Authors: Faye Avalon
“Maybe we ought to discuss this another time.”
She shook her head at Reed’s low tone. “I might not be able to do this
another time. I need you to understand, Reed.”
He said nothing, but his nostrils flared.
Lissa sucked in a breath and let it out slowly through her mouth, giving
herself time to get the words right in her head. “I’m not sure how much I’d had
to drink by then, and that’s no excuse I know, but it was a factor. I’d never
done anything like it before. Never so much as entered a bar on my own let
alone been picked up. But I was attracted to both of them and heard myself
telling them they didn’t have to make a choice. And neither did I.”
She made herself look at Reed. Made herself hold his narrowed gaze. “I
could say that my intention was to walk away, to leave them both there and go
home, but it wasn’t. After the bar closed, we went up to Marco’s apartment.”
Reed shifted in his chair, then tugged at the opened collar of his
shirt.
“I’m not making excuses for myself,” Lissa said quickly. “I’m not even
going to apologize. It was what I wanted. What I needed.” Still he remained
silent. “Reed?”
His shrug was casual, but a mountain of tension appeared to stiffen his
shoulders. “What do you want me to say?”
Lissa glanced around the bar again. Thankfully, there was too much noise
and chatter for anyone to overhear them. She looked back at him. “I want you to
accept it for what it was. I’m not even sure we’d need to have this
conversation if it wasn’t Ethan and Marco. You can’t tell me you’d feel the
same way if it had been two strangers you’d never heard of.”
His mouth, already a grim line, tightened. “You don’t think I’d care if
two random strangers had banged my wife?”
“I wasn’t your wife then,” Lissa felt obliged to point out. “It’s my
past, Reed. I’m damn sure you weren’t a saint.”
“I sure as hell never needed a third wheel to get me off.” He closed his
eyes, sucked in a breath. When he looked at her again, his expression was full
of self-deprecation. “You’re right. I wasn’t a saint. And unlike you, I didn’t
even have the excuse of losing my business to a lying cheat of a partner to
explain my flaws.”
“Choosing to sleep with Ethan and Marco wasn’t a flaw on my part, Reed.
As I told you, I won’t apologize for it.”
Reed ran his hand over his mouth, but said nothing. He shifted again,
then leaned forward. Lissa thought he was about to suggest they leave. End the
conversation. Her whole body sagged with relief when he sat back and folded his
arms across his chest.
“Around the time I started my business, I was seeing this woman.” He shrugged,
shifted. “We’d been together for a few months and things were going pretty
well, despite the fact I wasn’t around much. Then one day she told me it was
over. Said I was more interested in business than her.” He raised his eyebrows.
“She and Ethan had hooked up.”
Lissa bit her bottom lip, not daring to move. This was obviously the
foundation of his problem with his cousin, and no way did she want him to clam
up now that they might be able to work through what stood between them.
“When I confronted Ethan, he said he’d thought it was over between her
and me. Even so I laid the blame squarely at his door.”
“But he thought you’d broken up.”
Reed’s eyes narrowed. “A guy doesn’t move in on a woman fresh from
another man’s bed until he gets the all clear.”
“What’s that? Some rule from the Male Book of Bonding?”
“It’s just how it is.”
“Did you love her?”
He looked at her steadily, his eyes so deeply blue. “No.”
Lissa swallowed, her heart not wanting to risk believing the message his
eyes sent her way. That anything he might have felt for that woman had faded to
nothing because of his feelings for her. That he cared for her.
Really
cared for her. She couldn’t let
herself imagine that he was in love with her, but maybe he cared more than he
was prepared to admit.
“I’ve asked myself how I’d feel if it hadn’t been Ethan,” Reed said
firmly. “I don’t have an answer.”
The flimsy hope she’d been harboring trembled beneath his words.
Recalling what he’d told her that night in the car park, that every time he saw
the two men he would be reminded that she’d let them share her, made her heart
sink with the seeming futility of their situation. “We’re never going to get
past this, are we?”
He stared at her for long moments, then hooked his finger in his open
collar again. “Shit. It’s stifling in here. Let’s get some air.”
He pulled money from his wallet and slipped it beneath his glass, then
stood and came around to hold Lissa’s chair. Together they moved through the
bar and out into the fog that was now so dense it was hard to make out the
parked cars.
Lissa tightened her grip on her bag, her heart so heavy it was a solid
weight in her chest. She knew they were over. There was nowhere else for them
to go.
As they passed a covered portico, dimly lit by the lights from the bar,
she felt Reed’s hand on her arm as he tugged her into the enclosure. “I don’t
want it to be like this,” he grated. “I don’t want this between us.”
“I won’t live on some precipice, Reed. Knowing that at any time you’d be
ready to throw it back in my face.”
Grimacing, he pushed his hand through his hair. “You don’t get it, do
you? You don’t fucking get it.”
“Get what?”
His hand went through his hair again. “This. Us.”
She shook her head, wishing to heaven she could clear it. It felt like
she was on a rollercoaster ride, hitting the lows before clambering up to the
highs, only to be plunged toward the depths again.
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath, then blew it out slowly
through his mouth. “When I heard you were at the hospital, all sorts of stuff
went through my mind. I couldn’t think straight wondering if you were ill,
hurt. Wondering what the hell had happened to you. Damn near drove me crazy.”
She touched her hand to his
shoulder. “I’d twisted my ankle. It happened in the parking lot that last night
we were together. I had to have it strapped up for a few weeks and I was at the
hospital for my follow up appointment.”
As she spoke he wrapped his hands around her waist and held her out at
arm’s length looking her up and down. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”
She might have laughed if he hadn’t looked so concerned. “No. I’m fine.
