The only thing Aubrey knew was that she had royally fucked up.
When Mia referred to them as a couple, her internal alarms started clanging, and her throat tightened. She didn’t have any answers, and the thought of what she’d be facing in a mere day or two took a mortar and pestle to the remaining hopes of anything between her and Selina.
However, what she hadn’t been prepared for was the slime coating her insides the moment she walked away. When she chatted up Nina, the hot redhead at the bar, all she could think of was Selina sitting back at the table and the way her expression had shifted—how the light had shuttered out of her beautiful russet eyes. Aubrey had fought through revulsion to keep a smile plastered on her face.
Every time she glanced toward the table, a newfound guilt dripped through her insides. She and Selina made no promises, no commitments. She’d ditched friends dozens of times to go hit up a hottie at the bar, but it never affected her in the past, even when other women she’d slept with were in the room.
This—the acid pit in her stomach, the constant thoughts of Selina, and the hollow grins she kept offering Nina—this felt like cheating.
Which was why once she left the bar with Nina, Aubrey had done the unthinkable. She’d kissed her on the cheek, wished her a good night, and they went their separate ways. After the move she’d pulled, she couldn’t go back into the bar with everyone else, but she only had herself to blame on that one. She was a flimsy plastic pail of mixed-up emotions and she was unprepared to deal with any of them right now.
She adjusted her hunched position on the steps of the front porch—not of her rental, but Selina’s.
A few hours passed, enough time to cement things in her brain a little better. She didn’t know the future, or really, anything beyond this vacation. But what she and Selina shared on this trip had been unique. The connection between them had been the most she’d allowed herself in a long while, and she couldn’t hurt Selina more than she already had. The idea of any sort of conversation made her want to spew across the steps, but she could be honest.
Her ass had begun to grow numb, but it was a fitting punishment for being such a dickbag back at the bar. How hard would it have been to state the truth to Mia? That she didn’t know right now? Fuck, if she hadn’t gone to such lengths of avoidance to begin with and just admitted she and Selina had something undefined going on, they could’ve skipped all the awkwardness. But instead, she’d spent all week skirting around any conversations with Mia, Sky, and Ky about both Selina and the state of Mom’s health.
Every time Aubrey spotted a figure at the end of the street, her gaze zeroed in, and her heart began to beat a little faster. She should be distancing herself right now—avoiding Selina for one more day before she returned home—but this throbbing pain in her chest refused to abate, and she knew the cause.
She lifted her head again, homing in on the short, curvy woman weaving her way back to this direction. Aubrey’s mouth dried. All the reasonable things she planned on saying evacuated her brain. As the woman came closer, Aubrey’s gaze snagged on the details—the hot-as-fuck black skirt, the crimson tunic overtop, and those fuck-me boots that turned Aubrey on from the moment she caught sight of her.
Selina headed her way, and it’d be a miracle if she gave her five seconds after the spectacular way Aubrey had fucked things up back there.
She froze in place on the stoop, unable to push herself up on her traitorous legs. The closer Selina got, the more it felt like icy claws sank deep into Aubrey’s chest, giving her the thrashing she deserved.
Selina’s gaze landed on her, and she stopped mid-stride, feet away.
“Wrong house, Moore,” Selina said, her voice sharp and cutting. “Yours is one over.”
Aubrey swallowed hard. She deserved that, she did. But seeing the cold frost over Selina’s eyes caused her stomach to seize. “Look, you have every right to tell me to go the hell home and not hear me out,” she started, trying to summon her courage. “But if you’re willing to listen, I’d like to explain.”
Selina settled in front of her, standing with her arms crossed. Aubrey couldn’t help but notice that her eye makeup looked lighter, smudged as if she’d been crying. Fuck. Aubrey was such a damn monster. The should’ves threatened to bury her, but she couldn’t do anything about them now. When Selina didn’t speak and didn’t try to bulldoze past her, Aubrey took her cue.
“I never went home with the chick in the bar,” Aubrey admitted, clutching her knees. She dug her fingertips in, forming crescents in her skin. “I never wanted to either. When Mia called us out, I freaked. The entire time, it just felt wrong with you sitting on the opposite end of the bar and me standing with someone else.”
Selina hadn’t said anything, but she also hadn’t left, so Aubrey kept going. “Look, I wish I was normal enough to promise you the world, but I’m still a little fucked in the head, clearly.” Aubrey stared hard at her fingernails. “However, the one thing I can offer is a little honesty.”
She glanced up at Selina, and the woman’s arms dropped to her side. A moment later, Selina plunked onto the stoop beside her, staring out at the street ahead of them. Aubrey followed her gaze, the inky asphalt threatening to devour her like these wild emotions already had.
“I didn’t always jump from bed to bed,” Aubrey started, even though her breath hitched. It felt like she was peeling back her skin, the pain so acute she could scream. “Back when my mom first got diagnosed with cancer, I had a longtime girlfriend named Lila. We’d been together for a year, and I was sure she was the one. We’d go the long haul, get married, and settle down together.”
