“Is that why you came tonight?”
“No. It’s not.” She met his eyes. “I don’t even know why I didn’t think of it, of asking you, but I didn’t.”
“How long has it been?”
“Almost nine months. She’s been gone as long as I had her.”
He didn’t want that to be the reason she was here, but he hated that she hadn’t thought of coming to him for help for something so important.
They’d shared everything for so long. Now she was going through her own heartbreaking loss, and he didn’t share in it. That was wrong.
“It’s wrong that you’ve gone through this alone. Not just alone, but without me.”
“I’ve been doing everything without you for a long time.” Her tone wasn’t accusatory, not angry. Just the truth.
“That’s wrong, too,” he said, eyes locked with hers, daring her to disagree. “It feels wrong, Mia.”
She shrugged. “It’s the way it is.”
His fists balled at his sides. “And Brian? Is he more than a friend?”
“Are you asking me if I’m sleeping with him?”
He stared at her, fighting the picture that was forming of her with another man.
“No. We went out. Maybe he wanted more.” She shrugged, shook her head. “We’re friends. I’m embarrassed to say there hasn’t been anyone since you.”
No one? It took a second for that to sink in. She’d been alone? He closed his eyes, absorbing the meaning of her words and feeling the punch.
No one. At all. No man had touched her, held her. It hurt him, and it made him so glad he hated himself. His Mia had been alone, with so much love to give that she’d adopted a child, and then she’d lost even that.
“I guess you can’t say the same,” she said, looking at a spot beyond his shoulder.
“Mia—”
“No. Don’t. Really.” She met his eyes. “And why does it even matter? About Brian?”
“It doesn’t.” He leaned closer until his mouth was no more than a breath from hers. “I’m going to kiss you anyway. I think I’ll die if I don’t. I think we both will.”
He registered the wary surprise in her eyes just before his mouth covered hers. Going slow, he teased her lips apart, tasted her, and groaned at the sensations it all brought back. He’d never thought to kiss her again, to touch her. What a crazy thought that had been, that he could actually survive without her.
Her fingers twisted in the front of his shirt. Waves of hunger vibrated through both of them, along with subtle waves of fear. She tore her mouth away, leaving his lips at her temple. “I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know why I’m here.”
He touched his forehead to hers, knowing how she felt. But if she hadn’t come to him, he would have gone to her. It was as inevitable as the tide. Both of them tossed, not knowing where to go, but she was right in front of him. It was the only place he could go. He slipped his fingers into her hair, cradling her face. He brushed his lips over hers, let them linger. Kissed his way over her cheeks, her temple, back to her mouth. “Stay,” he whispered.
Even with the ball of fear in his gut, he whispered again. “Stay.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, caught his head, and pulled his mouth back to hers. They dove into each other, fast and frantic to get to some place neither had been in so long.
He needed her like air; he always had. The quick, hot spark flared through him just the way he remembered. She was everything that every other woman wasn’t. She was Mia. She was his.
Clinging to him, her fingers dug into his shoulders, slid up to grip his hair. She kissed him back, answering the ache for her that beat in his heart and throbbed in his blood. It felt the same, he felt the same, the years apart melting away.
He scraped his teeth down her throat and felt her shiver. The breath tore through his lungs. He wanted to be inside her, so deep inside her that neither of them would be able to think.
She whimpered into his mouth and, sensing her distress, he pulled back to find her eyes filled with tears.
“My Mia.” Staggered by her, he brushed the dampness from her cheeks. “Don’t cry.” That seemed to only make her cry harder. He did his best to soothe her and himself. Kissing her trembling lips, her eyes, smoothing his hands up her back.
“Nick.” It was a plea and a cry on her lips. “Nick.”
“Shh. I know.” He felt the same, like his heart were being wrung out like a wet rag. An urgent need grabbed them, dragging them on a riptide of emotion. He stood and carried her gently in his arms, his lips on hers until he laid her on his bed. He followed her down, held himself over her. He brushed her hair back from her face like he’d done countless times before and took a moment.
Her dark hair spread out over the pale gray of his pillow. Her eyes glistened. He leaned in, captured her mouth again. Slow, he forced himself to go slow. Touching her again was like a dream he was afraid to wake from.
He traced her lips with his tongue, dipped inside to taste her again. Pressed his lips to the fluttering pulse at her throat that mirrored his own. Only and always with her. Two people who’d loved so deeply they’d been like one, reunited with the other half of themselves.
With one hand, he kept her arms shackled over her head. He kissed his way down her neck, over her chest, releasing the buttons of her blouse as he went.
When his hands smoothed over her bare skin, she sighed. When his thumbs brushed lace-covered nipples, she moaned. “So damn beautiful.” He let her hands go to strip out of his shirt, then they lost their clothes piece by piece, pausing between each one to come together with more flesh on flesh each time. More kisses, more exploring until she was as lost as he was, so lost in each other there was nothing else.