My ankle’s okay now.”
His fingers tightened around her waist as he blew out another breath.
“Shit, Lissa. You turn me inside out.”
Off she went on that rollercoaster again. A slow ascent to hope.
“I want us to keep seeing each other.” His shuttered gaze lifted to
hers. “Maybe we could stop the divorce papers going through. Hold off for a
while. Start again.”
Her heart stopped, then thumped to a heavy staccato beat. “Start again?”
He gripped her hands and kissed her knuckles so tenderly her eyes
misted. “I need you.”
Hearing him say the words, seeing the determination in his eyes, Lissa
wanted to fall into his arms and tell him, yes, she needed him, too. But she
wouldn’t live with the possibility of losing him again when her past intruded
once more. “It’s not that simple.”
“Because you think I can’t let go of what happened?”
As her throat tightened, she nodded.
“You’re wrong. Okay, I’ve got some work ahead of me, but these past
weeks without you made me realize I don’t give a shit about Ethan, Marco, or
the man in the fucking moon.” He gripped her hands. “All that matters is us,
Lissa. You and me. Right now. Here and now.”
“Reed—”
“I don’t expect you to believe me, not after the way I’ve acted. But
give me a chance. Give
us
a chance.”
He wrapped his fingers around her upper arms and drew her closer, his eyes
pleading as much as his words. “That last time we were together? With Jack?
There was no excuse for the way I treated you and I’m so damn sorry, Lissa.”
Her throat felt too full to say
anything, so she nodded again.
“According to Jack, I should have my balls sliced for the way I acted,”
Reed said thickly. “He said I deserved for you to dump me and not look back.”
Because he seemed so disconsolate, Lissa trembled a smile. “He’s
probably right. About the dumping part, not the sliced balls.”
Reed stilled. “You’ve got every right to whip me to Christmas for how I
treated you.”
His solemn expression fractured the last of her reticence. “I might, but
you’d probably like it too much.”
She smiled again, but still he stared at her.
“The way I took you. I wanted to brand you
somehow, make it so that no other man would go near you. I was angry and if I
hurt you—”
Lissa touched a finger to his lips, halting his words. “You didn’t. I
was as angry and I wanted it as much as you. I won’t let you take all the
blame.”
Turing her hand, he pressed a kiss to her palm. “There was no excuse for
treating you that way. For making you feel like anything but the amazing woman
you are.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. The action was
so tender, so loving that her throat thickened with unshed tears.
His mouth touched hers, so softly, tentatively that her head swam a
little with the tenderness of it. As his arms came around her, she turned her
head and leaned into his chest. Breathing in his warmth, his unique scent, she
felt something settle deep within her.
“How are you going to feel when we bump into Ethan and Marco?” she asked
gently. “It’s going to happen, so I need to know you won’t completely freak
out.”
He tilted her chin with his forefinger and thumb until she was looking
up at him. “I may freak out, but not completely.” When she frowned, he grinned.
“When we do the bumping into thing, I’ll remind myself how damn miserable I
felt without you. How you’re the most important person in my life and how much
I need you.” His gaze bored deep into hers. “I love you, Lissa.”
The air caught in her lungs as her chest grew tight. “What?”
“So bloody much I can’t think straight.”
She was scared to even breathe, afraid that even the slightest movement
would break the magic. Afraid that anything she did or said would shoot her
back to consciousness to find she’d been hallucinating or having some kind of
fevered daydream.
His mouth touched hers again, gentle at first, then growing more eager
as she returned his fervor. The muted chatter from the bar, the occasional
rumble of a car’s engine, the night sounds from the nearby woods all faded into
nothingness as she drowned in Reed’s kiss.
When they came up for air, Lissa let the last fragment of her defenses
melt away. “I love you too, Reed. I can’t seem to help it.”
Seemingly unwilling to stop kissing her, Reed drew her tighter against
him. “You’ll never have cause to regret it,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I’ll make certain of that.”
His determined kiss gave weight to his words, and Lissa let herself sink
into his embrace until she became aware of several couples leaving the bar and
car engines starting up.
“Reed?”
He nibbled at her neck. “Hmm?”
“I want you to promise me something.”
“Okay. I promise never to beat either of them over the head with a
hammer.”
Easing away from him, she frowned then laughed. “That’s good to know,
but it’s not that.”
“Then what?” He drew her back toward him, his arms tight around her
waist. “Tell me what you need.”
She curled her arms around his neck. “Promise that you’ll stop calling
me princess.”
After long moments, during which he stared at her, he laughed and lifted
her off her feet. “That might be difficult, seeing as how I love it when your
eyes flash hazel fire at me when I do.”
“Something tells me they’ll flash often enough regardless of what name
you call me.”
He laughed again and eased her down to her feet. “Okay. Agreed. But if I
forget, you have my permission to punish me in whatever way you see fit.”
They grinned at each other, then still holding her with one arm around
her waist, Reed reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar small box. “I
think this is yours.”
Her heart thumping wildly, Lissa opened the box and stared at her
diamond ring. She looked up at Reed and her insides glowed at the smile in his
eyes. “It’s so beautiful. I always thought it was so beautiful.”
“Not a patch on the woman who wears it. Want to put it on?”
She’d barely nodded when he took the ring from the box and reached for
her hand.
The ring felt perfect on her finger, unlike the first time he’d slipped
it on when her world had pitched out of orbit. Now it tilted back again, and
everything settled into perfect balance.
And as Lissa sank into Reed’s kiss again, she knew that was how it would
stay.