She should have rolled away, should have told him that it was the best closure she’d ever had, thanked him for it, thrown on her clothes, and beat a hasty retreat, but she just couldn’t do it.
Because there was something seriously wrong with her.
Along with giving her the best orgasm of her life, Rhett must have scrambled her brains.
When she opened her mouth all the wrong words came out. She needed to tell him that it was over. That they couldn’t see each other again. That it had been short and sweet and that was the best way, that anything good was always ruined by time and bullshit, but instead, she found herself muttering the exact opposite as she fought eyes that were suddenly really, really heavy.
“No,” she whispered as she snuggled into Rhett’s side. His strong, warm, muscular side. A side that felt far, far too good. Far too much like home and she’d never had a home she actually cared for. Buildings or metaphorical people’s homes. “No, it’d didn’t feel like closure at all.”
CHAPTER 16
Bella
“You sure about this?”
Bella dropped a folded-up set of jeans onto her already overflowing suitcase. She eyed John, who had been buzzing around in the periphery for the past half an hour. He was hovering in the doorway, his shadow darkening the whole room, he really was that big.
She cast him a fond smile. They were friends, after all. When she’d put out the roommate wanted ad, she never could have foreseen John answering. He looked like a professional wrestler. It was nice that he worked nights so he often slept during the day and was gone when she was home. Their schedules worked out so that they didn’t often bother each other, but they were friends. John was just an easy kind of guy to know. Bella viewed him as the over-protective big brother she never had. He’d rescued her from more than a few shit dates by pretending to be just that. They’d even done the whole boyfriend routine thing, shamefully enough, that he’d tried to pull on Rhett.
Was that really a month ago?
Time flew by when you were having fun. Or so people said.
“John,” Bella said patiently. She ignored the rest of the stack she still had to fold into her suitcase. “The only reason I’m not sure about this is because the airline is probably going to charge me fifty dollars for this overweight bag. It probably weighs double what it should.”
John lifted those massive shoulders of his in a bear-like version of a burly shrug. “I have a bag you can borrow. If you check two, it’s probably cheaper.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“Is it pink? I don’t do pink.”
John smiled despite the concern that lingered on his granite features. He looked like he was hewn out of rock, in a completely different way from Rhett. Rhett was like softer rock. John was like… like the kind of rock that had been around since the dawn of time. He was probably spawned from an ancient line of giants.
“Why would it be pink?” John scoffed. “Of course, it’s not pink.”
“Then maybe I’ll consider borrowing it. Unless it’s black. I can’t do black. I can never find it on the conveyer with everyone else’s luggage.”
“It’s blue.” He gave an exasperated sigh. “You’ve only known this guy for what? A month? You’re already going to go to his place for a weekend? An extended weekend? You never take those. You are getting serious already?”
Bella stuffed her hands into her hoodie so that John couldn’t see how they’d started to shake at the mention of the word serious. She didn’t do serious. So, what am I doing?
When Rhett came down to visit her, it was easy to pretend that they weren’t actually a couple. He just came for some fun on the weekends. He never stayed at her place. She went to his hotel room. It was like an illicit affair. Except without the whole evil cheating part. It was… it was just them having some fun now and then. Okay, every weekend. Without fail. It was just them not being able to get enough of each other. Bella kept waiting for it to wear thin because she didn’t do permanent and she didn’t do commitment.
She glanced down at her bag one more time, at all the stuff scattered all over her bed. Her hands began to sweat in her hoodie. She kept them firmly clutched together.
“No.” The word had to be pushed out and it came out anything but casual sounding. She winced at herself. Okay, so she had trust issues. She might have been burned in the past. By three different guys. Cheaters. All of them. The rest just didn’t stick. She wasn’t always the one who found a reason for it not to work. She wasn’t always the one who was difficult or didn’t want something lasting. Sometimes she did, and that was the worst part.