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“I...”
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
Somewhere in there, the words “you have the right to remain silent” floated around his brain.
He figured maybe he should.
“Will you come back to my place tonight?”
It was a bad idea. Except... Why? This was the thing he had been worried about. Well. Kind of. And now she’d said it, so he couldn’t keep it from happening.
Benny was coming back in two days. So maybe... Maybe it was best to just...
“All right.”
“Good.”
They said their goodbyes, and left the party right around when everybody else dispersed. They got into the truck and didn’t say anything as they drove back to her place.
Her place, which felt as familiar as his own. Where he had taken to stashing clothes and a toothbrush. He’d moved in. Hell. He hadn’t really admitted that until now. Her place was nicer, a little newer than the one he stayed in on the property. It made sense to be here.
It was dark in the house, and before she could move to turn on any lights, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Selfish bastard.
She loved him.
She loved him, and that broke something inside him.
He should tell her he couldn’t do this. He should tell her he could never be her husband, could never be Benny’s stepdad. Couldn’t live in this cute little place and plan for the future. He should tell her there was something wrong with him.
But instead, he kissed her. Because he wanted her. Instead, he kissed her, because feeling loved felt so damned good, and that had always been his weakness.
Except this time... This time he was hurting the person who loved him. By not being good enough to tell her what they couldn’t be. What they couldn’t have.
He tried to tell himself that she knew. She had to know. Because they had met, and she knew about the jagged, messed-up pieces inside of him already. So she had to understand. She just had to. But he was too much of a coward to say anything. He kissed her anyway. In the dark, in the quiet, in the first moments of the new year. With the end of all that they were looming.
He kissed her.
He drank that love in, because he needed it. Because he wanted it. Because he would never in all his days want a damn thing more.
She had always been too beautiful for him. Too soft.
That isn’t fair. She’s not just that.
No. She was strong, and she had been through too much. Foster care all of her life, with no one ever adopting her. Only the woman who had taken her in for the last few years of high school and then died. And that husband of hers...
People had handled her so badly.
He couldn’t be trusted with her love. Not when it had already been so misused.
And he still wasn’t strong enough to turn her away. Not now. Even though he should. Dammit, he should. But he just couldn’t. Evidence of why he couldn’t accept this. Because he was weak. It was so clear. So apparent. And even as he called it what it was, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting more from her. From demanding more.
Their clothes came off easily. Because that part had always been so easy.
And he lifted her up off the ground, wrapped her legs around his waist and walked them both down the hall, laid her down on her bed, all soft and beautiful and everything she was. And he kissed her. Every inch of her. Until she was moaning. He could give her this. He was good at it. He could make her desperate with desire for him. He could do that.
