“If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“So is he looking over here? I’m trying to act like I’m caught up in your sexitude so I can’t look.”
“My sexitude? Cripes. Yes, he’s looking. Frowning. Glowering. William has looked too. They’re talking about you. That much is clear.”
They stayed a while longer but that butthead didn’t come over.
“Let’s go. It’s loud in here and I’m tired and if he’s going to make his move, he might need the push of me leaving.”
Trey leaned in a lot closer. “Maybe if he thinks we’re going back to your place to smooch, you’ll push him that last bit.”
Beth put on a little show for Joe, letting her eyes slide halfway closed. “Or more. We, Joe and me I mean, have some smoking hot chemistry in bed. If he thought I was giving that to you…” She shrugged, sliding from her chair and letting Trey help her into her coat.
She flipped her hair back over her shoulder, knowing how much Joe loved her hair, and turned, locking her gaze with his, feeling that connection they had straight to her toes.
Beth willed him to come over. Willed him to just admit he needed her.
But he stood there, not making a move.
She covered her disappointment the best she could, turning and letting Trey lead her outside.
“I surely did think that last thing you did would get him. Hard to resist a woman when she does that thing with her hair.”
Trey was a sweetie pie. She smiled at him and tried not to cry.
He slung an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t cry, doll. Don’t let him see your tears. I’ll take you home.”
She heard the motorcycle and her heart skipped. She’d tried to sleep and had ended up watching Mary Poppins instead. Eating an entire bag of Doritos and drinking two Cokes. Diet, naturally, as if that would combat the eleven billion Doritos calories.
So she was zinged up from caffeine and boyfriend annoyance, and it had taken five minutes to scrub the orange from her fingertips.
Sitting on her couch in her pajamas, she listened to the sound of the engine cutting and wondered what to do. It’d been nearly four hours since she’d left the Pumphouse. Four hours. He’d taken his sweet time. She could be sleeping! She could be sleeping with another man in her bed for all he knew.
She frowned.
She should just not answer her door. Yes. It would serve him right if she told him to fuck off and turned the porch light off.
She rolled her eyes at herself. She’d open the door, even if just to see his face, to know he was all right. But that didn’t mean she was going to make it easy.
Still, she made herself wait until she heard the knock before she got up, keeping her pace to the door under a rush.
She opened it and he stood there, looking so beautiful she had to fist her hands to keep from touching him. She remained in the doorway, blocking his path.
“Hi. Did I wake you?” He looked her over.
“It’s one in the morning.”
“I know.” He shoved a hand through his hair, sending it into disarray, and she wanted to fix it. But she couldn’t fix this. He had to want to fix it himself.
“What are you doing here?”
“Are you alone? I mean, is there anyone else…”
She looked him up and down. Did he really, truly think that even a month away from him would be enough to fuck someone else?
“No. I guess there isn’t. You’re not that type. I mean, I hope…” He licked his lips as she kept him standing there. “I’m not doing this right.”
“Five minutes ago you weren’t doing it at all.”
One of her brows rose and he wanted so very much to kiss it. Wanted to draw her into his arms and hold her tight, tell her with words and with his body that he would never fuck up again. That he loved her.
“I went for a ride. I was about ninety minutes out when I realized. No, when I accepted the truth. I had to come back and then I needed to get gas and then I drove around wondering if I should wait until the morning and then I wondered if you were alone and I knew you were, of course, but it was killing me, imagining Trey with his lips on yours, his hands on your body when it was my fault it wasn’t my hands instead.”
He halted, looking at her. She blocked his way, but she hadn’t slammed the door in his face. So there was that.
“You’re mad.”
“Yes.”
“You came into the Pumphouse on a date. A date, Beth. And you’re mad?”
“I’m going to help you. This one time. This is not a useful or helpful line of argument for you.”
She was so icy and fierce, it made him hot. Christ, he was in so deep with her.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Can I come in? It’s cold out here.”
“I’m sure you were colder on the bike. Also? No. Maybe later if I like what you have to say. But you’re nowhere near being invited in at this point.”
Damn.
“Can I tell you it makes me hot to see you this way?”
“No.”
He sighed, licking his lips again.
“I’m sorry for being an ass and not seeing what is so plainly right in front of my face. You. Beth. I love you. It doesn’t matter what I tell myself about how much baggage I have. It doesn’t matter that I tell myself that you’re better off with someone else. Because I love you. I love you so much and I messed up so badly and I hurt you.”
“You didn’t believe in me. Or us.”
“I was so caught up in everything else that I couldn’t risk it. Didn’t want to risk it.”
She leaned against the doorjamb, watching. She looked a little less like she planned to knee him in the junk, which was a step forward at least.
“I was ashamed. Scared as hell.”
“Ashamed of your dad?”
He nodded. “It’s better now. I’ve had a few sessions with a therapist too. My mom as well. I understand it better. I guess you knew it all along. But it took me a while to get there.”
She blinked quickly, he knew tears were close and hated that he’d done it.
