That’s the easiest question to answer and the most impossible.
Easiest answer: She’s not you.
Yeah, like I’m saying that. Caitlin could possibly laugh in my face.
“I realized I didn’t love her,” I say instead and watch the color fade from Caitlin’s cheeks.
That pesky love word she seems to despise so much, although with Trey’s warning from weeks ago, I now understand why, at least in a sense.
It’s the perfect time to tell her and the worst timing. She might be sitting now, but her hand is on her coat. Everything about her says she’s set to leave, and it’s all I can do not to grab her by the wrist and force her to stay on the stool. With me, so I can soak up her smiles and her laughter and the way she teases Tucker and me so perfectly. She’s never mean-spirited. Caitlin doesn’t have a single bone or thought in her body that would ever make her be unkind to someone. Not even jokingly.
She’s simply too good for that kind of maliciousness. It’s only one of the thousand things I love about her.
Based on her silence and the way her jaw has unhinged, I’ve clearly stunned her.
Without thinking, I press my finger to the bottom of her jaw and close her mouth.
She shakes her head. “How? When?”
The why is staying locked in a very well-hidden box for the near future. “A couple weeks ago,” I tell her. “We were supposed to head out of town, but things weren’t great before that, and the closer it got, the more I realized I couldn’t do it. Not to her.”
“Oh.” Caitlin’s eyes are wide, and if I’m not mistaken, her face has paled. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I swallow down the bitter taste suddenly filling my beer and cringe. “There was something missing, I guess. I didn’t want to hurt her.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” Caitlin’s eyes spark, like for some reason she feels the need to defend me. Against myself? It’d be strange if that didn’t shoot a blast of heat to my groin. “You’d never intentionally hurt anyone. You okay?”
She slides her hand toward me. As if to comfort me? I don’t need it. I squeeze her hand anyway. She’s chilly, and the desire to wrap her in my arms and warm her up is too intense. If I keep my hands on her, I’ll confess everything. I pull my hand back and curl my hand into my lap.
Jesus. Just touching her feeds my desire to take her. It feels so good to have her looking at me like this again, I almost want to make the lie worse and allow her to comfort me, when I’m the one who broke up with Ashley because I love the woman sitting in front of me.
How fucked up is this?
“I’m fine, Caty. Honest. I feel like I might have led her on, and that makes me feel like shit. But other than that, it’s the right thing.”
I take a bite out of a cracker and chew it slowly. I need a minute to get my head back on straight.
“Bummer,” Caitlin says, but her eyes are crinkled, and she’s waving her martini glass side to side. “Because if you were hurting, I was going to offer to stay awhile. Help you get drunk, relieve your pain and all that. Isn’t that what friends do?”
It’s what I did for her last week, but there’s only one way I want her relieving any pain, and the pain’s not in my heart but farther south.
But it sure as hell isn’t going to be tonight, regardless of the fact my dick is jumping at my zipper, loving the idea and picture she’s created.
“I think friends can hang out and get drunk for whatever reason. Can’t we?” I tip my beer glass against hers, clinking them together. I’m essentially daring her to stay and drink with me, and we both know what happens between us when there’s too much alcohol.
A heated, dark pink hue colors the apples of her cheeks, and she swallows slowly. It takes seconds for her to meet my gaze again, and when she does, her voice is husky, unable to hide anything she’s thinking. “Yeah. We can do that.”
Desire thickens her voice, and my blood boils inside of me, rolling quickly, headed straight to the head below my waist with all the best ideas.
It won’t happen, not tonight. But that doesn’t mean I can’t remind her how good we were together in other ways, too. Plus, that desire and heady look in her eyes is exactly what I needed to see. It’s the exact same thing I saw from her as I left her apartment earlier in the week.
She does still want me.
And now all I have to figure out is if it’s just for sex…or is she finally considering giving me what I wanted months ago? A shot at forever.