“Nick.” Her muscles jerked and quivered. “I can’t breathe.” Her voice was thick, desperate, and he lifted his head.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
He rolled her nipple between his lips, took her breast into his mouth, then the other until he felt her relax and soften. He left her breast and made his way down her torso. “I want to touch all of you. I need to touch you.”
She quivered, might have said yes again, or maybe please, but he was taken over with the taste of her skin. Her body was soft and giving, her skin like silk under his lips as he laid a trail of kisses up her thigh. Her sounds of pure pleasure, the scent of her arousal. This one woman who had owned him from the first minute. How had he survived the years without this, without her?
Her hips rose. “Nick. I need you. I need—”
He took her mouth because he knew what she needed. He needed it, too. Both of them raw from the time they’d been apart. Her hands glided over his back, held him close. And that added another layer, feeling her hands on him. If she had any idea how much he wanted her... He rested his brow against hers, waited for his heartbeat to slow, at least so he could breathe.
“Mia.” He didn’t say more, couldn’t express everything running through him. He just needed to say her name. Wanted her to hear his voice. He didn’t know anything beyond her. Their bodies came together like they’d been waiting a decade to be rejoined, recognizing what maybe their minds were afraid of.
He knew where to kiss and stroke as she did, and they loved in the dark from memory. Sometimes frantic and hard, sometimes achingly slow. Every touch, every minute they’d ever had, rushing back to mix and build with the present.
His eyes stayed on hers, watched them flutter closed. But everything showed on her face, her surprise and her pleasure. She couldn’t hide from him. He listened to her breath quicken and catch. He buried his face in her neck, not even thinking, just feeling as her body came apart around him. Then they were both coming apart, body and soul.
* * *
MIA WOKE IN THE dark of early morning, alone. The fresh scent of Nick’s aftershave wafted to her from the attached bathroom. She’d fallen asleep against him, relaxed and sated, sprawled on top of him. But he wasn’t there now
, and a sick feeling curled in her stomach.
She looked around, in a way feeling like this was where she belonged, yet at the same time the fact that she’d never been there before said she didn’t. Nick’s room, his things, and his essence surrounded her, dark furniture and shades of blue and gray.
She brushed her hand across the sheet where he’d lain next to her, wrapped around her or inside. Did other women know this room? Was there one woman who knew it well?
Had she expected to end up here, like this? In his arms, in his bed? Had she wanted to? She closed her eyes and thought of the snow globe and what it meant that Nick had kept it.
He’d never been the most open man, the most romantic, but he had his moments, his own way.
She stared at the ceiling, wondering if ten years later, his shoulders were still as burdened, or if maybe things could be different. She pressed her nose to the sheets, breathing him in one more time.
With hope, she found her clothes and made her way into the kitchen. She found Nick dressed and standing at the kitchen window. Half a coffee pot sat on the counter.
“You’re up early.”
He looked back at her. “Yeah. Sorry if I woke you.”
“It’s okay.” She started toward him, thinking to wrap her arms around him, add to the steps they’d taken last night, but something in his stance stopped her.
“You want coffee?”
“Sure.”
He got out another mug and poured. “I have sugar,” he said, sliding a small plastic container toward her then getting out a spoon. “I don’t have any cream. Just skim milk.” Which she saw was already on the counter. For her, not himself. He was strictly a black coffee drinker. She was touched that he remembered she wasn’t. Even so, an uneasiness crept along her neck when he went back to staring out the window.
He looked so alone. She sipped and let her gaze follow his. A cardinal sat on the deck railing. He cocked his head then flew to a low branch on one of the many trees in the yard then flew again to a farther one.
Looking at his profile and the set of his jaw, she doubted Nick even saw the world in front of him. He looked exhausted after a night with her, and not in a good way.
“Do you think she should have taken those college classes?” He asked suddenly. “I always wonder, would my parents have let her take those classes?”
His voice was low, distant. As close as they’d been last night, he was gone again. The dark cloud had descended, and she felt even more alone. Nick was still lost and locked away in a past that couldn’t be changed.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. And it didn’t matter.
He set his mug down, cursed. “She had no business being on that campus. That was my decision.”
“Oh, Nick.” She shook her head slowly, every bit of hope for them and things being different now slipping away. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, what he was saying. They’d made love all night, and they were still having the same conversation they’d had a decade ago.
He was still looking for an answer, a reason, when there was no logical answer, no reason. There was nothing to do but move forward and help Hannah move forward. But he was still in the past, still looking for someone to blame, and as long as he did, there was no future for them.
A minute passed, and he finally turned and faced her. He leaned back against the counter, rolled the mug between his palms. “Does Hannah ever talk to you about what happened? I know you can’t tell me what she says in private. I just wondered if…She told me the other day that I reminded her of it. That she couldn’t forget because I was always telling her to be careful.”
His eyes met hers, still so troubled, so confused. So much like that nineteen-year-old boy suddenly thrust into parenthood.
“Is that wrong? To want to protect her?”