“You shared yourself with me. Took a risk and opened up such a private part of yourself and I didn’t…I wasn’t appreciative of it. Not to you and I should have been. I should have let you know how much it meant that you came to me that day. I did appreciate it. It did help. A lot. But I should have told you then. I made you feel bad. That I pushed you away because of that story. And it wasn’t true. I’d never do that.”
“At first I felt like that, yes. I told you something I rarely talk about. Not that I hide it, but I don’t go around laying out my fucked-up childhood for all and sundry.”
“I know. I was messed up that day. I…it felt like if I didn’t push you out the door that I’d never be able to keep up my strength in protecting you from the insanity of my life. And I shouldn’t have. I should have gone with my gut instinct, which was to pull you close and never let go.”
She sucked in a breath and stepped back. “You can come in.” She turned and walked back inside, leaving him on her doorstep.
Grateful.
He walked inside and noted she’d been on her couch watching movies.
“Thanks. For letting me come in, I mean.”
He hung his jacket up and came into the room.
She moved to sit back on the couch, pulling the blanket around herself. To keep him back because she wasn’t ready yet. All the things he’d said had mattered. A lot. But there was more that needed saying.
“In all my life, I’ve never let anyone who wasn’t my sibling get as close as I let you get.” She played with the hem on the blanket, noting that she needed to fix where it was beginning to fray.
Instead of the chair, he sat next to her. Giving her a little space, but not as much as she liked. She could smell him this close. Could look and see the jump of his pulse at his throat. She knew what that felt like against her mouth. Knew the taste
of his skin, the warmth he gave off.
She’d missed him much more than she’d been willing to let herself admit. It rolled over her with such force she had to close her eyes for long moments to keep herself together.
“I’ve been working so hard to get you to see. To see me. To understand how much I loved you that I guess it didn’t hit me until now. Your absence, I mean.”
He scooted a little closer, but she put her hands under the blanket.
“I’m sorry. I hate seeing you this way. I want to fix it. I want to touch you. God, I’ve missed you.”
“Not yet.” She looked up at him, feeling a little more together. “You don’t get to touch me. And if you missed me, where have you been?”
“Three days a week I go in to the shop early to get ahead so I can leave at two. I take my dad in to see his therapist. I don’t know what goes on, only that it does. And they’re watching him more closely now than they did before. One of those days I go to see a therapist of my own. I guess…I guess I had stuff to unload.”
“Is it helping?”
“This mix of medication and talk therapy, listen to me, I have all that lingo now, anyway, it seems to be working for him. He hasn’t had an episode in three weeks. My mom, she’s in therapy with him. One day a week on her own, one with him. She’s more steady.”
Beth nodded. “I’m relieved. I can’t imagine how scary it must have been. Must be.” She corrected herself. “But I meant you. Is the therapy helping you?”
He chewed his bottom lip. “I had this anger. A lot of it. Some from the situation with my dad. But a lot from Iraq. I hadn’t really realized it until I started getting it all out. It’s better. I guess that’s really when I started to realize how much difference you made in my life. Once the other shit cleared up, I saw you. In all the places in my life. I kept telling myself you were better off away from the insanity. After all, you had this shit you had to get over, all that stuff from your childhood. Who was I to shovel more on you?”
She snorted. “God, you’re so dumb. How many times can I tell you that I wanted to help? That I wanted to be there in your life to support you through all this stuff?”
“Hey, look, I’m doing the best I can! I did it for you.”
“Bull! You did it, yes, and maybe you think you did it for me. But it wasn’t for me. I stood in front of you and begged you. It’s been a long time since I begged anyone for anything. It wasn’t easy. But I did it because I love you. I saw you were hurting and I wanted to help. There was no difference between that night at the Sands and the night before that.”
“You saw it! You saw the horror of it. It could have really harmed you, Beth. Don’t even say there was no difference. There was all the difference in the world.”
She turned to him, hurting on his behalf.
Quick and clever, he grabbed the hand she’d put on her leg, tangling his fingers with hers. Not letting go. And she let him. Let herself accept that just maybe, they could come out of this on the other side together. Stronger. But she had to deal with all the hard stuff or it would fester.
“The truth is it was there, whether I saw it or not. Your dad has a chemical imbalance. It makes him do things he wouldn’t otherwise. If he had cancer, would you be as ashamed? Because he’s sick either way. He didn’t ask for it. You didn’t ask for it. But it’s there. And it hurts you. And you hid it. My heart breaks to know you suffered through all those months with that knowledge and fear and that you didn’t tell me. Were you afraid I’d judge you?”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Beth. But thank God for it.” He sighed. “I don’t know what I felt. To be totally honest, I just, I don’t know, survived. I didn’t know what was happening. I had to fight my mom’s reluctance to rock the boat. Her fear of whatever we’d find out. I had to fight my dad’s fear that he was going crazy no matter what. My fear of the unknown. It felt like those hours I had with you were the one right thing in my life. I didn’t want to infect that with all the crap from my parents. I failed them. I wanted to be better. And then you came along. I knew I shouldn’t have given in, that I needed to keep you back. But I couldn’t resist and once I let you in, I couldn’t keep you out. Because it was good and right and you made me really happy.”
