I was too anxious and wound up to eat. I was worried about making the wrong step and derailing any progress I’d made to get her to forgive me. And I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about why I was here. Sure, I wouldn’t say no to sleeping with her, but her body was only part of what I was after. I wanted all of her to belong to all of me.
“I was asking you out on a date. You know that, don’t you? I thought maybe the reason you ignored me for two weeks was because you couldn’t figure out a way to turn me down.” I propped myself up on the other side of the wooden counter. Just like the rest of the loft, it looked and felt extremely expensive. “I’m trying to do right by you, Remy. I know I did a lot wrong in the past, but I don’t plan on making the same mistake twice.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, just stared at me with those wild eyes. Finally, after a few minutes of silence, she cocked her head to the side and asked, “Why do you want to date me now? I used to beg you to take me on a date back when I thought the sun rose and set on you, but now I don’t know if I even like you, Hyde. I don’t know if I like who I am when I’m around you.”
I sighed and lowered my head so I could study the grain in the wood underneath my hands. “I like you. And the only time I’ve ever really liked who I am is when I’m with you.” I jerked my head up to meet her gaze and told her the truth. “But I’m working on that. I want to like myself all the time. I want Hollyn to love herself the way you do. You want to know what changed? The answer is easy—I’ve changed. Having a kid changed me. Being away from you changed me. Leaving my family behind changed me. The Army changed me. I want to be the kind of man who focuses on what he has and not one who can’t let go of what he lost. I want to be present and fully engaged with my daughter. I don’t want her to live consumed with the idea she was left behind like I was. I want her to have a better life, and to do that, I need to be a better man. I never agreed to go on a date with you back then because there were boys who had more to offer you all around. I didn’t want to hold you back, and I didn’t want to lose you. As passionately as you loved me, Remy, I was equally obsessed with what would happen if I gave into you and it went wrong. I didn’t want to hurt you. I still don’t. But I’m not as terrified of what might happen if I do anymore. I know how strong you are.”
She made a soft humming sound and narrowed her eyes a little bit. “You do understand there is no guarantee I’m always going to have it as together as I appear to have it now, don’t you? Who I was then and who I am now all inhabit the same body and mind. It isn’t one or the other. I’m always going to be a little bit too much and never be easy to handle.”
I leaned toward her, hating the big piece of polished wood that separated us. “I never asked for easy. All I asked for is you.”
She sucked in an audible breath, and her cheeks turned a rosy pink. I could practically see her weighing the pros and cons of giving me a chance to prove I wouldn’t bail on her again. I wanted to show her this time around I could take care of her and have her know all the way down to her bones she could trust me.
After another long stretch of contemplative silence, she finally spoke. “I can’t say with any certainty I want to date you, Hyde. I don’t know that I trust either one of us enough at the moment to agree to that. Not when you factor in Hollyn. But I will admit that after you kissed me back the other day, I want to see how things play out between us physically. I feel like I waited a lifetime for you to show any interest in me, and I don’t want to let the opportunity slip by.” She tilted her head again and flashed a playful grin. “Why don’t we call it friends with benefits for now, and if we don’t destroy each other, we can revisit what we’re doing down the road?”
I wanted to press for more, but if this was all she was willing to give, I would take it. After all, she’d always been persistent and unwavering in the way she loved me. Nothing ever scared her off or caused her to back down. The minimum I could do was care about her with the same unwavering intensity.
I just had to make sure that I made the benefits so good, she wouldn’t even think about—or be able to—walk away.
Remy
IT SEEMED LIKE dinner was off the table. However, a moment later, I was on it.
Hyde circled the fancy art piece of a tabletop and stepped in front of me. Without saying a word, he caged me between his arms and braced his much taller body with his hands on the raw edge of the wood. The way he stared down at me was intense and full of both anticipation and a heavy kind of longing I couldn’t fully decipher. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to figure out the best way to kiss me again, or if he was trying to see inside my head to see what I was really thinking about everything. I was glad he couldn’t see my thoughts because they were jumping around like excited ping-pong balls, delight and doom smashing into one another.
I lifted my hands and wrapped them around the back of his neck. The heat from his skin immediately sank into my fingertips, and the soft brush of his short hair tickled.
“We’ve only kissed one time for real. We might not even have any chemistry. We could be a really, really bad match in bed. We might end up as friends without benefits anyway.” I lifted my eyebrows and tilted my head, giving him a grin to let him know I was joking—sort of. All the times I kissed him when I was younger were real for me, even if he thought I was just playing around.
Hyde slid his hands closer to my hips and let his eyes rove over my face as if he was dissecting my every feature for a clue as to what he should do or say next. “It was one hell of a kiss, Remy. If that’s how things between us start, I can’t wait to see where they end.”
I used my nails to lightly scratch his nape, and let out a breathy sound as he suddenly shifted, lifting me off the floor, so my ass was on the edge of the table. The t-shirt I had on was long enough to cover what needed to be covered, but in this new position, there was a lot of leg exposed, and Hyde was really close to finding out I didn’t have much on underneath.
I didn’t intentionally get dressed with seduction or benefits in mind, but if I was going to play with fire, I would make sure the flames were as hot as possible. And when the burn died down, all that would be left was ash and ruin. What girl didn’t like to dance in the destruction she created?
“I’ve kissed you a thousand times. The only thing special about that kiss was that you finally decided to kiss me back.” I wanted to tease him and ask him if he finally realized what he’d been missing, but the truth was, I learned a pretty important lesson from that kiss. It showed me very clearly that it didn’t matter how much I loved him or how badly I wanted him in the past; if the feelings weren’t returned, if the other person wasn’t fully engaged, all those feelings were worthless. There was definitely a difference between unrequited love and feelings that were reciprocated. If Hyde was interested all those years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from kissing me back, and just like now, that first kiss would’ve blown the door wide open to so much more.
It sucked. I couldn’t see through my fog of obsession back then. A twinge of guilt crept under my skin for all the times I tried to force him to feel about me the way I wanted him to. He put boundaries in place to protect both of us, and I blatantly ignored them time and time again. At the time, I couldn’t help myself because my brain was sending me dangerous messages I couldn’t ignore. I could recognize that now, but it didn’t excuse my problematic behavior. I could simply acknowledge the reason why I never knew when enough was enough. I literally could not help myself back then. This time around, I was the one with parameters in place to try and protect us. I couldn’t decide if I wanted Hyde to be like me and push against them, or if I wanted him to behave and play by the rules.