Caitlin bumps against me as I walk her down the sidewalk. We leave the bar at ten o’clock, early enough that it’s not too bad to walk, and yet when she insisted she could get home on her own, I absolutely refused to let her go.
When she realized how serious I was being, she put up little fuss, blowing a kiss goodbye to Tucker before letting me help her get her coat on. As entertaining as it was to watch her struggle with armholes and get her scarf wrapped around her neck, it would have been closing time had I left her to fend for herself.
Now I have one arm wrapped around her, my gloved hands at her waist. Her head is propped against my chest as I guide her over the cracked sidewalks so we don’t face-plant onto the cement.
After Ashley left earlier, I only had two more drinks. Caitlin clearly had to let go of some stress because she sucked those martinis back like she’d never get another one. Tucker and I chose to kick back and watch her drink, listen to her drone on and on about plans for the bar if I decide to expand.
The fact she already considers it a done deal of when not if has sparked an excitement in my veins I’ve been struggling to have about the whole idea.
But with Caitlin’s excitement growing and so clear, shining in her slightly glassy eyes, I sat back and listened to her explain the entire grand concept to Tucker, loving how confident she is about what I can do.
It makes me feel like an asshole for lying to her, especially about tonight, but also like a superhero, as if in her eyes, I can accomplish anything.
And damn…every man I know wants a woman at his side who encourages them and their ideas like Caitlin does with mine.
It also hasn’t escaped my notice that not once, not one single time since Ashley left tonight, has she mentioned Michael, either, and I haven’t pressed that. A part of me is hoping it’s because she’s had so much fun with me she’s completely forgotten that she was stood up earlier. The other part of me is dying to know if she’s still disappointed.
She trips over a crack in the sidewalk, and we both fall forward. “Easy!” I call out, grabbing her right before we both face-plant.
Once we’re on our feet, I dip down and slide my other hand beneath her knees and stand.
“Jonas!” she yelps as I pick her up.
“We’ll never get you home if you keep tripping over everything.”
“It’s not my fault the sidewalk is moving.”
I laugh. She’s goofy.
I carry her the last two blocks to her apartment and am greeted with a wave from Maurice when I reach the lobby.
“Hello there, Miss Hayes and Mr. Reeves. Need any help tonight?”
Caitlin already has her keys in her hand and waves them in the air. “No thanks, Maurice. Jonas’s got me.”
Yeah I do. And I wish I could in a different way.
“Just making a delivery, Maurice, I won’t be up there long.”
“Shame,” he grins. The man is old enough to have retired a decade ago, yet he still shows up for the night shift with the excitement of an employee’s first day of work at their dream career. “Take your time.”
I punch the elevator button and adjust Caitlin in my arms. Her eyes are droopy but she’s smiling.
“What’s so funny?”
“Maurice. He likes you.” She pats my hand and settles in on my chest. That burn ignites along with another desire I’m hoping she can’t feel beneath the thickness of my coat. “You’re a good guy, Jonas. One of the best.”
The elevator door opens, and we enter, me setting her to her feet as I hit the button to her floor.
I don’t respond as the elevator creeps to the floor. She and I enclosed in small spaces has always led to physical things, and more than once we’ve left with my handprints on the reflective walls from caging her in and kissing the hell out of her.
Her being so sweet is messing with my head and my resolve to win her slowly, and the right way.
The bell dings and the doors open. She curls into me, and I get her to her door, her keys to the apartment already in my hand. I go to unlock the door when her small hand covers mine.
She’s removed her glove in the elevator, and the soft, warm flesh of her hand on mine is almost too much to bear.
God. She’s torturing me without even realizing it.
“Wait,” she says, and I peer down at her. She’s propped against the wall, head back. “I really mean it when I say you’re the best. I’m lucky I have great guys in my life. I know all aren’t as good as you.”
Shit. Her face twists with the pain, and I resist the urge to flinch. I’ve lied to her enough over the last couple of weeks, and I can’t do it with this.
