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My natural instinct is to pursue her, and I’m up in an instant, rounding the bed with just that intention, but I stop for my pants, and the control they offer. I reach for them and my gaze catches on the condom I’ve apparently dropped on the floor, so I snatch it up. I never go condom-less, but I did with Cat. In the blink of an eye. This woman has me by the balls, and that should be a problem, but it’s not, part of the problem is that she doesn’t know it. The condom thing was just her way of deflating the emotional context of what just happened and making it about sex again. I shove the condom into my pocket and note the closed bathroom door. That’s a clear message, and I give her space.
What she does next tells me everything.
Chapter nineteen
Cat
Naked .
Leaning against the door of Reese’s fancy bathroom, gray and white checked tile beneath my feet, I am naked in every possible way. What is this man doing to me? What is this crazy, wild emotion in my belly and in my chest? I don’t remember feeling this with Mitch, the little cheating bitch. Not even before he was the little cheating bitch, though I suspect he was always that, I just didn’t know it. I don’t remember feeling this with anyone I’ve ever met. Really, truly, how does an asshole that cut in line become this, whatever this is?
And he thinks I’m running. I’m not running. I’m protecting myself. I’m making sure I don’t make the same mistake twice. That’s smart. That’s not scared, which is what the word “running” implies. Scared. He called me scared. My father calls me scared anytime I do something that doesn’t fit his agenda. Suddenly I’m angry, and I shove aside the whole feeling naked thing. I decide I need to draw lines with Reese. I need to tell him exactly what I think, despite the fact that at this moment, I have no clue what that is. I do, however, have complete confidence that it will come to me, and then out of my mouth it will flow. To him. Probably loudly.
I yank open the door, and my moment of confrontation is quite anticlimactic, considering the fact that I don’t actually have a visual of Reese. He’s definitely not on top of his massive four-poster bed, which isn’t all bad, since that would likely distract me. I walk out into the room and snatch up his shirt because I’m not going anywhere. I’m not running. But maybe he is, since he’s not here. I don’t like that thought, but I stay the course. I pull his shirt over my head and let it fall to my knees. That’s when my gaze lifts right and I realize that Reese is sitting with his back to me, in a giant oversized chair in front of the wall of windows.
I inhale, and all those words I was certain I’d have at the right moment, I don’t have. At all. What I have is honesty that just decides to smack me right in the face. I did run when I darted to the bathroom. In doing so, I lost the chance to read him in the aftermath of that steamy encounter. I regret that. I don’t like regrets. I have too many of those, which finally led me to where I am now. To him. I still don’t know what I am going to say to him, but I decide I’ll know when I look into his eyes. One of the things I love about being with this man is how easy conversation is with him. How straightforward he is with me. How comfortable I am with him. It’s my past that is uncomfortable for us both.
I round the giant, oversized chair and join him, sitting down next to him, but I don’t touch him. I am so hypertensive with this man, though, that I have this sensation of touching. I can feel him everywhere, from my head to my toes, inside and out. I can almost taste him. Seconds tick by, and we both stare ahead, the connection we have shared from the moment we met expanding, intensifying, and then, proving how in tune I am with this man, at the same moment, we turn to look at each other. And in that first connected moment, he steals my breath and ravishes my resistance. He’s not overbearing or brutally alpha, like many of the men in my life have been. He doesn’t have to be those things. There is an inner strength about him, and a natural charm that allows him to own everyone around him. The way he owns me right now.
“You didn’t run,” he says softly.
“Actually, I did,” I say, giving him a small smile. “Right into the bathroom.”
“Yes,” he says, caressing my cheek. “But you’re still here. That’s what matters.”
I catch his hand. “Do you know why I called you an asshole?”
“Tell me.”
“Because then I didn’t have to be surprised when you turned out to be an asshole.”
“Guilty until proven innocent?”
“Yes, actually. I know. I’m a hypocrite, but it’s been working for me.”
“It doesn’t work for us, Cat.”
“Then I guess it doesn’t work for me.”
His eyes warm and his arm wraps around my shoulders. “Come here,” he says. Inching me closer.
I let him. I want to be closer to this man, so I snuggle into the shelter of his big, warm body. And maybe that idea is what shakes me more than anything with Reese. That he feels like a safe place, when I’ve spent so much time making sure I’m my own safe place. For right now, he is, though, and I decide to enjoy it.
For at least a full minute, we sit there in silence, staring out at the city, the quiet between us comfortable, and somehow a test that says this, whatever this is between us, is right, not wrong. “The view is incredible,” I murmur, snuggling closer to him. “There’s something about the angle. It’s like we’re floating and no one can touch us.”
“This view is why I bought this place and why I haven’t left this building. Well, this view, and that bar downstairs. It’s the view that helps me come up with answers to ten thousand questions.”
“What questions are you asking now?”
“Who was he?” he asks, and I don’t have to ask for clarification. He’s not talking about his trial, as I’d expected. He’s talking about me, and my past, and the history that I’ve forced between us.
“No one,” I say, but I know he wants more than that, and at this point, he deserves it. I settle and add, “His name is Mitch Welk.”
He's silent several beats, in which I suspect I haven’t given him the answer he wanted. “Reese—”
“I know Mitch, Cat,” he surprises me by saying.
I twist around to face him. “What? How? Are you friends with him?”