Her throat dried, and she paused for a moment, not knowing if she could continue. She was wading into acidic territory where she might end up disintegrating in the process. Selina sat a little closer, her knee bumping against Aubrey’s. The gesture alone gave her the courage to keep going.
“My mom’s fight got really bad. We were pretty sure she wasn’t going to survive, and when the hospital visits got longer, tempers strained. Everyone signs up for the good times in relationships, but no one wants to stick around when life gets hard, you know? Lila decided midway through that she’d had enough. There was no discussion. One day, she just disappeared, leaving a note of explanation.”
Aubrey had returned from an overnight stay at the hospital with Mom, bone-tired and wanting to collapse into bed with the love of her life. Her skin permeated with the disinfectant and sick smell that coated her like tissue paper. The moment she’d opened the door to their place, everything felt different—off-kilter. Aubrey’s empty mug still sat on the coffee table where she’d left it, but patches were missing from their place—Lila’s favorite painting had been taken off the wall, the stack of her recently folded laundry had vanished, and a chunk of her DVDs and books were missing from the shelves.
Aubrey hadn’t been able to comprehend any of it—the dizziness swirled through her, mixing with the sleep deprivation. She’d plunked down on the burnt orange couch only to see a handwritten note left on the coffee table.
Lila had brought some of her things with her on the initial drive—the rest, she’d picked up later. “Too hard” was the pair of words that haunted Aubrey ever since. They were the words that followed her for her entire life, from her father and from friendships over the years. This rejection was the final shred of evidence needed for a conviction. She was too hard to deal with, too much. She carried too much baggage.
Aubrey shrugged, trying to ignore the fact her hands trembled. “I’ve sworn off of relationships ever since. I learned a whole lot of self-reliance, and I always have Ky and Chelsea for when things get rough. Look, I don’t know what’s unfolding between us. I can’t make promises because I don’t even know where I’ll be a week from now, or if I’ll be stuck inside the never-ending hospital cycle or not.” She clenched her fingers into a fist to stop them from shaking. “I just want you to know this week’s meant something to me. That you mean something to me.”
Aubrey let out a deep exhale, everything spilled out in the open. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Selina—if those eyes were cold and distant like the stars tonight, she might break. The quiet buzzed in the air between them for a moment, but then Selina’s finger slipped beneath Aubrey’s chin, tilting it up.
“I’m still pissed for what you did in the bar back there,” Selina murmured, those dark eyes ensnaring her. “But I think I understand a little more. We didn’t set limits, and we didn’t talk about any of this. However, even I recognize this whole opening up thing isn’t something you offer to everyone.”
Aubrey shook her head. “No one else.” Her voice came out soft, hushed. The reality shocked her like a snowstorm in July, but she hadn’t opened up like this, fully opened up to anyone in a long, long time. Somehow, she’d gone from sharing the burden to shouldering it alone until she nearly collapsed under all the weight. Selina cupped her face, her palm hot against her skin, and Aubrey sucked in a deep breath to keep back the heat threatening to overflow from her eyes.
“So, I’ll set the boundaries here,” Selina murmured. “One night and one day left of this vacation, and I don’t want to spend it with anyone else, even if that’s all you can give. You should never have left with another woman tonight, but I was only jealous because I wanted you to be leaving with me.” Selina’s eyes were somber, like they were capturing the moonlight and reflecting it back out. “Here’s the deal. We have the rest of the vacation to explore this as much as we want. And I know I do.”
“Why would you even want to spend time with me?” Aubrey asked, her voice scraping. “Hell, I’m still mad at myself after the shit I pulled tonight.”
“Right now, I’m hopped up on jealousy and irritation I need to burn off,” Selina responded, her lips curling in a feline grin. “We could either scream at each other to argue it out, or take the much more satisfying alternate route.”
Aubrey licked her lips instinctively, her pussy throbbing at the liquid desire pooled in Selina’s eyes. Fuck, she wanted this woman so badly. She didn’t know where they’d stand a week from now, or even where she’d be. All she knew was that she didn’t want to pass on this chance to be with the one woman she’d allowed in after so, so long.
Aubrey leaned in, brushing her lips against Selina’s in a kiss. The moment the woman’s mouth opened to hers and she softened against her, Aubrey dove in for the kill, drinking in the kiss like she needed it to breathe. The scent of amber and orange blossom made her ache, revving her into overdrive as she claimed those velvet lips. She sank into the bliss of the connection between them, the touch more electric than any in years. She could live off these kisses alone, but right now Aubrey burned with the need to imprint deeper, to leave an indelible mark on the woman who’d come to mean so much to her.
She broke away for breath. “One question,” she murmured, their breath mingling between them. “Your room or mine?”