“Not of you,” she said, voice thick with tears. “For you. And I’m worried more than scared.”
“Mason is coming to pick you up now.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll go back and I won’t do this again, but promise me this didn’t ruin things for you.”
“How can I promise that?” His tone was biting. “It was bad enough that I couldn’t stop coming here. Now, well, you know what happens now.”
Iris was openly crying at this point. She gave me an imploring look. “I’m sorry. I swear I wasn’t followed. I swear. I was so careful.”
I was baffled by it all, but I could tell something bad had just happened.
“What’s going on, Heath?” I asked him.
He shut his eyes tight, taking a deep breath. “I wish I could tell you. Iris needs to go.”
“She could stay for dinner,” I offered. I didn’t know her well at all, but it was distressing to me to see her crying like that. To watch her go from so joyful to so genuinely despairing. I wanted to help.
“She can’t,” he said dully. “I can’t now, either.”
“I’m sorry,” Iris said again, but I couldn’t tell which one of us she was talking to.
“Oh,” I said, wanting to do something batty like wring my hands I was so damned confused. “You aren’t staying for dinner, either?” I asked him. I thought for certain he was planning to come back for the night.
“Not now, I can’t. Excuse me. Mason’s here. I’m just going to walk Iris out.”
That’s when he handed me the flowers he’d brought me. I murmured a thank you.
I didn’t ask who Mason was or even walk them out. I just stared at the door, my mind racing, trying to make sense of their interaction. It was clear I was in the dark about whatever was going on.
I was still staring at the door when Heath came striding back in. He slammed it shut and came directly to me.
He set the flowers I was clutching on a table, pulled me into his chest, his arms like steel around me, offering hard comfort. For a moment, I felt like everything was going to be okay. He lulled me into thinking that, his lips tender at my temple.
And still comforting me, still giving me false hope with his strong body, he murmured, “I have to leave. Not for a little while, but for a very long time. We have only minutes left together.”
“How long is a very long time?” I murmured into his chest.
“I wish I knew.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to explain that scene back there with your sister to me.”
“I wish I could. If I had a choice, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t be leaving, I promise you that.”
For what it was worth, I believed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
And then he was gone, and I had no idea if I’d ever see him again.
The first day after he left time passed like it was rolling through tar.
The second day was worse.
The third the same.
There was no word. Not a note. Not a phone call. Nothing.
He was gone, had been gone for days, then weeks, but he’d left his mark in every single inch he’d occupied.
But even with that mark of his ever present, the man himself—gone.
I longed. For his touch. For just the sight of him. For the sound of his voice.
It was such a strange thing, longing. It felt so necessary. Like the very urge created the problem. Because somehow it felt so right.
All because you needed a thing you didn’t have.
Such a vicious cycle, longing.
And then, all because of him there was my reawakened sex drive.
It was the sweetest agony.
I found myself suddenly fixated on sex. So aware of my own body that I couldn’t concentrate on much else.
I was showing more skin, enjoying the attention. I worked hard to keep my figure, and I was proud to show it off and add thinking constantly about sex to that equation—I was like walking man catnip.
During that three-week stretch, I kid you not, I even had a bank teller hit on me mid-transaction.
It was out of hand.
And while I was obsessed with sex, I was not remotely interested in having it with anyone but the one man I couldn’t have. Because he was gone.
It’s the funniest thing, how the woman who couldn’t be less interested in dating gets asked out the most. I was suddenly that woman. I swear, I couldn’t beat them off with a stick if I tried.
I said no, categorically.
But every night I went home and masturbated repeatedly, nothing I’d ever done before, because something about getting myself off all alone had always felt singularly unsatisfying.
And it still did.
I did it anyway. Over and over. Because I suddenly had a hard time going to sleep without it.
I got myself off, fantasizing about a rough voice in my ear and a big, scarred body on top of me, and would eventually fall into a fitful sleep.
I tossed and turned every night, and then I woke up every morning with my covers on the floor, and my fingers on my clit.
Nearly three weeks to the day he’d left, he showed up again, right at my bedtime.
I knew it was him when the doorbell rang at such an odd hour. I’d just been performing my nightly try to sleep method, naked in my own bed, vibrator in hand.
I wondered briefly if I should answer the door like that.
No, I decided, shoving my toy under a pillow and throwing on a thin silk robe.
I checked the peephole, undid the chain, but only opened the door a tiny crack.
I met his wintry eyes and felt a jolt of something powerful move through me.
He looked fatigued. Just dead tired. Had he been going through the same thing I had? Did he miss me?
“I shouldn’t even be here,” he began, sounding like he didn’t want to be.
I stiffened, my stomach turning over in dread. What the hell did that mean? Was he just here to break things off more officially? Was this even the type of thing that needed an official breaking off?
My voice was hard when I shot back with, “So why are you?”
He took a deep breath, then another. He was trying to communicate something to me with his eyes, but he was just too damn good at hiding everything there.
His eyes would never be the window to his soul. It was hidden somewhere else.
I wanted to strip him down, climb on top of him, and study every inch of him with squinted eyes and thorough fingers until I found it.
But I knew where it wasn’t. His eyes were too everlasting frozen to death to house his true self.
I tried to read them anyway, tried to decipher that broken gaze of his. It was nearly useless, but only nearly. I didn’t know what exactly they were trying to tell me, but I swore I caught a glimpse of something approaching contrition.
“I can’t stay away.” It was a tortured utterance.
It was everything I craved to hear in that exact moment. Because if I’d known where to find him, there’s no way I could have stayed away.
Just like that, I was his for the taking.
I barely got the door open before he had me across the entryway, pinning me to the wall.
I trembled under the touch of his big, rough hands. No soft touches for me. I was beyond them. I only wanted what Heath wanted to give me, which was a thing that could never in any way be mistaken for soft.
He didn’t kiss me at first, just took me in his big hands, running them over me like he was committing every curve to memory.
He pushed my robe off my shoulders, unwrapping me like a present, making a noise low in his throat when he found me completely bare underneath.
“It’s like you knew I was coming,” he groaned out hoarsely.
I squirmed under his scrutiny, wanting to touch him, wanting to touch myself, anything for relief. But I held back. I wanted too badly to see what he would do.
“Were you waiting for me, honey?” he asked softly, dropping down to his knees.
He shoved his beautiful face between my thighs, tongue stabbing at me without further ado.
“Were you?” he breathed into my sex.
I gasped out a yes. Then his name. I put my hands slowly, gingerly into his hair, never forgetting for a second, even in my near hysterical wanting of him, how hard it was for him to be touched.
He threw one of my legs over his shoulder and set to work on me, fingers delving inside, tongue exploring slowly, thoroughly, laving at my sex, inch by inch, scraping his tongue against me, fold by fold.
I loved it, but I needed more almost instantly. I wanted to come with his cock inside of me, not his fingers.
“Heath,” I pleaded, wanting him to stop, needing to come with him inside of me, but I quickly lost the train of thought. He had me finishing before I saw it coming.
He nuzzled into me, fingers still inside of me as I trembled out my release.
“Heath,” I said again.
“What do you need?” he asked, then proceeded to lave my clit generously with his tongue.
When I found my voice again, I rasped out, “I need your cock. Please.” I was panting as I begged. “Please. Please. Please.”