Nothing, her mind told her, nothing.
And then she got outside and saw his car.
She saw him and knew her mind was a liar.
It was obvious immediately—and not just because of the relief. There was also her reaction. Her big, ridiculous reaction. She practically ran across the street, and when she got to the passenger side door she didn’t hesitate. She yanked it open, without even thinking about asking permission.
Though, once she was inside she wished she had.
For just a split second, he was a different person. His whole body tensed, as if priming himself for a fight. That dark gaze of his flattened out; his mouth thinned down to nothing. She honestly thought he was about to punch her—or at the very least throw her out of the car.
Then he seemed to register it was her, and everything shifted as quickly as it had appeared. In fact, it shifted so much, she wondered how she’d ever found him expressionless. Clearly, he gave her far more than she’d ever realized. She got that light in his eyes, small but so much sweeter than the blank nothing he apparently reserved for intrusive strangers. And that curl to the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, she had once thought. Now, she knew it was practically a grin, for him.
He gave her grins, and she’d repaid him with handsy bullshit.
Really, it was no surprise when an apology abruptly burst out of her.
Though he looked pretty startled by it, anyway. In fact, he looked like she’d just declared herself the Queen of France. One of his eyebrows actually flickered, like he wanted to raise it. His teeth sort of touched his bottom lip and pulled it in a little, in a way she wanted to label confusion.
And his tone, when he spoke, actually backed that up.
In fact, he almost laughed through his question.
“What the fuck are you sorry for?”
“Everything. All the shit I did.”
She gestured wildly in an attempt to make it clearer.
But it didn’t. In fact, it just pushed his eyebrow up another millimeter.
“Gotta be honest, I don’t remember you doing any shit.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t act like it was nothing.”
“Well, maybe if you explain, I can act like it was something.”
“Last time we met, I practically mauled you.”
She expected some kind of agreement with that.
At the very least, he was supposed to accept her interpretation of events.
Instead, his expression actually reached something like horrified. And when he finally spoke, his tone was close to despairing. “Oh Christ. You think you’re the one who did something wrong.”
“You say that like somebody else fucked everything up.”
“Because somebody else did. Somebody else is still fucking up now.”
“I don’t see how. I was the one who did that stuff.” She flushed, thinking of it. Of how bursting with feelings she’d been. “You just endured it.”
“Yeah, endured doesn’t seem like the right term to me.”
“Then what does?”
“Wanted.”
He looked away when he said the word—as if admitting it was just a little too much.
Though, she could understand him feeling that way.
It was too much for her, too.
She went to say something, and no sound came out. Her eyes had gone wide, and no amount of pressure would put them back to a normal size. And when she finally did manage to speak, her tone was not the one she intended. It sounded like all the air had been sucked out of every word.
“You couldn’t possibly have wanted me to do that.”
“Man, I wish that were the case.”
“But it is the case,” she said, and now her voice was firmer. More like the woman she thought she was. “You didn’t want anything. I did the things I did, and then you reacted in the most horrified way a human being possibly can. Seriously, I don’t think you could have moved faster if I’d burst into flames.”
“I moved fast because moving fast was the only decent thing to do.”
“To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what that means.”
“It means that a gentleman would have stopped all of this the second it started to turn into something else. But I didn’t. I didn’t stop it. Truthfully, it was all I could do to force myself not to ask for more.”
He sounded weary, she thought.
Resigned—like some guy finally confessing his crime.
She didn’t know how to tell him that no crime had been committed.
In fact, all she could really focus on was those last three words.
“You wanted to ask for more?”
“That isn’t the part you’re supposed to talk about.”
“Well, unfortunately it’s the part that seems to have seized control of my mind and my body—so if you’re hoping for sensible acceptance to come out of me, you’re really not going to get it.”
“I’m more than hoping. I’m begging you for sensible acceptance.”
“Then tell me something else. Tell me you freaked out because I molested you.”
He shook his head, and that weary tone turned into something more insistent. “There’s just no way I can do that. You didn’t. That isn’t what happened.”
“Okay, so say I’m the most hideous thing you’ve ever seen.”
“Honey, I would. If it didn’t sound the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“No crazier than I was just trying to be a super decent gentleman.”
“That would only be true if I had never heard you speak, or fallen right into those deep dark eyes, or seen your lovely smile, god, your smile, do you know how many nights I’ve thought of your smile?” he asked, so plain and matter of fact that he could have been talking about anything. The weather, she thought, only of course it wasn’t. It was all full of feelings she hadn’t thought he was capable of, and compliments he shouldn’t have been making, and oh fuck, she just couldn’t cope with that. Not from him.
It took her an age to answer, and even when she managed, her voice came out kind of breathless.
“Probably one tenth of the nights I’ve thought of yours.”
“Come on. I don’t even have a smile.”
