Page 63 of Wait for Him

I've decided to live with what that says about me.

She was waiting when I got to her place, exactly as planned, and the second she opened the door I knew conversation wasn't happening. I didn't say hello. Didn't trust myself to slow down long enough for words because the whole drive over I'd been carrying that moment in my office with Rose, her knees around my thighs, those gray eyes going soft right before she turned the whole thing into a joke and walked away.

I needed it out of me.

Or at least I needed to pretend for a few hours that was possible.

So I crossed the room already working my belt, already shoving my pants down, and pinned her bare against the wall and drove in with zero ceremony. She'd primed herself ahead of time, thank God, slick and ready, and I slid home easy.

I rutted into her while she held on for dear life, chasing something that wasn't quite hers to give me, until I felt her clench and ripple around my cock. I pulled out before I followed her over; she dropped to her knees and took me in her fist and her mouth and worked me until my knees damn near buckled and I had to brace a hand on the wall above her head.

And the whole time — the whole goddamn time — I kept my eyes shut. We both know why. Neither of us is ever going to say it.

"Rough day?" she asked once we'd both caught our breath and I'd lowered myself to the floor beside her, back against the wall, the cool of it a mercy on overheated skin.

"Something like that, yeah." I dragged the back of my hand across my brow and wiped the sweat away.

"Do you need more, or do you need to get home?"

Fucking hell, this woman.

The perfect arrangement right to the end. No demands, no awkward questions about why I'd shown up wound this tight, no expectation that because we'd just fucked each other stupid we suddenly needed to sit around discussing feelings and childhood trauma over bottled water.

I turned my head and looked at her for a second, really looked, and realized I'd never once questioned why this had always been so easy for her. I knew why I needed it. I'd done enough ugly self-examination to understand exactly what Stacy gave me and exactly whose shadow sat underneath some of it, but she'd always seemed completely fine with the arrangement, so I'd accepted that because it was convenient and because I wanted to.

"Who am I to you in this?" I asked.

Stacy looked over at me, brows pulling together. "What do you mean?"

I shifted onto one elbow and brushed a curl back from her forehead. "We both know where my head goes sometimes. So where does yours go?"

The change in her face was small, but immediate. Her eyes dropped from mine and for the first time in the year I'd known her, Stacy looked like she wished I'd kept my fucking mouth shut.

"You don't have to answer."

She stayed quiet for a while, staring across the room, and when she finally spoke her voice was softer than I'd ever heard it.

"His name was Elijah. He was my fiancé. He died two years ago."

Fuck.

A whole year.

A whole fucking year of assuming I was the only one bringing somebody else into the room without saying their name, and all this time she'd been doing her own version of the exact same thing.

"Fuck. Stace—"

I reached for her without thinking.

Wrong move.

She recoiled so fast she was on her feet before I'd fully moved, snatching up her clothes and refusing to look at me while she dragged them back on.

"Don't fucking do that, Marc."

"Do what?"

"That." She yanked her shirt over her head and started hunting for the rest of her clothes with hands that were already shaking. "Don't look at me like that. Don't suddenly feel sorry for me. That's not what this is. That's not what we are."