I wasn’t going to help her put me behind her, was incapable of it.
I went into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face as she took yet another armload of clothes out of my room, her expression sublimely unaffected by it all.
I was drying my face when I saw it. Her French teddy was in my little bathroom wastebasket. She’d thrown it away. Thrown me away.
I grabbed it and stashed it in a drawer before she came back.
I slept with it that night like it was a beloved blankie. Sadly, it did help a bit.
Also, I grabbed Mac and brought her to bed with me for cuddle comfort. That helped a bit too.
The fact that Ro had to come into my room first thing in the morning to find the dog and take her out didn’t hurt either.
She was well put together for the day already, in one of her professional little outfits, glasses on squarely, hair pulled back into a flawless bun. It was like none of this was affecting her at all when I wanted to beat my chest and scream and bawl my eyes out like a baby.
She took the tiny dog out of my arms, careful to not so much as touch me. That hurt.
“You can’t do that,” Ro chided me softly, not looking at me or my almost naked, barely sheet covered body. I don’t know if she didn’t see or just didn’t acknowledge that I was clutching her discarded teddy. “If we’re going to crate train her effectively, she needs to learn to sleep in there, to look at it as her comfort zone.”
“But where’s my comfort zone?” I asked her retreating back.
She didn’t bother to answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I DIDN’T FEEL well at all. Something worse than a bad flu. I couldn’t get out of bed, didn’t want to. My head hurt, and I was lethargic and listless.
It took me a few days to realize I wasn’t sick, just deeply depressed.
Ro had been caring for me like I was ill but in a very impersonal, professional way, and I hated it.
Sheer determination got me back into a productive routine again, but the depression wouldn’t shake.
I couldn’t sleep hardly at all, found myself wandering the house at all hours.
I blamed sleep deprivation on what came next.
It was completely out of line. Even sleep deprived, I knew it.
I went to see her in the middle of the night.
In her bed.
While she was sleeping.
I justified it by telling myself that I just wanted to lay down with her, to hold her.
I was lonely.
It was a sad day indeed when I admitted things like that to myself.
I wore boxers at least. It was something.
She was wearing a thin nightshirt that probably went to her knees. It wasn’t there now, as she’d slept it’d ridden up around her hips. I could make out that much in the dark, though not much else.
I slid in behind her. She was on her side, and I spooned her, smelling her hair as I hugged her.
I honestly was just cuddling, though even that was laughably out of line.
She moved her back against me, moaning softly in her sleep.
I blamed that little artless moan for everything that happened after.
My roaming hand cupped a breast, and I shifted, letting my hard dick rub against her backside lightly.
I have no excuse for myself.
Madness took me over then.
And I let it.
Flashes of the night burned themselves with permanent intent into the frontal lobe of my brain.
Me over her, hot skin touching, sliding on top of her, against her, inside of her.
My bothered breath in her ear, panting out one word, over and over.
“Mine.”
When I was done, I sat back on my heels, hands on her hips, pulling her to me. I held her on my dick. She tried to wiggle away, but I held her tight. “Just let me feel you like this for one more night, at least. You left me without warning. I need one more night.”
She stilled. I took that as agreement that I could do whatever I wanted to her until morning.
And I did. It was a marathon night. I didn’t let either of us sleep. I touched her everywhere, kissed her everywhere, worshipped her body like I’d never have her again.
Neither of us said another word though. The night was silent except for the sounds of pleasure and sin. Dawn was creeping in her window before I finally broke the spell.
I was leaning over her, sucking on her nipple as I dragged my trailing cum up her thighs and shoved it back into her.
That’s when I said the unquestionably demented thing that made her kick me out of bed. Even I thought her reaction was justified and correct.
“We should have a kid,” I said against her skin, “I think we’d make good co-parents. Let me knock you up.”
“Get out,” she said.
The next morning was another bad scene, and though I deserved it, I could hardly stand it.
She was doing me the kindness of acting like the night before had never happened, like I had never crossed so many boundaries with her. Boundaries she’d been so clear about that I was lucky she would ever so much as speak to me again.
And still I had to push it. Was incapable of keeping my mouth shut.
She’d just handed me some paperbacks to sign at my desk and was on her way back out when I stopped her.
“Wait. Please. You implied, when you broke up with me, that you were trying to turn what we had into something more, but you only said it as you were ending things. Can we talk about that? About the something more?”
“We can’t, Turner.” She didn’t even turn around. “Why do you insist on making this so much harder than it needs to be? Do you know how unfair that is?” I watched her back as her whole body moved with a deep breath, as though calming herself.
She continued, “We both know someone was gonna get hurt here, someone was always going to get hurt. And I think we both know that person is me. The least you can do is stop twisting the knife. At least cut me loose before it’s even worse.”
I stared at her wondering which of us was crazy that we saw it this differently.
“How exactly do we know that?” I asked her, trying my best to sound composed when I wanted to throw something. “Why? You’re the one that broke up with me. You think that didn’t hurt?”
“It wasn’t a break up. We were never together.”
That one really hurt. Because she was right. I’d had my chance, and I hadn’t so much as brought up the fact that I wanted a relationship with her, not in any serious way.
Regardless, I had to rally. I wasn’t just giving up because I’d been an ass. I was still an ass, and I intended to make that work for me. “What did you think was happening here?” I asked, each word enunciated slowly. “I was clearly the one that cared more. I pursued you, Miss Apathetic. What did you think that meant?”
She faced me then. Her eyes would have taken out my legs if I wasn’t already sitting down. Her words were worse. “It meant nothing,” she slashed her hand in the air and I flinched. “Nothing more than intimacy combined with sex, remember?”
I sat perfectly still while she shredded my heart with a few matter of fact words.
Words that I had taught her. Words that I had once believed.
Oh the sweet justice of it. Brought low by own cynical ideals.
She wasn’t done. “You pursuing a woman is like a lion chasing his next meal. It was simply nature. I ran, you gave chase.”