“You do. It’s the thing that kisses the corner of your gorgeous mouth.”
“Nothing about me is gorgeous, Lydia. I look like forty miles of rough road—and that’s on a fucking good day. On the shitty days, I’m forty miles of rough road that got turned into a blank faced robot.”
She wanted to laugh at that, but she couldn’t.
He was serious. About all of this.
He honestly thought he was an ugly asshole.
“You say that like all of those things are somehow gross.”
“Because they are. They are. You shouldn’t like any of it—any of me. And the very fact that you think you do just proves that you’re confusing gratitude for attraction.”
“Oh, I see. So, I only think I feel my own feelings. Really poor little me is just confused.”
It was intended to be funny, but she could immediately see she’d misjudged.
He raked a hand through his hair; his eyes went up to the heavens.
And his sigh of frustration was absolutely epic.
Or, at least, it was epic coming from him.
Before that moment, he’d barely let out a single emotion.
Now they were leaking out all over the place, like a balloon with ten tiny holes.
“Christ, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that I’m practically your therapist.”
“Last time I checked, most therapists don’t spend most of their time teaching their patients how to punch people, interspersed with long stretches of pretty obvious flirting.”
He sighed again. “I didn’t realize it was flirting. It’s been so long since I did anything like it, I just thought you were good at making conversations really easy and kind of intense.”
“Well, I am good at them. But it wasn’t me who made this h
appen. You were the one who did nothing but restore my faith in mankind and help me forget certain events.”
“Yeah, and those certain events are why this can never be a thing.”
This time, she couldn’t even joke. She couldn’t keep things light.
It was bad enough that he thought those crazy things about himself…
But to use that to keep things platonic?
She was spitting fire before she could get a hold of herself.
“Oh, so now me being attacked is why you can’t do this?”
“I want to say yes, but it sounds so shitty when you say it that way.”
“That’s because it is shitty. I’m being punished for something someone else did to me.”
“Please don’t say that. Please don’t do this. You’ve no idea how hard it’s been for me to resist whatever has been happening, and those words just make it so much fucking harder.”
“It doesn’t have to be hard, Isaac. You don’t have to resist.”
“Yes I fucking do. Yes I do goddamnit. Decent men don’t take advantage of vulnerable women.”
The fire in her died somewhat, then. Partly because of his tone, which was more fraught and desperate than she could have ever imagined it being. But mostly because of the things he was doing. His head was back against the seat; his hand was practically making a fist in his hair.
He looked haggard, suddenly. Like he’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes.
It was hard to be angry, in the face of his obvious distress.
And then there was the way he’d framed it.
“Is that what you really think you’re doing?” she asked. “Taking advantage of a vulnerable woman?”
“Yes. Yes, absolutely, yes. There isn’t any doubt in my mind about that.”
“Then maybe you could explain what you find vulnerable about me.”
“When we first met you—”
“No, not when we first met. Now.”
He turned to her, for the first time since they’d started this.
But she kind of wished he hadn’t.
All the light had gone out of his eyes.
“You know that isn’t fair,” he said, in a voice that actually seemed to be breaking. At the very least, it had a crack right through the middle.
But she had to press on. She had to.
“Maybe you should tell me why not.”
“Because just look at you. Look at you. You burn so bright now, I can hardly stand to be here. I shouldn’t be here. If I was a better man I’d go now and never come back.”
“Better doesn’t sound like you never coming back.”
“Yeah, and I know that too. God knows, I know that too. Why do you think I came and then just sat in my car like a fucking moron?”
“So then stay. Stay, and be in this with me.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple. Unless some actual problem is in the way. Like a secret wife.”
She threw in the last one to try lighten things again.
Though it surprised her when it worked. A gleam of light flickered deep down in those dark eyes, and when he answered, there was just a hint of that wry quality his voice sometimes got. “I can barely flirt—do you really think a secret wife is a possibility?”
“Depends if the secret wife is into guys who believe their sexiness doesn’t exist.”
“No secret wives are into that. But only because you just made it up.”
“Ah, so we’re back to pretending you’re not a stone cold fox.”
Now his mouth was trying to quirk up at the corner.
Though he tried to hold it down.
He kept his tone firm.
“There’s no pretending when your nose has been broken around ten dozen times.”
“Don’t give me that bull. You read romance novels. You know busted noses on guys are hot as fuck.”
“Yeah, in books they’re hot. In real life, they’re evidence of lengthy prison sentences.”
“Is this your gentle way of breaking your ten year stretch to me?”
“It would be, if I thought making one up would turn you off.”
“Well, it’s good that you know by now that nothing would.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t have the full story.”
“Let me guess. You did things for the government that you’re not proud of.”