“You should know, Trey told me. About how you met.” Her sleepy eyes pop open, and I grin, tapping her on the nose to keep this topic from getting too heavy. Any more thinking about that prick, and my fist is liable to end up in the wall. “Left out something important about how you met Trey and Corbin, didn’t you?”
She swats at my hand, scrunching up her nose. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
And yet, she’s the one who brought it up tonight. I rest my shoulder against the wall and brush hair off her cheek. “Is that why you don’t like relationships?”
“God, Jonas. I’m too drunk for this.” Her eyes close, and she rubs them with her fists. She’s probably right and I’m about to apologize, open her door, and send her on safely, when she groans. “I don’t know. Maybe but not entirely. My parents sucked. I was raised a loner, I guess. I’ve never had a lot of friends.” She shrugs, and she’s so drunk she almost topples over from the slight motion.
“You’re a mess,” I tell her, unlocking her door.
“Trust me,” she groans again. “I know.”
“Hey.” I hold out my arm, and she walks into it, collapsing against my chest, and I pull her to me, wrapping my arms tight around her. “I just meant you’re drunk. That’s all.”
“Yeah, well, I am a mess. I mean, who grows up feeling like they don’t need anyone?” She brings up her hand and jabs her index finger against her temple. “Me, that’s who.”
I squeeze her tighter. The things I want to say to her. The things I want to prove to her. The list is too numerous to count, but she’s anything but messed up. Scared maybe. Uncertain of what it’s like to fully trust someone or love them the way she deserves, but she’s not a mess.
She nods against my chest and mumbles something I can’t understand since her face is smashed to my coat. I lean back, brushing hair off her face. “What was that?”
Her lips pull to one side, and then she nibbles on her bottom lip. “I asked if you wanted to come in.”
Fucking hell. She’s killing me. My hands are at the sides of her face. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not that drunk.”
If I wanted to be any other guy for her, hell, even how we used to be, the answer would be so easy. My dick already thinks the answer is obvious. I’m hard as a rock just from hugging her and getting to hold her for the first time in so long.
“I can’t, Caitlin.”
She blinks and looks away, frowning. “I figured. Of course you don’t.”
“Hey.” I pull her back and bend down so I’m close to her. So damn close I could easily press my lips against her, slide my tongue into her mouth, feel her small but strong fingers dig into my hips. Visions and ideas of what I want to do to her body flash in my mind so quickly I groan. “I can’t go inside with you, honey. I don’t want to go back to what we used to have. You mean too much to me.”
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, any hope or emotion is gone. “I understand.”
She doesn’t. Caitlin can’t have any clue of what she means to me or what I want from her, and the time for this conversation is not when she can barely stand. But soon, very soon, because there’s no way I can continue this charade for much longer—especially if it means seeing her prance into Dirty’s with more guys.
Before I know it, she’s on her tiptoes, and her lips brush against mine. I inhale the sweet scent of her perfume, and it’s impossible to deny her.
My hands yank her to me and I step backward, pulling her into her apartment. The door slams closed behind us, and her back is against it. She’s already rolling her hips, and I’m swallowing her groans as she takes mine, accepting my tongue that I slide against her lips.
And fucking hell in a handbasket. She’s fire and ice and even drunk she’s still the best damn kisser. It’s the kind of kiss that boils my blood and shoots desire straight down my spine.
I pull back, breathless. “We can’t,” I say, although I’m gasping and my hips have her pinned to the door. “I can’t do this with you, Caitlin. Not like this.”
With secrets and uncertainties.
I press my head against her forehead even as her hands slide to my waist. “I miss it,” she says, and it’s so sweet, so sad and faint, I want to fall to my knees and explain everything, carry her to bed, and make it all better.
She stops me, throwing her hand to her mouth, and her eyes go wide. “Oh shit,” she groans. She takes off running, and by the hunch of her shoulders, her hand over her mouth, I know exactly what’s about to happen.
I reach the bathroom right before she slams the door shut, drops to her knees, and empties the contents of her stomach into the toilet.