Sigh.
I want that. I want that contentedness, that diehard, inseparable, effortless love.
Viv and Fernando leave me be, shutting my door behind them, and I finish unpacking. My phone buzzes in my bag, and my mind immediately goes to Rhett before reminding myself that it wouldn’t—couldn’t be him.
I think about him, wondering what he’s doing right now, this very second. Wondering what we’d be doing if I were still there and I didn’t walk out the way I did yesterday. And then I wonder if he’s thinking about me, missing me like I’m missing him.
Taking my phone, I tap my code in and check my messages.
Mom: CALL ME WHEN YOU LAND, PLZ.
I send her a quick message confirming our plans for tonight, and then I pull up my old messages from Rhett. An insanely irrational urge to text him washes over me, and my fingers begin to peck out a quick message.
But I stop myself, deleting the words like they were never there to begin with.
We’re over.
We can’t proceed without the truth.
And once he knows the truth, he’ll want nothing to do with me anyway.
Twenty-Two
Rhett
* * *
She’s not my fucking girlfriend.
I exhale, hovering over my phone, re-reading old text messages from Ayla.
It’s been a week since she left to go back home, and to be honest, I don’t even know when she’s coming back. Or if. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want her to know I cared because, goddamn it, I cared.
I don’t want to care.
I shouldn’t care.
Maybe the tiniest sliver of me feels guilty for not holing up in my apartment, mourning Damiana. They say time heals all wounds, but I suspect time heals them quicker when you’re not thinking about that gaping gash in your chest—when your time and energy and thoughts are concentrated on something else altogether. I also suspect that one day you look down and those wounds are healed over, nothing but fading scars you can trace with your fingertips.
Ayla’s an invisible salve that dulls the pain, hides the scab, and heals the cut.
And I found every excuse I could to let her go.
She left, and I didn’t try to stop her. Instead I justified it every way I could.
And I’ve felt the aftereffects of that for seven fucking days.
I scroll through some of our old messages, smirking when I read some of her one-liners and sarcastic quips. Inhaling, I can almost conjure up the scent of the sweet almond lotion she was wearing the last time I saw her, and I can almost imagine the soft glide of her cashmere skin beneath my fingertips.
It’s only a moment later when the screen of my phone lights up, and I’m convinced I’m seeing things.
“Are you home?” Ayla asks on the other end before I have a chance to so much as say hello.
“I am.”
She ends the call, and I’m really fucking confused. I’m two seconds from dialing her back when there’s a knock at the door.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she says, breathless, the second I swing the door open. Her arms wrap around my neck and her mouth presses against mine as we stumble backward.
Cupping my hands on her ass, I lift her up, her thighs wrapping around my hips as I carry her back to my room. A week without her was far too long, and I’m not wasting a single fucking second.
“I tried,” her words whisper against my lips. “For seven days.”
She kisses me harder.
“Couldn’t get you out of my mind,” she says with a sigh, her lips gluing onto mine again.
I don’t tell her how good it feels to see her, to touch her. Instead, I carry her to my room and lay her in the middle of my bed, ripping at her clothes and mine until there’s nothing left, two naked breathless bodies with busy hands and wanting mouths.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I say when I’m climbing over her, running my hands down her inner thighs and spreading them apart. It’s only when our eyes meet that I realize what I’ve said. I didn’t tell her I missed this… I told her I missed her. I press my throbbing cock against her slick heat, teasing at her entrance and desperate to force myself in and fuck her until she can’t walk straight. This is what she gets for keeping herself from me for seven agonizing, mind-fucking days. Sliding my hands beneath her shoulders and bracing myself above her, I crush her mouth with a kiss. “Don’t do that again.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t walk out on me.” I say.
“What choice did you give me?” she asks, slipping her hands around my neck and tracing her fingers through my hair. Her hazel eyes search mine. Her hips grind against mine. One wrong move, and I’d be deep inside her, unable—and unwilling—to stop until we’re both good and done. “I wanted to stay away, Rhett. Believe me.”
My lips drag over hers, and I pull the soft scent of her arousal into my lungs.
“I can’t do the just sex thing with you,” she says, words airy and surrendering. “I like you too much.”
I cup her left breast in my hand, lowering my mouth to the swollen pink bud and taking it between my teeth.
“I don’t want to like you,” she says. “I don’t.”
“I don’t want to like you either,” I say, my tongue circling her pert nipple.
“So you admit it,” she says, lips drawn into a lopsided smirk. “You like me.”
I press my hips harder against hers, letting the words linger in my mouth before breathing life into them. “Yeah. I like you, Ayla.”
Her hands slide down my sides, gripping the small of my back and forcing my hips down as she wriggles beneath me.
“For the love of God, Rhett, I’m on the pill. Just fuck me.” Her plea is impatient and rushed. “I just want to feel you inside me again.”
My cock grows harder, if that’s even possible, and I grip the base, guiding it inside her. I thrust deep and hard until she releases a sigh and her nails dig into my flesh like it hurts so good.
“You’re so damn wet,” I moan into her ear, my face nuzzled into the bend of her neck as I push myself deeper. The faster I thrust, the harder she holds me, her hips bucking as I piston in and out of her. “And you’re so tight. God, you’re tight. You miss this?”
She nods, her eyes squeezed tight, and press my mouth over hers before trailing kisses down her neck. Everything about Ayla is intoxicating, addictive. Her fingertips skim the small of my back as she settles beneath me, hooking her legs at my sides. When her eyes open, we both stop, suddenly realizing we have all the time in the world—or at least it feels that way.
It’s different now—admitting how we feel and laying it out there. There’s a power in that, in owning our truths. I didn’t expect this, but I realize it now.
“I have to tell you something,” I say.
Her eyes widen, and when she blinks, her eyelashes kiss the tops of her cheeks. “What is it?”
“I don’t know if I’m in a good place right now to be what you need,” I say, feeling the weight of the silence between us. “But I’m going to try. Because the way I felt when you walked out last week? I don’t ever want to feel like that again.”