His face hardened. “Don’t you see that I want you to feel this way? I want you to know how much it hurts to have you here but not with me. I know that you don’t know me, I get that. But you’re so closed off, Annalise! I can’t get in, and I just—”
“Kiss me!” I demanded.
He did.
This time, I wasn’t doing it to prove a point. I was doing it to ease both of our hearts. I kissed him back with soft lips and slow movements. I let him savor it, savor me. His tongue caressed mine in such a gentle way that I began to fight tears. For the second time in seven years, I felt the sensation in the back of my eyelids.
The pressure on my chest, the ache of my heart. It was intensifying, not going away.
I pulled back and sucked in a shaky breath, turning around.
“I love you,” he whispered.
I broke. The dam fell open, and out came years of tears that I refused to shed. I didn’t know why I was crying, but I knew what started it.
Cabe cherished me. He respected me. He told me everything in his kiss. But I’d felt those things before. I’d been cherished and loved, I’d been kissed sweetly and held tightly, and then it was fucking ripped from me. He left, he never looked back.
I couldn’t handle Cabe’s emotions, because I refused to feel like that again and risk the aftermath. The destruction. The fucking heartbreak.
A woman in love broke easier than a woman in a glass house.
I was broken by the world; I refused to be broken by choice.
I felt his arms come around my middle, his body enveloping mine as I broke down. The events of the last few days, the fact that I was now dealing with not only my own, but three other sets of feelings, it was just too much.
I was tired and confused still, but I was mostly just done.
I truly hated my life, and Cabe knew it. I hated my past, my pain, my demons. I wanted to fucking breathe, to let go, to stop thinking so hard, but I couldn’t figure out how.
“I’m not asking you to love me back, I’m asking you to let me love you. Give me the chance to show you what it means. Keep your heart locked up, I don’t need it. I didn’t need it in order to fall for you, and I most certainly don’t need it now, not when I have you physically here instead. I just need to hold you, to get to know you, to feel like I finally have what I’ve been looking for all this time. I’m not a selfish man, Annalise, I can share. But what I’m feeling isn’t the bond. I felt this way before the bond. I can share you with my brothers, but only if you let me prove to you that you can trust me with your heart.”
I missed my sister, I wished my parents loved me enough to keep me, I wished I never met the evil within my foster father. I wished like hell that I could find a way to love Cabe back, but I didn’t have to. He would give me his love freely, without asking for anything in return.
But deep down, I wasn’t a selfish person either. If he gave that to me…eventually, I would give it to him in return. It was only a matter of time before I was broken all over again, but there was no going back. Not now.
I turned around in his arms and hugged him. Letting him hold me like he wanted. If he wanted to love me, I couldn’t stop him, not if I wanted to have any kind of peace. His broken heart would be the end of me.
I could do this for him, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel fucking incredible.
I lifted my head from his chest and looked up, meeting his eyes. The ocean stared back at me, wild and calming all at once.
“Kiss me,” I whispered.
He smiled, grabbed my face and gave me what I asked for.
Shortly after that, I jumped in the shower, scrubbing the day from my skin. Cabe brushed his teeth, Lanier came in and peed, Quint tried to open the door and join me—I kicked him out.
Wanting to be alone, I scrubbed my face, uncomfortable with my own tears. I hadn’t felt them in so long that the taste was wrong in my mouth.
After getting out and throwing on a pair of the guys’ boxers and someone’s T-shirt I found in the hamper by the door, I padded into the room while drying my hair with a towel. Lanier was sitting in the chair facing the window, working on a laptop in nothing but black pajama bottoms. I licked my lips at the sight of him without a shirt on. He was fucking gorgeous, all dark ink and ripped muscles.
The only light came from the TV mounted on the wall across from the bed, where Cabe and Quint lay back on the pillows, watching it. I studied them, smiling to myself. Both guys were just as hot as their best friend but in totally different ways. I was a lucky fucking girl.
There was room for at least three more people in the bed, but it didn’t look like Lanier was going to join any time soon.
“Come on up, Minx.” Quint patted the space between him and Cabe. I smiled, moving toward him and lifting myself up onto the mattress.
Lanier must have changed the sheets, because the white down comforter was gone and replaced with a black one.
I moved quickly, settling down between them and lying back with my hands on my stomach. I didn’t know what to do with my body, being so close to them, but I promised to follow my instincts, so I relaxed a little, getting comfortable.
We watched Naked and Afraid for about twenty minutes, Lanier still in the chair, before I started to doze off. I felt the comforter move beneath me and lifted my hips sleepily. Someone dragged the fabric over my body as I rolled onto my side toward Cabe.
I wasn’t used to sleeping with people, but I was too tired to care. I just wanted to go to sleep and start a new day in the morning.
We planned to go to my old apartment to get my stuff, and Joey was going to be one hell of an issue. He couldn’t control me, we weren’t together, but he wasn’t going to like the fact that not only was I leaving but I was leaving to live with three other guys. I’d tell him it was temporary, but I doubted that it would matter.
It wasn’t long before the room went quiet, my heartbeat slowed down, the TV was turned off, and we all fell asleep.
All except Lanier, who never came to bed.
The next morning, I was thrown from sleep when the door to Lanier’s bathroom slammed shut.
“What the fuck?” I groaned, burying my head in the sheets. I was not a morning person, not even a little.
“Up, children,” Lanier ordered, walking toward the bedroom door. “We’ll get coffee on the way. Annalise, grab clothes from my closet, we’re going to the fuckboy’s.”
He shut the door behind him before I could reply. “I’m not going anywhere right now, Lanier. Go make breakfast or something,” I shouted, throwing a pillow over my head. Fuck that guy, I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Hell yeah, I can actually sleep in with you around,” Quint mumbled into his pillow, causing me to chuckle.
“He can suck my left tit if he thinks I’m getting out of this bed before ten a.m.” My voice was clouded with sleep. “I don’t work like that.”
“You’re a brat,” Lanier bitched, still standing on the other side of the door like a fucking moron.
“You’re annoying,” I said under my breath, earning a chuckle from Cabe. His body was shaking with silent laughter next to me. “I’m serious, he just got laid yesterday and he’s still wound tighter than a two dollar watch. He needs to fucking chill.”