Lia continued.
“Mom immediately started quizzing me about the ‘new guy’ and if that meant I really was done with William for good.”
I sat still, wondering just what she might have told her mother about me, not that Lia knew much at that time—even less than she did now—but it still left me feeling a little uneasy. I wondered if any other girl had ever described me to her mother.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“Not much.” Lia shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, I didn’t know much, did I? I said you were retired from the military, and we had just met by accident. Once she found out what the ‘accident’ was, it kind of distracted her from the original conversation. We never really talked about you again until I was leaving.”
Her eyes found mine.
“She told me to be careful,” Lia said. “She told me that I didn’t really know much about you and that you might not even be who I think you are.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her I would be careful and not to worry. I didn’t know much about you, but I was sure you weren’t like William. We both considered that a step up, so that was it.”
Lia stared down at her hands as tears started spilling off her eyelashes again.
“And then…and then…” Lia sniffed and wiped at her nose with the tissue again. “Then I found that cabin and your note, and I just…I didn’t know what to do or what to think.”
Without knowing what else I could do, I reached out and took her hand again. Lia’s fingers gripped mine, and she leaned against my shoulder. With one arm around her, I pulled her against my chest and rubbed up and down the top part of her arm while she cried.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her hair when she stopped sobbing. “I didn’t want to leave like that. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“Back here,” I said. “My boss told me I had to come back.”
“Your boss?”
Shit.
I wasn’t ready for this yet. I needed to wait until morning. It was selfish and probably shitty, but I wanted inside of her one last time before she knew the truth. There was no telling how she would react, but she seemed like a normal, rational person. The likelihood of her telling me to stay the fuck out of her life was pretty high.
“Where do you work?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She shoved against my chest and glared at me.
“Who is your boss?” she demanded.
“I thought we were saving my life story for the morning.” I tried to make light of it all and failed.
More glaring.
I sighed.
“His name is Rinaldo Moretti,” I said. “He’s a pretty demanding guy, and that’s all I’m saying for now.”
Lia kept her narrowed eyes locked with mine for a minute, but I didn’t falter. Her shoulders rose and fell with the breath she huffed out as she stood up from the bed and tossed the last couple pieces of pizza into the tiny refrigerator in the corner.
“Fine,” she said, “but I want to know tomorrow.”
“I’ll tell you,” I promised. “I just need a little time to…to prepare, I guess.”
She walked back and stood in front of me. I reached up and placed my hands on her hips as she leaned forward and placed her lips to mine. She started with just a quick, closed mouth kiss, but I grabbed the back of her head and deepened it.
Nothing was going to stop me from having one last night with her.
Chapter 9—Gentle Night
The cool breeze from the ceiling fan chilled my back, which was coated in sweat after our second session of hard fucking that night. I swallowed and tried to regain my composure as Lia’s fingernails dug into my shoulders. As she panted and her body shuddered a final time, her grip relaxed and she brought her arms up over her head, grasping the pillow above her.
“That was incredible,” she said.
I smiled a cocky half-smile and rotated my hips against her again. I couldn’t move much, or I was going to slip out of her, so I just rocked my hips a little instead of actually thrusting. I wrapped my arms underneath her shoulders and held her chest to mine as I ran my lips and tongue up her throat.
“Do you have any plans to actually sleep? Lia asked.
Bending my elbows, I slid my hands down her sides and then up her arms until my fingers could grip her wrists. I pushed them against the pillow as I pressed her firmly to the bed with the rest of my body.
“I was thinking I’d just hold you down here until I got hard again.”
“Such a romantic!” Lia snickered.
She was joking, and even though that was clear, there was something else in her eyes as they tightened just a little as she glanced to the side. She wasn’t pissed off by the comment, but didn’t all chicks want some level of romance? I had no idea how to play the role of an actual boyfriend. Was I supposed to buy some fucking flowers now?
Where was Nick when I needed him?
I loosened my grip around her wrists and dragged my fingers down the length of her arm until I reached her shoulder. I circled a spot on her skin there before leaning in to press my lips to it. I held them there for a long moment and then rolled off of her and stared up at the ceiling.
Lia angled herself to one side and looked at me. Her hand rested on my upper arm for a moment before she traced the outlines of muscles from my bicep down to my wrist. Maybe she needed romance, and maybe she didn’t, but I felt like she deserved something from me—something genuine. There were questions in her eyes, and I responded before she could ask them.
“You gave me my sanity back,” I said quietly. “Your presence, your words, your touch, and your body—they brought me back from someplace I don’t ever want to be again. The way I feel when I’m with you—like I could spend the rest of my life just looking in your eyes—it scares the shit out of me. It’s more terrifying than that place I was inside my head. The best way I can come up with to cope with that is being inside of you, because when I’m there, everything is right. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Why all of that made her smile and brought tears to her eyes at the same time, I didn’t understand. She seemed more happy about what I had said than not, at least. Maybe I didn’t need to understand it—I mean, I wanted to figure her out, but what guy really knows what’s going on in a woman’s head?
“I’m glad I showed up when I did,” she finally said.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have wanted to miss that scene.” I snorted a laugh.
“Not because of that, obviously.” Lia turned to her side and propped her head up with her hand. “I’m glad I was there in time to know what happened to you, so I could help. If I had showed up a day later…well, who knows how long it might have taken me to figure out where you were?”
I couldn’t help but wonder how everything might be different if she had arrived the day before. Maybe I wouldn’t have killed Bridgett and gone off the deep end at all, except that I still would have found out about her betrayal eventually. What would I have done then?
Probably the same.
It was all the more reason for me to get Lia out of my life, but I couldn’t bring myself to think along those lines. I was going to tell her everything, and whatever happened after that, happened. Maybe she would accept it, and maybe she wouldn’t, but I was going to do whatever I possibly could to keep her.
“What are you thinking about?” Lia asked.