“No. It’s not wrong,” she said, sad for him and herself. “But you have to know where to draw the line.”
“I know. I do, but… Hannah dating and then seeing you…” He sighed, stared at his feet several seconds before meeting her eyes again.
“And you’re reminded,” she said. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s the biggest problem between us. You can’t look at me without thinking about that day, that I was supposed to get her and I came back alone.” She heard the tears in her voice, felt them trickle down her cheek.
She wanted to shake him and hold him. Scream at him and kiss him, but he’d never wanted her comfort in the light of day. Just like before, they came together in the dark then woke to reality. It was on the tip of her tongue to say she was sorry again, but she’d said it a hundred times before, and it hadn’t mattered.
“You have to let this go.”
He turned, his hard eyes meeting hers. “Let it go and forget it?”
He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone took another slice.
“No. Not forget. But maybe move forward. Live with it.”
“I am living with it!” He slammed his mug on the counter hard enough she was surprised it didn’t break. “I live with it every day!”
Was it possible he was even harder now than he’d been when she’d left him? No matter how hard, she would never have left him because of that. Not if she’d been able to breach his impenetrable wall, the fortress complete with razor wire he’d constructed around his heart. The one that had torn at hers every time she’d tried to climb over.
He’d shoved her away then locked her out.
She couldn’t do this again. She wouldn’t.
She felt sick and bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “Nothing’s changed. Even after last night.” Everything about their relationship, their love, reduced to that one day. “We could have moved forward together. But you didn’t want to. You couldn’t see me past your own guilt. You still can’t.”
“And you can?” He straightened from the counter and took one step toward her and stopped. “I’m sorry.”
“No. You can say it. There’s no reason for us not to be honest with each other now. We really can’t lose any more than we’ve already lost, can we? You blamed me.”
He turned his back to her, and she could see his hands gripping the edge of the sink. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did. I was late. If you think I haven’t thought about that, you’re wrong. I shouldn’t have come last night.” She carefully set aside the mug she barely realized she’d been holding. There was nothing else she could do, nothing to say. She took another long look at him, just one more image to add to an already-broken heart.
She went to his bedroom, got her shoes, then returned for her purse. “I have no defenses against you,” she whispered sadly. “I never did.”
He spun on her so forcefully she stepped back. “And you think I do? You think you aren’t burned in my brain! In my heart! You’re there. You’ve always been there.”
She wanted to believe it so badly, she considered grabbing him, taking his mouth with hers, begging him to touch her again like he had last night. But you didn’t just have to move on from the past, you and to learn from it. “You didn’t want me, Nick. You didn’t.”
“I loved you! I was surviving on you!”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, countering his storm with calm. She wouldn’t yell, she wouldn’t fight with him. She didn’t have the energy for it. “Maybe I was just too much of a reminder. Maybe I still am.”
She’d been two minutes late. In her mind, she knew that was nothing, but in the reality of that particular day, it had been everything. “So we’re ten years later and still in exactly the same place.”
He shifted on his feet, tilted his head. “And where’s that?”
She didn’t even hesitate. It couldn’t hurt anymore to say it out loud. “Me loving you. You blaming me. But I give up. You’ve got the past clenched so tightly in your fist, I’ll never be enough to make you let it go. I can’t go back to that place we were. It nearly killed me.”
And there was nothing left to say. He was still closed off, his
walls up, doors locked. Well, she could damn well close the door too.
She grabbed her purse, and slammed that very literal door closed behind her.
Chapter 17
Ten years ago…
“HEY,” MIA SAID, COMING into the kitchen from the garage, her arms loaded with bags.
Standing at the stove, Zach smiled over his shoulder. “Hey.”
Nick sat at the counter, a file and papers spread in front of him. He greeted her without looking up.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said dropping her things. “I blame it on the vortex that is Target. I ended up getting way more than I went in for, but I did find those shoe things you were looking for.”
Quiet. That’s what it was. Even more so than usual. She knew they wouldn’t be upset about dinner. Just because she usually cooked didn’t mean they couldn’t. They were grown men, after all.
“What’s up? Where’s Hannah?”
Nick finally looked up, his eyes and face unreadable. There was a time both were so clear he didn’t even need words. But now, anything he might feel for her was hidden behind a dark storm. Which is what his face reminded her of, a storm that had settled, made itself at home and refused to move on.
“Nick?”
“She went to bed,” he said, leveling his hard eyes on her. “She was already in bed when I got home.”
“Okay.” There was obviously more.
“Zach said she was exhausted from the outing you forced her on today. One that caused her complete and total freakout.”
Zach slid a look at Nick. “That’s not exactly what I said.”
Mia looked from one man to the other.
Zach dished up a bowl of spaghetti and excused himself, leaving the two of them.
“I told you she wasn’t ready,” Nick said.
“I thought she needed a push. That it was time for her to give it a try. Just to the grocery store. It might help if we encouraged her more. I was with her the whole time.”
Worth the Wait (McKinney/Walker #1) Page 13