My mouth opens. “You’ve had a key this whole time?”
He shrugs. “Technically, you have a key to my house also. It’s near the front of the junk drawer in the kitchen.”
I frown. “Doesn’t count if I didn’t know it was there.”
“Are you mad I let myself in?”
I cross my arms and pretend to be upset. “Maybe.”
“Are you going to let me make it up to you?” His tone changes from apologetic to flirtatious.
“Depends on what you have planned.”
Warner grins. It’s not his normal, happy, nice guy grin. This is wolfish, causing frenzied excitement to flutter in my core. He sets the coffee on the dresser, but keeps the bag in his grasp. “First, I have for you a blueberry muffin that will put all others to shame.” He stops at the foot of the bed and hands me the bag. The mattress dips when he presses a knee onto the bed and leans forward on both hands. “And I’m wondering if you, perhaps, have a muffin for me to eat.”
My lips press together at the boldness of his words. Who would have guessed that the respectful man who pulled over to help a stranded stranger could talk like that?
Warner grips my ankle tucked safely under the sheets. “Did I embarrass you?”
“A little.”
Warner grins again, and I think he likes that he made me blush. He grips the comforter in one hand and yanks, throwing the entire thing on the ground behind him. I laugh, and he does the same thing to the sheet, leaving me sitting there in my oversized T-shirt clutching the crinkly paper bag.
Warner’s gaze runs the length of my legs, his eyes hooded and hungry. A predator. I’ve never seen him like this. I… well, I love it. He lifts my leg, and I fall back on my elbows. Pressing a kiss to the inside of my ankle, he says, “I’ve missed you.”
“You saw me last night.”
His lips draw back and forth over my skin, his scruff scraping gently. “I don’t want to go three days without seeing you again.”
I swallow against the sensation. “I was waiting for you to take the next step.”
Warner drags his lips over my calf, pausing to nuzzle into the crook of my bent knee. His gaze meets mine, and everything inside me tightens and relaxes at the same time. It’s delicious and heady and confusing and I think that maybe I’m drowning.
“I’m here now, Tenley. I’m taking the next step.” Then Warner, the man who barely looked me in the eye that day on the side of the road, proceeds to get intimately acquainted with me.
“Does it weird you out that this is your brother’s bed?” I press back into the warmth of Warner’s bare chest.
He waits a beat to answer, then says, “It does now.”
I laugh and roll over onto my stomach, my cheek pressed to the pillow. “Fresh sheets,” I mumble.
“Thank fuck,” Warner answers.
The postcoital glow is dulling, and my worries from last night come creeping in. I’d rather not have these thoughts right now, while I’m lying in bed with him, but they feel too big to ignore.
“Warner?” My fingers graze the few inches of space between our bodies.
“Hmmm?” His voice is thick. Tired. Sated.
I close my eyes. “Would you ever remarry? Or have more kids?”
Silence.
I open my eyes. He’s staring at me.
“I’m not trying to race down the aisle and then catch an Uber to labor and delivery, but I need to know what you see in your future. I’m only here in Sierra Grande for a set amount of time, and it’d be nice if I had some idea of what’s happening between us.” He’s still quiet, and now it’s a cringe-worthy level of awkwardness. “Should I save my frequent flyer miles for an exotic vacation, or plan to start using the Merc for all my shopping needs?”
Warner’s still frozen, and I’m wondering if maybe I can snap my fingers and go back in time forty-five seconds. Instead, I ramble, because I can’t seem to make my mouth be quiet. “I’m thirty, and this is my last film for the foreseeable future, and I need to start thinking about what’s next for me.”
Warner thaws. Blinks. Takes a deep breath. “What I feel for you is…” The skin around his eyes pinches and he looks pained. I fight the urge to jump in and save him from the agony of having to put his feelings into words. I’m not going to save him though, because I deserve to know.
He draws a breath and continues. “What I feel for you is unlike anything I’ve felt before. But as of right now, I can’t imagine getting remarried and having kids. I checked those boxes a long time ago. And while I love my kids and wouldn’t change anything that gave me them, the whole marriage thing didn’t work out so great for me.”
I knew it. I could’ve written his reply, word for word, like a script. And even though I saw it coming, it hurts. Far more than I’d like to admit, even to myself. Absent of my permission, Warner burrowed deep under my skin. I never stood a chance.
I lie there, quiet now, and so does Warner. After a few minutes, his fingertips begin to dust my back with the lightest touch. After a long, quiet minute, he says my name tentatively. “Hmm?” The sound reverberates in my throat.
“Tell me about your scar.” His hand stills, touching the blemished skin.
Morgan is the only person I’ve told about my scar. Not even Tate. When he asked, I’d made up a lie, and maybe since he’s a spinner of elaborate yarns, he readily accepted mine.
I hate how I got the scar. I hate my origin story.
I open my mouth, astonished because I know that the truth will follow. I guess I just needed to find the one thing that makes me sicker than telling the truth. And that one thing is holding myself back from Warner.
Whether we last until tomorrow or until we’re old and gray, I want him to know me. The good, the bad… and the ugly.
Warner’s hand resumes its caress, and he probably thinks I’m going to ignore his question. His hand startles when I speak, bumping against me.
“It happened when I was eight.” My voice is small, almost as small as my body had been back then. My eyes flutter closed, and I see it all so clearly, the wood paneled hotel room, the sheets tinged an odd yellow from time and use and who knows what else. She’s there, too. The woman who birthed me. She gave me life, and questionable care.
It hurts to talk about, but I forge ahead. “My parents, the ones I talk about, adopted me when I was eight. Before that I lived in a shitty hotel with my mother. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I got older, I started to understand what she was. A prostitute. Addicted to various things.” Warner’s fingers continue their dance, his touch featherlight but reassuring.
“Sometimes I’m not sure if what I remember from that time are separate events, or if what I can see is the same thing happening over and over, like a loop. Maybe I only have a few really bad memories, not a hundred. The worst one, though, is the day I got my scar.” Tears prick my eyes. “She’d come back the afternoon before and laid down on the bed. I don’t know if she took something, or was already on it, but she fell asleep. Or so I thought. She didn’t wake up, which wasn’t all that uncommon. We had a little food, so I fed myself and watched TV.” My breath catches as I remember her lying there, her stringy hair across her face. I’d brushed it back on my way to the bathroom.