Her heart skipped when the soft strains of a song reached her ears, delivered in a seductive tenor. “Her smiles, her frowns, her ups, her downs are second nature to me now, like breathing out and breathing in.”
The song was from My Fair Lady. The voice was Andrew’s. She knew it without looking. She stared into the canyon below, unsure what she was supposed to say. She was torn between kissing him and telling him to go to Hell. Either way, she’d make a fool of herself.
“I don’t get any applause?” he asked.
She crossed her arms, more to keep herself in check than anything.
“One of the things I love most about this place is the solitude. If you want that, tell me and I’ll leave.” The playfulness faded from his voice, but the kindness lingered.
She clenched her jaw and dug her fingers into her arms, to keep from reacting.
“I’ll go away anyway, if you’re not going to look at me. But I’m going to tell you what I’m thinking first.” He paused for several seconds. “No answer? That’s fair. I’ve never met anyone like you. From that very first night, you looked past everything I am, to peer into my soul. Which is really kind of terrifying. I’ve got a lot of shadows and skeletons lurking in there. It never mattered how much you saw; you didn’t flinch. You wanted to know more, but not to judge.”
A raw sensation clawed at her throat, and she wanted to ask what his point was. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
“I know that’s who you are. You didn’t do that for me, because I’m special,” he said.
She choked back the but you are that struggled to be heard.
He sighed. “We made a connection, and it goes deeper than friendship and sex. It’s exactly what you said the other day, and that’s how I know I’m not the only one who feels it.”
That snapped her control. She whirled and stalked toward him. “Of course I feel that way. You don’t have to be a good guesser, to figure it out. I told you, and you pushed me out anyway. Wrapped the rejection in the same stupid bullshit everyone feeds me—it’s for your own good. When I called you on it, you lied to my face and told me you didn’t care.
“And I know you lied, because that’s the one thing you do that I’ll never be okay with. I don’t care who you’ve slept with. I don’t care whose pictures you drool over, or if you jerk off five times a day to your own porn or financial statements. Hell, somewhere down the line, if there was an us, I might be all right with us exploring with other people.
“But you know what’s not all right? That you shut me out every time you’re afraid of getting hurt, and then you blame it on me. Like I’m the one who can’t handle it. You’re the one not coping. And yeah—okay—caring about the people around you takes time to figure out, when you’ve ignored it your whole life. There’s no magic switch to flip that says, I’m no longer emotionally repressed. But you’re not trying. You’re happy shoving all that guilt into a tiny little box, where it devours you.”
She resisted the urge to draw in a large breath when the rant was finished. “You quit drinking. You gave up the painkillers. Your new addiction is self-martyrdom.”
“And you,” he said.
She ground her teeth together. “Wrong. This isn’t where you get to be cute and seductive, so I forget what I’m talking about. I love you, and that might be stupid of me, and it’s probably not fair, since you warned me not to fall. Perhaps in a few weeks or months or years, ’it’ll fade into less than a sharp stabbing pain in my heart that makes it hard to focus on anything else, and I’ll find someone new. You were right about one thing—I do deserve better. Better than an asshole who feels the same way about me but refuses to let himself admit it, because ow that hurts.”
He stared at her. Could he hear her heart hammering? Tears pricked her eyelids again. She’d exposed her soul, and she got nothing in response. Was he prepping another joke tucked inside a weak compliment?
“You’re right.” When he spoke, relief crashed through her. “About all of it. You nailed it. Except I haven’t jerked off five times a day since I was a teenager. Dick gets raw.”
She raised her brows and pursed her lips. She hated that he went for the crude punchline, but adored it at the same time, because he was still him.
He moved closer, and stopped inches away. His heat radiated toward her, carrying his comforting scent.
She could touch his face without stretching. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and clenched her hands by her sides until her knuckles ached.
He didn’t reach for her. “I shouldn’t have turned this all back on you. I’ve known so many people in my life, and you’re one of the few who has any idea what she wants. You seize it. You don’t back down. And you don’t let anyone tell you you can’t have it, no matter how many I care about you excuses they wrap it in. Because, if they get it—if they get you—they won’t ask you to stop. I didn’t want to see how I feel about you. Admitting it’s there opens me up, and I don’t like being exposed. Not like this, anyway.” The corners of his mouth twitched.
She had to fight her smile.
He cupped her cheek and dragged his thumb along her skin. The shock and warmth made her gasp. He stroked tiny circles. “Give us a chance—give me another chance—and it’ll be worth it. For me, as much as it is for you. Because what you’re most right about is that I do love you. I don’t know where it came from, but fuck if the feeling isn’t going away. Not that I want it to. I miss you when I can’t touch you or see you, or simply hear your voice.”
This time, she didn’t fight the desire to kiss him. She sought out his lips with hers, tentative and soft. He tightened his grip on the back of her neck and held her close, claiming her mouth. She whimpered against him, slid her hands beneath his jacket, and molded her body to his. He wrapped an arm around her waist, drew his fingers up her back under her sweater, and kissed her again and again. When he broke away, her lips were swollen, and her head was light, and she loved it.
“You’re still an asshole,” she said.
“I always will be.” He traced a finger over her bottom lip. “So my sister is making dinner. If Thanksgiving is any indication, she’ll make way too much for three people, and it’ll be amazing. That is, if you’re free.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
He nodded at the car. “Loaner?”