What she felt. What she was going through. What she needed.
So even though the thought of starting something real with Wes made her ache down to her very cells with want, she couldn’t go down that road. Wes had hungry demons in his past as well. If she took this too far, let feelings develop into something more rooted and then hurt him, she’d be leading him back to all those temptations.
Or, maybe he would beat her to the punch. If she opened her heart and really let herself feel those emotions again like she had when she was young—that yearning for love and commitment and romance—and then Wes walked away because he got bored or realized she was just a rebound phase or too screwed up to deal with, she wasn’t sure she’d recover.
Wes could be her kill shot.
A normal guy walking away was one thing. But Wes had cut deep tracks into her life already, and it’d only been a month. She couldn’t imagine how entrenched she’d become if she let it go on much longer. He would not be a man easily gotten over.
When they’d started this thing, she’d thought he’d be an ideal choice to keep things light with. She’d expected a smooth-talking guy, the good-looking chef who knew how to have a good time. That was what she’d signed up for. But she hadn’t expected all the other sides to him. The mentor who had endless patience for troubled kids. The friend who held her after a panic attack and didn’t interrogate her about it. And the man who hadn’t been scared to tell her how he was feeling about what was going on between them.
He was slipping right past all those guards and gates she’d had in place.
So the offer he’d made tonight left her with no choice. She was going to have to say goodbye. End this before they both got burned up in the blaze of it.
“I can feel you thinking, lawyer girl,” Wes said softly, the words drifting into the darkness of the bedroom. “What’s on your mind?”
She swallowed past the knot in her throat. “Nothing. I’m just lying here.”
Lying to you.
Wes shifted a little beneath her, dragging her cheek along his chest. Only then did she realize her face was wet. His muscles tensed beneath her. “Bec, are you crying?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to herd her emotions back into the corral. “I’m fine. My eyes are watering.”
Wes grunted and slipped from beneath her, leaving her on the edge of the pillow. He reached over, turned on the lamp, and then propped himself up on his elbow to look down at her. Whatever he saw on her face had his expression falling. “Hey, you are. What’s the matter?”
She turned her head and swiped at her disobedient tears. “Sometimes people cry after sex. It’s a thing.”
“It’s not your thing, though,” he said, pushing her hair away from her face. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Please…” she said, a plea in her voice. Not now. She didn’t want to do this now. She wanted a few more moments before she had to let it all go.
Wes let out a breath. “I scared you.”
She closed her eyes, her skin somehow hot and clammy all at once.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked. “I said too much tonight, and I freaked you out. I shouldn’t have said—”
She shook her head. “You can say what you want.”
“Not if you’re not ready to hear it. Goddammit. I should’ve waited. I got all caught up, and I should’ve—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she whispered, the words like glass in her throat.
“What?”
She opened her eyes to look at him, finding that handsome face looking confused, concerned, caring. She hated herself in that moment. Hated that she’d done this to them both, that she’d let it get to this point. “That’s the thing.”
“What is?”
She met his eyes, more tears slipping silently from hers. “I’m never going to be able to hear it. There will never be a right time.”
Wes stared at her as if the words hadn’t registered, but then his eyebrows lowered like storm clouds over the sun. “Oh.”
“This thing with us, I can’t… This wasn’t supposed to be like…” The words weren’t coming out in any kind of logical way. She couldn’t make them cooperate. “With you. I’ll never…”
Something chilled in his expression, a hardness sliding in place. “You’ll never want a relationship with me,” he said flatly. “Did I translate that right?”