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I kneel behind her—I love taking her this way. I can feel so much more of her, I can touch the creamy skin on her back and pay attention to every muscle moving under her skin—and I watch every breath she fights for as I rock into her.
I move her long hair to the side and move closer, slowly pushing farther into her. Her back arches into me, and I take her breasts in my hands as I begin to move in and out of her slowly.
Fuck, it feels so damn good, better than ever. It has to be the hot water pushing around us as I inch in and out of her. She moans, and I reach down to make sure she’s still being hit with the rushing water. Her eyes are screwed shut, and her mouth is wide open. Her knuckles are nearly white from gripping the edge of the tub.
I want to move faster, to pound into her, but I force myself to stay at this slow, torturing pace.
“Har-dinnn,” she moans.
“Fuck, it’s like I can finally feel every inch of you.” The moment I say the words, I panic and pull away from her.
A condom.
I didn’t even think to use a fucking condom. What has she done to me?
“What’s wrong?” she pants, a thin layer of moisture covering her face.
“I don’t have a condom on!” I run my hands over my wet hair.
“Oh,” she says calmly.
“Oh? What do you mean, Oh?”
“So put a condom on?” she suggests with a doe-eyed look.
“That’s not the point!” I stand up in the tub. She doesn’t say anything. “If I hadn’t thought about it, you could have gotten pregnant.”
She nods understandingly. “Okay, yeah, but you did remember.”
Why is she so calm about this? She has this grand plan to move to Seattle—a baby would definitely fuck that up. Wait . . .
“Is that your plan or something? If I get you pregnant, you think I’ll go with you?” I sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist, but it does make sense.
She turns around, laughing. “You aren’t serious!” And when she tries to wrap her arms around me, I move out of the way.
“I am.”
“Come on, that’s insane. Come here, babe.” She tries to grab me again, but I dodge her, moving to the opposite side of the Jacuzzi.
Hurt flashes as clear as a goddamn neon sign across her face, and she covers her boobs with her hands. “You’re the one who forgot about a condom, and now you’re saying that I’m trying to trap you by getting pregnant?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Just listen to yourself.”
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time some crazy chick did that. I slide over to get a little closer now, but she quickly rises onto her knees on the bench. I give her an impassive look, saying nothing.
Watching me, her eyes brim with tears as she stands up in the water and climbs out of the tub. “I’m going to take a shower.” She disappears into the bedroom, slamming first the door to the deck and then the bathroom as she goes.
“Fuck!” I yell, smacking a palm at the bubbling water, wishing it could hit me back. I do need to listen to what I’m saying—this isn’t some random crazy bitch. This is Tessa. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m so fucking paranoid. My guilt over this Seattle shit is causing me to lose my fucking mind. What’s left of it, anyway.
I have to fix this, or at least try to. I owe it to her, especially after I just accused her of the dumbest shit possible.
Ironically, in a twisted way, I almost wish I hadn’t remembered the condom myself . . .
No. No, I don’t. I just don’t want her to leave me, and I don’t know what else to do to get her to stay. A baby isn’t the answer, that’s for damn sure. I’ve done everything I possibly can except lock her in the apartment. Sure, it’s an idea that’s actually crossed my mind a few times, but I don’t think she would like it too much. Plus she’d probably get a vitamin-D deficiency. And stop going to yoga . . . and so stop wearing those pants.
I need to go inside and apologize for embarrassing her and being a dick to her before the entire gang returns. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and they’ll get lost in the woods for a few hours.
But first, I have something else I need to do. I climb out of the hot tub and walk into the room; it’s cold as hell now that I’m only wearing soaked boxers. I glance back and forth between my phone and the bathroom door connected to our room. The shower’s still running, so I grab my phone and a blanket from the back of the chair before stepping back out onto the balcony.
I scroll through my contacts and find the name Samuel; real fucking clever decoy, there. I don’t know why I saved this woman’s number anyway; I guess I knew somehow I’d get tangled in a fucking web and have to call the bitch back. I changed the name in case Tessa went snooping through my shit, which I knew she would do. I thought she’d caught me when she asked about my deleted history and heard me yelling at Molly on the phone.
In some ways, I’m sure she’d rather see Molly on my call log than this person.
Chapter twenty-six
TESSA
I can’t believe Hardin had the nerve to accuse me of trying to get myself pregnant, or even thinking that there’s even a small chance that I would do something like that to him . . . or to myself. The whole thing’s just absurd and stupid all around.
Everything was going so great—incredible, really—until he mentioned the condom. He should have just gotten out of the water and grabbed one; I know he has a pile of them in the top of his suitcase. I watched him shove them in there after I neatly packed our bags.