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Forty-four
Henley
This isn’t what I came here for. Not exactly. I wanted to tell him about Jeremy. The truth. I wanted to make him understand.
This time I can give in.
I can give you what you want.
I stare at the ceiling while struggling to get my breathing under control. I can still feel his tongue. His mouth. His fingers. The buzz of it all, humming in my ears. Tingling down my spine. I’ve thought about, what it would feel like to be with him. I’ve had years to fantasize and imagine. I’ve touched myself a thousand times, pretending that it’s him between my legs. His mouth. His cock. His hands.
None of those fantasies even begin to come close to what he just did to me.
“You thirsty?” he calls to me from somewhere above my head, his question followed by the sound of bottles clinking. “I have beer and… beer.” So normal, so casual, it stains my cheeks. He’s playing gracious host while I’m lying, practically naked, on his kitchen floor, having just orgasmed so hard I don’t know what day it is.
Life is decidedly unfair.
I scramble to my feet and find him leaning against the short length of counter that looks to be the same as when Tess and her Dad lived here. Matter of fact, it all looks the same, save for Conner’s personal belongings. Clothes and books. A sparse-looking futon. A floor lamp that looks like a house fire waiting to happen. A wide leather chair I instantly recognize.
We used to sit in it together in his father’s den—me, curled up against him, my head on his shoulder, legs tangled with his, while he read to me. He gave me a ring in that chair. Put it on my finger and asked me to be his.
I don’t know why seeing it now makes me so mad. Maybe because I’m standing here naked while he casually sips his beer, looking at me like what just happened was all in a day’s work. Maybe because he was finally able to fuck me.
Me, Henley O’Connell, not some random rich girl in a bar.
Maybe because I know what that means.
It means he doesn’t love me.
Not anymore.
He holds out the unopened beer in his other hand, offering it to me.
“Beer?” It comes out sounding judgmental and rude. “It’s six o’clock in the morning.” My gaze slides to the left. I can see a pile of bottles in the sink. Mostly beer bottles but there are enough empty fifths mixed in to give me pause. Make me think about my father.
He drops his hand, sets the beer he’s offering me on the counter with a shrug. “I can make you some tea, Daisy,” he says, drawing my attention. “But I’m fresh out of crumpets.” Despite his easy tone, I know he’s reading my mind. Knows what I’m seeing and what I’m thinking.
And he doesn’t like it.
“You can shove your crumpets up your ass, Gilroy,” I snarl at him. Turning on my heel, I shoot across the kitchen, past him, toward the bedroom. I don’t realize he’s behind me until I feel his hand latch around my arm and spin me around. As soon as we’re face to face, he lets go.
“I was kidding,” he says lifting his beer to his mouth again to take a drink, lips quirked in a smartass grin. “Do I look like the kind of guy who buys crumpets?”
Tess is wrong.
We don’t need time. No amount of time will fix what’s broken between us.
What I broke between us.
“Jesus,” Snatching my pants off the floor, I jam one leg in and then the other. “Is everything a joke to you?”
“Pretty much.”
He’s never going to forgive me. Never let me in. And what am I even doing? I can already feel myself sinking into him. Solid ground crumbling under my feet. I can’t let that happen again. I can’t give him what he wants.
I never could.
“This was a mistake.”