“Maris.” But before I can choke out more than her name, she’s sliding out of the ring. I surge to my feet. “Stop. Please!” But by the time I get the words out, she’s scooped up her shoes and keys and burst out the gym doors.
I vault over the ropes and snatch up my hoodie, heedless of any routine. All I can think about is getting to her. But my heart stops when I hear a slight clink hit the floor.
Her grandfather’s cross—Jed’s cross. She hasn’t taken it off since the first night I made love to her, but she took it off to enter the ring with me. “Why now?” My legs begin to shake as I collapse into the folding chair.
“Maybe I can help answer that,” a voice comes from the doorway.
“Christ. Not now, Rainey.” Not when the woman I loved for so many years just walked away after I so stupidly assumed we’d finally find a way to make it work.
“Yes, now, Nick.” She slides her handbag into the same seat Maris removed her stuff from just moments before. “Tell me about what happened with Maris.”
“You mean you didn’t hear enough?” I drawl as I loop a towel around my neck. I’m fisting the cross chain tightly.
“No, you ass. I didn’t hear shit. I was coming in to invite you both to dinner, and she blew past me with tears on her face. Now before I throw your ass into a car so we can go after her, tell me what happened?”
“Nothing. We got into a disagreement.”
“Does it involve why you’re running away from her?” Disapproval laces Rainey’s voice.
Fury causes me to take an involuntary step forward. “What the hell do you know about it. You don’t know dick about my life, Rainey. You weren’t abandoned when you were a kid in Ketchikan!” I shout.
“No, instead I watched my husband and his friends get abandoned every time they needed a friend,” she yells back. “Want me to list them out?”
Maris’s voice interrupts our argument. “That won’t be necessary, Rainey.” Maris stands there, arms crossed.
Rainey storms away, while my heart sags in relief. “I was terrified you’d left.”
Maris shoots me a cool look before announcing, “I’m not stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a car when I’m upset. One wreck to change the course of my life is bad enough.”
And unlike the kicks and hits I took in the ring, her words do drop me to my knees. I scrub my hands over my face. “Christ, Maris.”
“Let’s go, Champ. I’m through with this little exercise.” Maris turns on her heel and walks out.
Quickly, I scramble into my sweats. Rainey’s still standing by the door like a sentry. When I reach her, I push the door open over her shoulder. She doesn’t even look in my direction before she announces, “She doesn’t deserve to be hurt anymore, Nick.” Then she walks out.
Too late. I’ve already hurt her more than I should have and for no good reason.
And I’m likely to again.
Nicholas
“What is it you want to know” I ask her dully.
Maris doesn’t say a word. But the look she shoots me before heading up the stairs makes me realize I pushed things way too far.
Shit. I made the bargain, and ever since we left the gym and I slid the cross around her neck, to which I received a clipped “Thanks,” Maris hasn’t said anything. Then again, have I asked her any questions? I’ve been trying to guide—hell, manipulate—her into talking about something, anything, but what I promised. I even bartered with the discussing our future. “Maris, we really need to have a conversation about this.” And while it’s the damn truth, this isn’t the time for it, though fuck if I know when that’s going to be even though at one point that would almost have been as terrifying to discuss as the past.
But not now, not since Maris has the future looked as bright. And I actually want her to know there is one for us and the past doesn’t impact that. And like a crashing realization, I want to bang my head against something. If the past doesn’t matter, then why can’t I talk about it?
As soon as that bit of enlightenment hits, I follow her. When I reach the main level, I find her head tipped back as she swallows water from a glass. I pause to admire the way her creamy skin works over the long line of her neck. Her dark hair is pulling away from the tight braids she’d done it up in before we went to spar. Her sweatshirt’s partially unzipped, exposing the tops of her breasts captured in her tight sports bra. “Damn thing’s holding in my favorite part of you,” I remark.
Maris rolls her eyes. Putting the glass on the counter, she reaches under her chest and jiggles her boobs. “As soon as I change, they’ll be back in their normal shape.”
“Wrong part of your anatomy.”
She spins around to try to get a look at her delectable ass in her workout pants, but I stop her by coming up behind her and placing my hands on her hips. “Your heart, Sunshine. And I didn’t want to taint it with the memories living in my head.”
I know her swiftly indrawn breath has nothing to do with the closeness of our bodies’ proximity, despite the fact she can no doubt feel the stirrings of my body’s response to her nearness. It has to do with the fact I opened the door to letting her inside the dark places inside me to shine her light. My head lowers down until I inhale the scents that calm me: sweat and Maris. The fact they’re mingled together are a balm to my soul. “They need to bottle this scent,” I mutter against her neck.
Spinning until she’s pressed against me, front to front, Maris fits herself tighter. Our bodies fit against one another as if a great artist created her softness to fit my hollows, and my hardness to be shaped exactly to hold Maris. I marvel in the tactile perfection of us before I whisper, “What’s your first question?”
Instead of pulling away like I expected her to, she wraps her arms closer around me. “Were you scared?”
“When my mother left me?”
Maris nods against my shoulder. “Though I vehemently disagree with the use of the word ‘mother,’ but continue.”
Why am I smiling? God knows, I never expected to. “So noted.” I give myself a few moments to answer so she doesn’t think I’m blowing off the answer. “Maybe at first because I feared what would happen. But, honestly, do you want to know the worst part?”
She nods, still not giving me her eyes. I continue. “The worst part was being so fucking ashamed. All the kids at school knew. There was no way of escaping it. One minute, I was this loner, but then there was all this attention. Christ, I hated the fucking attention—especially for that. I swore, every night I slept in that borrowed bed, wearing those borrowed clothes, that if I managed to get away, I wouldn’t come back unless I was somebody.” I let my words hang in the air between us.
“That explains… Well, you accomplished that in spades. With the help of a handful of Jacks along the way.”
I jerk my head back in shock. Did she just say that? But when I do, there’s no judgment on it. Instead there’s a ferocious intensity I’ve only seen twice before: when Maris was talking about the child she wanted to adopt and when I told Jed the same story years ago right after we reconnected.