She didn’t expect him to fall silent at that. Mostly, because it was just a wild guess, but also because he had to know what silence would mean. It would tell her she was right, without a word from him. And it did. Man, it told her it hard.
“Oh, I think that’s a bingo,” she said, in a voice that sounded way too awed and much too hushed. But thankfully, he got the reference to Inglorious Basterds.
And that kind of brought things back to earth again.
“It’s just bingo,” he said.
Then she couldn’t help laughing.
“Fuck, your movie knowledge is so good.”
“I don’t think my movie knowledge is the thing worth mentioning here.”
“Well, you know me. I never focus on the thing worth mentioning. It’s always about who you are right here and now and all the ways in which you’ve proven yourself to be the best of men—when really I should be obsessing over the murky past you quite clearly wish had never happened.” She shrugged one shoulder, casual but not. Kicked her wry tone up a notch. “Don’t worry though. When we get to act three, I’ll google you and have a meltdown because you murdered the defense minister of Mexico with a washing machine.”
“How the fuck do you murder someone with a washing machine?”
“You tell me. You’re the one with the very particular set of skills.”
He shook his head, as if this was all the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
But he kept talking about it. “I’m not Liam Neeson, Lydia. Though, if I was, no one would ever kidnap members of my family in a series of increasingly preposterous scenarios.”
“So in other words, you’re actually better than Liam Neeson.”
“It doesn’t take much to be better than a guy who can’t protect his own daughter and wife from a bunch of xenophobic stereotypes that don’t fucking exist.”
“Destroying trashy movies and admitting you’re a spy for the CIA all in one sentence. Goddamn, could you be any hotter? I want to say no, but I fear that might not be true.”
“I wasn’t a spy for the CIA, Lydia. Oh, and Mexico doesn’t have a defense minister, just FYI.”
“Well, of course they don’t. Because you killed him on a high heat wash.”
She could tell he wanted to laugh at that. It pushed at both corners of his mouth. It made him throw up his hands. And even though his next point was pretty serious, there was some residual amusement in his voice. Residual amusement, and just a touch of admiration.
“You honestly think I don’t know what you’re doing here?”
“I have no idea to what you might be referring.”
“The attempt at squeezing me for information, Lydia.”
“Oh come on. I’m hardly squeezing.”
“No. You’re just leading me down dark conversational alleys until I completely lose my way and have to beg you for directions,” he said. And now that admiration was obvious. She couldn’t hear it in his voice. She could see it in his eyes, good and warm and reassuring. “Seriously, I think you should be the one working for the CIA. You can kill the King of France by speaking to him until he goes insane.”
“So you’re saying I make you insane.”
“God yes. Completely out of my mind.”
“You still seem pretty in control of yourself to me.”
“I don’t think you’d say that if desire was always a visible thing.”
She didn’t mean to make a sound when he said the word desire. It just slipped out, too high and too shocked and worst of all: so embarrassingly breathy. It was as if he’d told her something completely
filthy.
Though, that was the problem with being around someone like him.
Even the smallest admission of sexual feelings seemed shocking.
And he knew it, too. As soon as she gasped, he made a sound of his own—a curse under his breath. Like he’d spoken without meaning to. Like he’d fucked up, and at any moment was going to tell her hadn’t meant to do it. I take it back, she imagined him saying.
Then stepped in before he could.
“Pretty sure now is when you’re supposed to kiss me,” she said. Just lightly. No big deal. But oh, it was definitely a big deal to him. It made him look almost agonized.
He sounded agonized when he finally spoke.
“I would, I would. Oh, the things I would do if everything was different.”
“Then pretend they are. For just a moment, pretend that we met under other, less fraught circumstances.”
“And what other kind of circumstances do you think there could be?”
“Anything. Anywhere.” She paused, considering. “We were set up by some friends.”
“I don’t have any friends who would think that was a good idea.”
“So you saw me across a crowded bar. Bought me a drink.”
“The likelihood of me doing something like that is practically in the minus figures.”
He rolled his eyes, over that one. Almost hit a sneer, with that usually soft voice.
But once he had, she could tell he was waiting. Holy fuck he was just waiting for her to come up with the right thing. And even better: she had one that fit perfectly.
“Then maybe we were just the people you described outside that self-defense class. We hadn’t met before that moment. I mentioned I wanted to get better at it. You agreed to help. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more sounds better. But still not quite enough.”
“Okay. How about you never taught me at all?”
“I just turned up, and then we did nothing but talk.”
He sounded just as withering as he had when he mentioned the minus figures.
However, she could hear something else in there now, too.
A spark of eagerness, maybe.
Now all she had to do was chase it. “Sure. I mean, at times, we barely did anything else. We just talked. We even bantered, on occasion.”
“True. Though, I don’t see how that would lead to more.”
“But you wouldn’t even have to be, here.”
Never Better: A Dark Obsession Novel Page 8