She fidgeted. “I’m going to try this one more time and hope I make myself clear. Whatever happened while you were gone, it doesn’t change what I think of you or how I feel about you. I know who you are, even if you can’t see it. I’m not going to run away because you made mistakes. I’ll leave—walk out of your life for good—if that’s what you want. But don’t you dare push me away because you think that’s what’s best for me. That’s my decision to make, not yours.”
The words struck a chord he didn’t want to acknowledge. He couldn’t have this conversation with her. Not now, maybe not ever. The high-school memory popped back into his thoughts, and he was about to ignore it when inspiration struck. That memory was exactly what he needed. “Do you want to sleep over?”
“Zane.”
He ignored the pleading in her voice. “Like we used to. Except this time we don’t pretend we fell asleep on accident. Stay over. We’ll be careless kids. We’ll have a sleepover, pop popcorn, and watch the stupidest movies ever. The ones we loved back then.”
A smile crept onto her face. Sadness tinged it, but it was a start. “Did you hear anything I said?”
“All of it.”
“Are you going to respond?”
“Give me time.” He tried to hide his wince as soon as the words passed his lips. Had he let too much of himself show?
Something flickered in her eyes, but it was gone before he could interpret it. She bounced to her feet, false cheer flooding in. “All right. I’m in.”
This was what they needed. Teasing. Joking. Fun. It was what they were missing. Even if her actions did look forced and mechanical. That would pass.
She bent at the waist to flip through a list of films on his hard drive. “What do we watch first?”
“Whatever you want.”
She double-clicked onBill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d watched that movie to death when they were younger, each of them taking one of the lead characters’ lines. “You know, I kind of miss that old black-and-white TV of yours,” she said as the movie started rolling.
“I kind of don’t.” He much preferred the widescreen multi-media laptop he’d gotten as awelcome backgift. It didn’t have the horsepower he needed for some of his extracurricular activities, but since he had more or less outgrown hacking websites—and didn’t miss it nearly as much as Sabrina thought—he wasn’t too concerned about it.
She pushed him back on the futon as the movie started. “Get comfortable.”
He shifted his weight until his back was against the wall, legs out in front of him. His cock throbbed when she crawled over the blanket toward him. The sitting-in-his-lap thing was new, since he’d gotten back.
“I swear”—she pushed his legs apart, to sit between them—“if I feel something hard poking me in the butt...”
She would. There was absolutely no way around that. “You’ll know I’m a healthy man and you’re an incredibly sexy woman, sitting as close as is physically possible?”
She pulled his arms around her waist. “I was going to say I’d be flattered, but you win.”
He wanted to strip off her clothes and watch her squirm and moan in pleasure, instead of paying attention to the movie. But this was nice too. Actually, when he thought about it, this was amazing. Maybe it was a bad idea.
“When did it happen?” Riley’s voice was soft, as she leaned more of her weight against his chest.
The almost overwhelming desire to spend the night making love to her? He was starting to think it had always been there. “When did what happen?”
“When did we lose this? The ability to let loose with each other. Things have been strained for so long. I mean, not like in a way most people would notice, but I see it, and I’m pretty sure you do too. Those awkward pauses that never used to be there. Did it happen when you enlisted?”
The answer popped into his head, and he realized he’d been thinking about it for a long time yet never recognized it. “It happened when I started dating Amanda.”
She leaned her head back on his shoulder, touching her cheek to his. “How do you figure?”
He expected the memories to hurt. He hadn’t been down this road willingly in so long. “She hated me spending time with you.”
“Why?”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“She was insanely jealous of you. Vocally. Intensely.” Zane had never understood why, until now.