She wasn’t lying. Not only had I kissed her back, but I’d taken over completely, and fuck me if it hadn’t been the best goddamn kiss of my life. But that didn’t matter. I needed to put a stop to this now, no matter how much my body rebelled at the thought of it.
Those hearts were back in Willow’s eyes, and I knew that if I didn’t shut this down now, she’d get the wrong idea. Despite the fact I wanted to fuck her more than I wanted my next breath, I wasn’t the man for her. I didn’t do relationships, and that was never going to change. If I took this any further, she’d end up getting hurt, and I couldn’t stand the thought of being the one to cause her that kind of pain. Better a little in the beginning than crushing her heart later down the road, I told myself.
She took a step toward me, lifting her hand like she was going to reach out and touch me. I grabbed her wrist before she could make contact, but it was too late. Just the feel of her soft skin beneath my rough, callused fingers sent a pleasurable jolt of electricity through my whole body.
Instead of letting her see how she really affected me, I dropped her arm like it had given me a painful shock. “Willow, stop,” I gritted through clenched teeth.
“I-I don’t understand.” That blush faded from her cheeks, leaving her face unnaturally pale.
“Look, this isn’t going to happen. I can’t give you what you want.”
The skin between her brows puckered in a frown. “How do you know what I want?”
I could feel the pity etched into the lines of my face as I looked down at her, and I hated myself for what I was about to do. But it had to be done.
“Because it’s written all over your face. Listen to me, babe. I’m not the man for you, all right? You want something big, and I’m never gonna give you that.”
I watched as she drew her shoulders up straight and lifted her chin high, and Christ, I respected the hell out of her strength right then. “You’re right,” she admitted in a hushed voice. “I do want something big. Someday. But what I want even more is to live. You kissed me back, Stone. I felt it. You can’t deny there’s something here.”
Fuck me, but she wasn’t going to make this easy.
“It’s not gonna happen, Willow. You need to let this go.”
“But—”
“You aren’t my type,” I snapped, and before I could stop them, the words came pouring out. “You saw that woman I was with inside. That’s what gets me going, babe. Not some shy, quiet librarian type who blushes every time she makes eye contact with someone. Move on. Find some nice, unassuming guy who works as an accountant or some shit. But you need to get your head out of the clouds, because this here”—I waved my hand between us—“it’s never gonna happen.”
I was a fucking asshole. The very worst kind of person. Standing there, seeing the crushed expression on her face, I knew right then I was no better than the piece-of-shit mother I’d been cursed with. She’d been gone almost as long as she’d been around, but the filth that was Carley Hendrix was still managing to infect me.
Willow Thorne deserved someone so much better than me, better than the man my parents had turned me into.
She deserved to have someone look at her with hearts in their eyes, and no matter how badly I wanted her, I knew I’d never be that man.
This is for the best, I tried telling myself. The problem was, I wasn’t sure I believed it.
Her chest stuttered on a broken breath as she took a step backward, putting some distance between us and taking that fresh, sweet, warm scent with her.
“Fuck you, Stone,” she whispered, shaking her head as another tear fell from her beautiful eyes. “Fuck you.”
With that, she spun around on her heels and walked away from me. And I was left standing there, feeling like I’d just been gutted.
And I only had myself to blame.
Chapter Seventeen
Stone
I woke up Sunday morning with a hangover from Hell. After the scene with Willow in the parking lot of Bad Alibi Friday night, shit had continued to roll downhill at breakneck speed. I hadn’t bothered to go back inside after she walked away from me. The reason I’d gone there in the first place was moot.
It had become glaringly obvious that my dick wasn’t going to work for anyone but her. The one goddamn woman I couldn’t have.
I’d driven my miserable ass home and proceeded to drink myself into oblivion in an attempt to wash her shattered expression from my mind.
It hadn’t worked.
If anything, the alcohol had only amplified the memory—or maybe exaggerated it. Either way, I’d been trapped in a recurring cycle, replaying that terrible conversation and seeing her face crumple over and over again. I’d gotten so damn blitzed that I hadn’t even staggered out to my garage to work on the Chevelle.
To add insult to injury, I’d chugged back so much whiskey Friday night and most of Saturday, that just the thought of my drink of choice made my stomach lurch. I had a feeling I was off the stuff for a good long while.
My eyes were so damn gritty it felt like they were coated in sand. My mouth tasted like a dumpster fire, and I currently had a death metal band playing in my skull.
With a groan, I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and made my way into the bathroom. I needed to piss like nobody’s business. There was just one problem.
Standing over the toilet, I pulled my sweats down and . . . nothing.
I looked down at my hard dick and let out a weary sigh. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” I cursed at my erection that had nothing to do with the usual morning wood and everything to do with the dream I’d been having of Willow that damn near ended in a mess on my sheets. “This is all your goddamn fault. Get your shit together so I can take a leak already.”
I stood there for a good five minutes, waiting for the hard-on to go down so I could piss. Finally, it got with the program. I did my business, splashed water on my face, and headed downstairs for a much-needed cup of coffee.
With a fresh pot brewed, I poured myself a cup and sucked that first gulp back, hoping it would help make me feel somewhat human.
I was halfway through my first cup—it was going to be at least a three-cup morning if I wanted to function—when my cell chimed with an incoming message.
Shane: Don’t forget family dinner tonight at Scoot and Caro’s. You bail and I’ll kill you.
Goddamn it. Dinner with my family was the last thing I needed today after the shitty weekend I’d just had.
I knew there were a million excuses I could have made to get out of it, but something told me that Shane’s threat was very real. She wasn’t bluffing. If I bailed, the police would have to organize search parties to find my body buried somewhere in these woods.
I swiped my thumb across the screen and typed out a short reply. Got it.
Finishing off my first cup, I poured a second and looked down at where Chief was watching me expectantly. “Yeah, all right,” I muttered with a roll of my eyes. “I forgot that in this household, you come first.”
His tail thumped against the floor once like he agreed with me in his own dog way.
I dumped a scoop of food in his bowl, refreshed his water, then took my mug and headed back upstairs.