“Can we do this all night?” I sigh, my mouth still pressed against his.
His thrusts grow harder. “You read my mind.”
Ace opens a window when we’re done. The room is stuffy, and the cabin has no AC units in the bedrooms. When he returns, he yanks the covers off the bed and takes the spot beside me. We lie on top of crisp cotton sheets, the stickiness of our bodies evaporating into the summery night air.
He leans across me, his body sticking to mine, and flicks on the vintage fan on the nightstand next to my side of the bed. The cool breeze feels good for a while, but my body quickly adapts and fills with shivers.
“You cold?” he asks, extending his arm.
“Now I am,” I say, wasting no time curling up in that.
I press my cheek against his chest, listening to the calming sound his heart makes when it thrums, and exhale softly.
I’m not sure why, but I start to think about that journal again. And how hard that man loved the girl with the purple eyes. How she ruined him for anyone else. How he swore he’d never love anyone else half as much as he loved her.
Even lying here, in Ace’s arms, there’s a kind of inexplicable distance between us. Sure, the attraction is there. No denying that. And we have chemistry because apparently opposites really do attract.
But I want something deeper.
I crave more of him – a level of him I’m not sure he’s capable of giving because every part of me suspects that journal belongs to him.
And every part of me hopes, selfishly, that it doesn’t.
But it’s the only thing that makes sense.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask after a bout of silence.
“Nothing,” he exhales, not hesitating.
“Everyone’s always thinking about something,” I ask, and then I realize that maybe he’s not thinking about something. He’s thinking about someone.
We lie there, still in silence, but his fingers graze the back of my arm. It tickles and peppers my flesh with goose bumps, but I like it.
“Have you ever been in love, Ace?” I ask.
My cheeks burn.
Shit.
I shouldn’t be asking this question.
We just screwed for the second time in twenty-four hours and already I’m asking a question about love?
Good god, I’m not thinking this weekend.
If Wren were here, she’d be laughing hysterically at me. I’m always putting my foot in my mouth.
“I don’t mean . . .” I say, hoping to clarify but knowing the damage has already been done, “I’m not asking because . . .”
Ace chuckles. Once.
“I’m just wondering,” I say. “Because there’s this distance about you. I see it in your eyes. I’m just curious if you’ve ever let anyone in.”
I trace my finger along his chest, right above his beating heart.
“Once,” he says. “You?”
He turns the tables, pointing my own question straight back at me.
“Never,” I say.
I feel him stare at me in the dark. “Seriously?”
“I’ve been told I’m too free-spirited,” I say. “I guess I’ve never wanted to be tied down for too long. I never keep anyone around long enough to fall in love, I guess.”
He’s quiet.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“You feel tied down when someone loves you?” he asks.
“I did when I was younger. I don’t know how I’d be now. It’s been a couple years since I seriously dated anyone,” I say. “I haven’t had a proper date in over a year because I’ve been working so much. I’d love to meet that special someone, you know? Someone who loves me so hard it hurts. I want that all-consuming, addictive love that everyone always talks about.”
The kind written about in that journal.
“What about you?” I ask. “What happened with your one love?”
There’s a slight groan rumbling in his chest, like just thinking about the answer to that question is painful to him.
But I have to know.
I had to ask.
“We just didn’t work out,” he says.
I roll to my side, resting my chin on his chest. “What happened?”
“She was in love with two people,” he says.
I’ve never had my heart broken before. I wouldn’t know what it feels like or how bad it hurts. But right now, there’s a tight ache in my chest.
It is him.
It has to be.
He’s the heartbroken Romeo.
He didn’t get the girl.
And if that’s the case, he’ll never love another the way he loved her.
Twenty-Four
Aidy
* * *
Ace pulls up outside my apartment Sunday afternoon.
This is it.
This is the end of our sexy little unexpected weekend.
We woke up early this morning and had a quiet, introspective hike along this amazing trail with scenic views of Rixton Lake, and we stopped on the top of a hill and enjoyed a picnic breakfast as we watched a group of teenagers cliff dive next to the biggest waterfall in the state.
I enjoyed every moment, willing each minute to drip by slow as honey, because I hadn’t enjoyed myself this much in a long time. Something about being out here, elbows deep in pine sap and mosquitos and lake water, is refreshing in a way you can’t find in the city. No red-doored spa treatment could ever compare to being one with nature, to being cut off from technology and hustle and bustle.
Ace, as wonderful and intriguing and mysterious as he is, kept me at a distance all weekend. Even when his cock was buried inside me and his mouth was on mine, there was this odd separation.
I spent the better part of the ride home thinking about it.
Accepting it.
Knowing it’ll never change because he’s a man still clearly in love with the woman with the violet eyes, and nobody else will ever compare.
I exhale, heavy with melancholy, when he shifts into park and climbs out of the truck. I meet him around back, where he’s pulling my bags out and sitting them on the curb.
“Thanks for everything,” I say. There’s a finality in my tone that I didn’t place there intentionally.
Ace squares his body with mine, placing his hands on my hips. Our eyes meet, and I get weak in the knees just looking at him again. He’s pretty like this, all clean-shaven. I’d seen photos of him clean-shaven before, when I Googled his name last time, but most of them were team photos or freeze frames from TV screens. They were grainy and far away. Seeing him up close, looking like a million bucks, does something to me that no one else ever has.
But it’s more than his looks.
Over this weekend, I grew to love his quiet strength. His intensity. His seriousness. His stillness.
“I had a great time,” I say. “Thank you for taking me with you. It was definitely one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time.”
“You’ll have to come with me again sometime.” He says it so casually, and my jaw hangs slightly because I wasn’t expecting him to say anything like that.
I figured it was a one-and-done type of thing. He found a girl, took her to his cabin, got laid a good handful of times, and then the second her feet touched the ground again, he dropped her off where he found her.