I don’t respond, just sit here, wishing for it to end.
I hear his sigh as he realizes I’m taking the stubborn route. “Tora, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean that I shouldn’t have done it at all, I meant that I shouldn’t have done it like that. I don’t regret sleeping with you, not one fucking bit.”
I sit up a little straighter and keep listening. Only, he goes quiet. “Shit,” he finally says before I hear a bang down the hallway. “Why is it always so hard to talk to you?”
At that, I get up off the floor and flick the lock on the door. I sit on my bed and bring my knees up into my chest before curling my arms around myself. The door slowly opens and Nate walks into my room, keeping his eyes on me.
He walks over to the very edge of my room, keeping as far away from me as possible before leaning against the wall and watching me. We’re both silent for a while and the tension in the room is nearly killing me. “I don’t regret it,” he murmurs into the quiet room.
I raise my eyes to him and study him, waiting for whatever explanation he’s going to throw at me. “It’s just… if I knew it was your first time, I would have made it different. I would have made it… special, I guess.”
I let out a breath. “It was special,” I tell him. “I thought it meant something until you walked out and proved, once and for all, that I can’t trust you. You’re an asshole, Nate. Right down to the core. You treat women as objects and leave them feeling used and dirty.”
He walks forward and drops down to his knees before me, putting his eyes level with mine, he reaches out and pulls me close to him. “Don’t say that,” he tells me.
“Which part?” I question. “All of it’s true.”
“That you can’t trust me.”
“I don’t understand you, Nate. You’re so hot and cold. One minute, you’re the guy who has treated me like shit for five years, the next you’re forcing me to live with you and saving me from guys like Josh and Jackson. Then you go right back to being a prick. I mean, did you say all those things last night just to get me in bed?”
His eyes search out mine. “I meant every fucking word, Tora.”
“Then what is it? Do you enjoy hurting me? Do you like seeing me suffer?”
“No, of course not.”
“And that right there is why I can’t trust you,” I tell him. His eyebrows pull down in confusion so I continue on. “Everything you do hurts me, Nate. You do all these things that build me up and have me hoping for something more and then your very next step is to tear me down. How could you not know that walking out last night and being with that girl today wasn’t going to hurt me?”
He watches me for a moment before cringing. “We’re not together, Tora,” he says, cutting the knife in deeper.
“Believe me,” I say. “I know. It’s just… your actions hurt, whether you mean them to or not.”
He studies me for a moment before realization hits. “You like me,” he says and I know he means more than just in the ‘want to get naked with him’ kind of way. I don’t answer him, but I don’t need to, he knows. After all, I’m not the kind of girl to just climb in bed with anyone. “Why?” he questions.
I let out a heavy breath. “Because when it’s just you and me, and you’ve left your bad attitude at the door, like the way it is right now, you make me feel like the only girl in the world.”
He nods his head. “You are the only girl in the world,” he tells me so quietly I have to strain to hear him.
I reach out and run my fingers down the side of his handsome face. “You like me, too,” I challenge.
He presses his lips together and I see I’m right. It all makes sense. The sweet things he says. How he taught me to drive my car yesterday. How he’s patient with me. How he saves me from guys like Josh and Jackson. Nate Ryder likes me and it’s in more than the ‘want to get naked with me’ kind of way.
He pulls me into him and presses his lips to mine. I release my hold around my legs and let them fall down on either side of him so I can get closer. He holds me tight to his body while he kisses me and all too soon, he pulls away. “I don’t deserve you, Tora,” he tells me before pushing away and standing.
I think back to everything he has done over the past five years and look him dead in the eye. “No,” I tell him. “You don’t.”