’re holding me so tightly.”

  “Legs giving out?”

  “Yeah.”

  I grinned. Then I stepped back, my hands on her arms, as if she might collapse.

  She smiled. “I’m good now. I think.”

  As a car passed and reminded me where we were, I realized I wasn’t okay. I couldn’t walk in my current state, both from the pain building in my scrotum and the obviousness of my erection.

  “Ready?” she said.

  “Uh…” There was no way around it, and no hiding. I reached down to the front of my pants and adjusted myself, partially to give my penis more room and partially in an attempt to make it a little less noticeable.

  She burst out laughing.

  “It’s your fault,” I said.

  She smiled wider and kept laughing.

  Chapter 23

  Don’t Tell Penny

  Whatever Kimber thought I did to earn money, she seemed to assume it didn’t get me much of it. She offered to pay for her own meal. I wasn’t used to having my ego bruised. I was rather spoiled in that regard.

  When she offered to pay, I gave her a look like she was insane, and she apologized, something about not knowing how to be on a date. Apparently, she’d never dated her ex. They’d just gotten married. Her church sounded like an odd world to live in.

  After we ate, we walked back toward the shop. I chose a different route. She didn’t ask why it took so much longer to get back.

  “So, you don’t want Penny to know about this?” Kimber said as we stood at her car in the dark parking lot.

  “I don’t normally talk to people about my romantic life.” Which was the truth.

  “Especially a mother figure.”

  “Yeah.”

  Actually, I wasn’t sure what Penny would think. Would she be pissed I was involved with one of her employees, the first really reliable employee she’d had in awhile? Maybe she’d be angry about the money she earned from me. If I got too involved with Kimber, I’d have to stop…No, I wasn’t going to get that involved. We had one date. That hardly warranted an exclusive relationship, especially when the date consisted of Arby’s, a long walk, and tears.

  Whatever the reason, I didn’t want Penny to know about this, perhaps simply because I didn’t want to deal with her questions and expectations, positive or negative.

  “So, um,” Kimber said, “can we do this again? I promise not to cry next time.”

  I smiled a little. “Sure. I’ll talk to you next week.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I hated seeing her disappointment. The evening had gone so well she probably expected an invitation for tomorrow night. Deal with it, Heath. You’re the one who screwed it all up. A little disappointment at a time would be easier for her to handle. If I was lucky, she’d decide on her own to stop whatever it was we were doing. She said rejecting was the easy part, and I wanted this to be as easy for her as possible.

  Her rejection would destroy me, but I’d just have to deal with it. Perhaps I’d take the out Cassie had taken. Some days it seemed so simple, almost enticing.

  She started to turn for her car door.

  I planned to let her go, make this first goodbye a stepping stone to the last, but then I touched
her arm.

  She turned back to me, and I saw in her eyes what she wanted, still no flirting or seduction.

  I stepped closer, and her back pressed against her car as I kissed her. Our breathing was immediately heavy.

  She welcomed me, not even any hesitation at my abruptness. I knew I could get her into bed if I wanted—and my God did I want her, to join us together, to be a part of her.

  My hand travelled down from her neck, over her breast, to her waist. She sighed against my lips. My hand slipped under her shirt to touch her bare skin. Her waist was tiny and smooth, exactly the kind I liked to hold while I…

  I could almost feel what it would be like to slip into her. She’d be tight, and she’d cling to me like she was now. She’d spread her legs wide and moan my name. I knew I’d go for hours with her. I wouldn’t be able to get enough.

  My hand slid farther. I felt her bra, smooth cotton, and then the curve of her breasts, the way they filled out even more with her heavy breathing, just like if we were making love…

  I stepped back. “I’m sorry.”

  What in the hell was I doing? I felt off balance, confused. The line between fantasy and reality was blurring again. Maybe I should just let it blur completely. All this shit would be easier.

  “It’s okay.” She touched my hand, and I realized it was shaking. “Heath, it’s okay.”

  “You’re not ready. I’m sorry.”

  Her lips curved. The smile filled her eyes. She moved closer and wrapped her arms around me, her head against my chest. I held on to her, pressed my hands to her to get them to stop shaking.

  “Thank you,” she said. “No one’s ever cared about what I was ready for.”

  I pressed my cheek against her hair. “I do.” That was just one reason I shouldn’t let this go any further. The one woman I’d ever been close to ended up dead. I’d sacrifice myself before allowing harm to come to Kimber.

  I let her go. “Good-night.” I turned and walked away.

  Chapter 24

  Mother

  I didn’t talk to Kimber the next day or the next. If I was being honest with myself, I was scared of her, of what she did to me. With women, I was used to being in control. They did what I wanted, were happy to do what I wanted. But Kimber, she made me do things I didn’t know I wanted.