Page 15 of Reluctant to Love

“Will you let me touch you, sweets? Just a little?” Roderick slips in beside me but his body is tense, presumably waiting for my rejection.

“I kind of feel like this is all new, ya know? Like we’re two awkward teenagers or something.”

“I noticed some fresh ink,” he says, sliding his hand under my shirt and over my tummy.

“I’m a masochist.”

Slowly, he lifts my shirt. He keeps his eyes on me the entire time, waiting for me to stop him. His fingers trace the first quote across my ribcage. “The heart was made to be broken.” His hand skims to wear my shorts hide the one that covers my hip. “What does this one say?”

“Everybody has a chapter they don’t read out loud.”

“You don’t wear your heart on your sleeve. You wear it on your body.” He releases my shirt, smoothing it over my stomach and then covers me with his large body. He dots my cheeks and nose with kisses before pulling back. “Let me in, Ellie. Let me love you the way you were meant to be loved. The way I should have loved you four years ago.”

“You don’t know how much I want to accept what you’re offering.”

“So, what’s stopping you?”

“The truth.”

“The dark is the perfect place to tell secrets. Should I turn off the lights?”

He doesn’t wait for answer. Instead, he rolls over and flips a switch, instantly submerging the room in darkness.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” he jokes.

“I went to your apartment five times after we broke up,” I confess. “I stood outside your door, but I couldn’t bring myself to knock. So, I left.”

“Famke rejected my manuscript before she knew you were my ghostwriter.”

“I was homeless for three months.”

That one is hard to tell and from the way Roderick tenses beside me, I can tell it struck a nerve. He turns on his side and skims his hand along my back. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Eleanor. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“What did you think was going to happen when your lie was revealed? That I wouldn’t care?”

“Honestly, I thought I could settle my divorce quietly and you would be none the wiser.”

“Dumb ass,” I tease.

“Kiss me,” he demands.

I scoot my body closer to his and lightly peck his lips. He grunts his disapproval and pulls me closer.

“Kiss me,” he demands again.

This time I give him what he wants. Soft, slow and sensuous. I drape my leg over his hip and let my arm fall across his shoulder. I drink him in, stealing the very breath from his lungs. His hands are firm on my waist, holding me tight against him where I can easily feel his hard length against my belly.

He returns my kiss with ferocity, nipping at my lips and then soothing the sting with his tongue.

My secrets start to bubble to the surface. I want to tell him so badly the one thing that could ruin all of this; the one secret forcing me to keep him at a distance, but I can’t. Not yet.

His breath is giving me life and love and hope. Everything he’s offering me, I grasp at, hoping to catch it, praying it won’t disappear the moment everything is revealed. Because I want him back, so badly. My heart feels as if it’s truly beating for the first time in years and it’s because of him.