“Okay. Fair enough. Where do we go from here?”
“I saw you tonight with Trey and…and part of me said, hey look, she’s moving on, that’s what I told her to do. Another part said, hey that’s my woman! I’m going to lose her for real if I can’t fix things.”
He looked down to where he held her hand. “It was the last one that won out.” He tipped his chin, catching her gaze and feeling that connection between them click back into place. “I love you, Beth. I was a damned fool to push you away. It was dumb to push you away when you have so much to offer. When I needed your support and you offered it so freely. All you’ve ever done for me, you’ve put me first. Before your own feelings. I want you to know I see that. I understand it and I’m so grateful for it. And for you. I don’t deserve you. At all. But I sure do love you more than I can even put into words. If you forgive me, I’ll spend every day for the rest of our lives making it up to you.”
She’d waited so long for him to say it. To accept it. To see her for who she was and what he meant to her. “You can touch me now.”
He moved to her, pulling her from her nest of blankets and into his lap, encircling her with his arms, holding tight.
She hummed, having missed this so very much she desired nothing more than soaking up how good it felt to be in his arms again.
Beth buried her face in his neck, breathing him in and letting that ease the panic. “I thought you’d never come to your senses.”
“You’re not the only stubborn one, darlin’. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
She squirmed a little, trying to get closer, and he groaned. “I’ve missed you. All parts of me.”
She felt the part he meant, poking into her behind.
Tipping her head back, she laughed, throwing her arms around his neck. “What are you waiting for then?”
He grinned, bending to kiss her, and she let all her fear go as she opened to him.
At first the kiss was nearly sweet. Reverent. He took it slow until she was just about to throw him to the floor and mount him.
“I’m trying to take my time here.” He spoke against her mouth and she nipped his bottom lip.
“Why? Jeez, Joe, give it to me!”
Laughing, he picked her up, and she grabbed on as he carried her to her bedroom. He put her down gently, and she launched herself at him, knocking him back onto the bed, pulling at his clothes as she straddled his waist.
“Someone wants it bad.”
She nodded, pulling her shirt up and off, satisfied for a moment by the way his gaze lasered onto her boobs, widening slightly.
He took them in his hands and she arched into his touch.
“I missed these. Though I did get a good look at a lot of them tonight in that sweater. So did Trey. Hope he got an eyeful, because if he looks at ’em like that again, I’ll poke him right in the eye.”
She laughed as he bucked her off and she landed on her back. “Though my girls looked amazing in that sweater tonight, I should tell you Trey has no romantic interest in me whatsoever.”
He pulled off her pajama bottoms and panties. “That sweater should be part of your regular date-night repertoire. He’d better not, or he and I are going to have to have a Come To Jesus about whose boobs are okay to look at. I’m leaving the socks on because they look hot.”
Like she’d complain.
He pulled his shirt and then pants and shorts off.
“Damn you’re gorgeous. I have missed all that Joe in my bed. Also I’ve had to use the step stool a lot more. And my vibrator.”
He groaned as he insinuated himself between her thighs. She hissed as the wave of pleasure of his skin against hers rolled over her.
“You can’t be telling m
e about your sex toys. I’ll explode.”
“I might even let you see one or two. After you remind me why you’re so much better than silicone, that is.”
“I’ll get right on that.” His mouth found hers again, his tongue sliding between her lips, filling her with his taste. She clutched his shoulders, holding him to her, wrapping her thighs around his waist.
She rolled her hips, trying to get some friction.
“Darlin’, easy now. It’ll come.”
She reached between them, grabbing his cock and squeezing. “Now, now, now.” She smeared her thumb through the slick at the tip. “Then you can take it slow.”
His breath caught, and then he groaned, licking down her neck. “Impatient.”
“Yes. And it’s your fault. If you hadn’t neglected me so much I would be far more patient. You need to put this”—she squeezed him again—“in here.” She drew the head of his cock through her for just a moment. Enough to make her a little shaky.
“Christ.” He reared up, reaching, fumbling through her top drawer until he found a condom, tearing it open with his teeth. She was so hot for him she didn’t even lecture him about how it was bad for him to do that.
She pushed him to his back, scrambling over him. He laughed, pulling her back down. “I want you from behind,” he said in her ear.
Oh.
She managed to get up on her elbows and knees as he slid fingers through her from behind. “Wanted to be sure you were ready. Oh, sweet, sweet Beth, you are.”
“Always for you.”
He slowly pushed in, stretching her, trying to take his time. Need clawed at him. Need to thrust in to his balls. Need to claim, to take back and mark. To let them both know she was his now and forever.
A restraining hand at her hip held her as she tried to push back, to take all of him at once. “If you do that, it’ll all be over before it starts. It’s been over a month since I’ve been here. It’s so good I may pass out. I want to make it good.”