Chapter 16 #2
“There’s the internet. Lots of forums are out there with great advice. When I was here you kept popping up to check in on me. Okay, I’m not a cat, but I think she’d be fine,” he says with a smile.
“You’d come and see her, wouldn’t you?” Wow. Now would be a great time to shut up. I cringe a little hoping I don’t sound too desperate, but Cruz’s face gets even softer.
“I’d like that.” His voice is soft too.
The silence after feels thick and strange, so I grasp at anything I can to fill it. “How’s the clubhouse and the training going?”
“It’s fine.”
“Even with your knee?”
“It’s fine too. I have a brace on.”
I try to swallow down my concern, but it doesn’t work. “That sounds serious.”
“It’s serious enough, but nothing that I haven’t dealt with before. It comes and goes. I’ll be alright if I rest it for a few weeks.”
“You’re training the men with your knee as bad as it is?”
“It feels better to keep moving. I’m not pushing myself past what I can do. I don’t want to injure myself beyond repair. I’m careful.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, before drawing in another measured inhale. Is he trained to do that? “Liam wanted me to talk to you.”
I’m not entirely surprised. A little, maybe. Hurt snakes through me, black as tendrils of smoke. “That’s why you’re here tonight?”
“Yes and no.”
That’s not an answer, but it’s not not an answer either. “What does he want you to talk to me about that he can’t ask me himself? I think we’ve got the worst of it out of the way.” I shouldn’t say things like that. Shit can always get worse. Always.
“He thinks that there’s something wrong. That you seem sad.” Cruz leans forward a little. “Are you sad, Sloane?” There’s so much honesty in his eyes, and maybe even a little bit sadness too. It gives them a slight sheen.
I clear my throat. “Are you sad, Cruz?”
“I don’t know what I am. All I know is that I’m trying to be whatever it was before I met you, and it’s not working out very well.”
As usual, his completely unguarded honesty breaks down my resistance faster than I can arm myself. The way he just says what’s on his mind and tries to parse out what he’s feeling out loud is mind blowing.
“I… wow. I see.” I feel like an asshole for not telling him the truth and for shutting down when he so fearlessly opened up.
I’m scared. I’m afraid of the way my brain misfires constantly when Cruz is near and how it goes into overdrive when he’s not.
I’m scared of everything I feel, all the time.
I hate that for nearly two decades, I didn’t feel the wind, and now it’s snapping at me, chilling me down to my bones.
I’m a train about to derail after running so perfectly smooth.
I want to tell Cruz that I miss him. That I never expected to feel lost when I had my shit together and when I had a perfectly good life, and that it makes me furious.
I want to tell him about the heat that sears me down to my bones, and how my soul has been rocked.
If I describe the ache that haunts me, would he understand?
How could he, when I don’t, and when all of this is crazy to begin with?
While I sit in silence, understanding completely what Cruz meant about his thoughts and words jamming and piling until nothing comes out at all, Cruz hammers back his tea like it’s not scorching. He doesn’t stare me down. He doesn’t press. He leaves me with my thoughts and my quiet discomfort.
If I don’t answer him, will he just thank me for dinner and leave?
I hope so.
I might also die if he does.
When he’s finished, Cruz stands and takes his dishes to the sink.
His limp, even with that brace, or maybe because of the brace, is noticeable.
My leg hurts in sympathy for him. I paste my eyes on his back, watching every single movement while a thousand thoughts clash in my head.
He wants me, he’s pretty much come out and said it.
So why can’t I just tell him I feel the same way? What the hell is wrong with me?
Life. That’s what’s wrong. I know that no matter how good things seem at the start, how interesting someone is, how kind and how perfect it all seems, that in the end, it usually devolves into straight bullshit.
Even if the moment or the ride or the journey is nice, I’m not in a position to enjoy any of that.
Sort of. Not really. That’s what I keep telling myself, but is it true?
My temples are starting to pound and my head aches from too much thinking. “You know what I truly want?”
Cruz turns, hand on the counter like he needs it to support himself. His eyes hold a question. I wish I hadn’t said anything, but plucking words out of the air and shoving them back down isn’t something I can magically do.
“You want your life back before you met me. You want the problems you thought were annoying. They seem trivial now, and you wish that they didn’t. You wish that you had things sorted, and that everything you thought was true could be true again.”
Holy shit, if that’s not the mic drop moment of all mic drop moments.
How can he stand there and read my thoughts like that? It’s past scary and into a different realm entirely.
“Or not.” His voice deepens into gravel. “That could be me and I’m projecting.”
He takes a step away from the counter, but it’s with his bad knee.
I’m already watching him carefully, so that when he stumbles, I shoot out of my chair and race across the kitchen to him.
I get to him before he falls. I see the pain and shock stamped into his face, the bright burst in his eyes, and then my arms are wrapped around him.
It’s a silly thing to do, given that he’s massive and I’m not. There’s no way I can support him.
We both tumble to the ground. Cruz twists, his arms wrapped around me, so that he lands first, cushioning the blow. I don’t hit the floor, but I do hit… all of him. I’m spread out along the length of him, my legs tangled with his, our chests mashed together, his arms locked behind my back.
“Oh my god!” I don’t mean to say that out loud, and I don’t mean to let out the little squeak when I realize that our bodies are perfectly aligned for me to feel the hard bulge in his jeans pressing against my stomach.
I try to wriggle free and his arms tighten like he’s scared that he’s hurt, or maybe because he’s hurt and he’s trying to get himself upright.
My body is locked tight with his, but from the hips down I have more leverage.
When I wriggle, the only thing I do is cause more friction against that bulge.
Suddenly my mouth is dry and my heartbeat is hammering—not just in my chest. I can feel it beating brutally down in my groin. I’m overheated and I know that I’m wet. Thank god for the barrier of denim between us. My jeans and his.
Cruz’s arms give way a little and he lets me shove up against his chest. I plant one hand on his shoulder.
I should get off of him and try to help him up, but instead I freeze and stare down stupidly at his face.
He’s a masterpiece. So close. All I’d have to do is inch forward and lean in and I could cup his hard jawline and kiss his lips.
I could taste him again. Thoroughly. The kitchen light illuminates the lighter strands in all the dark of his hair.
It’s an illusion. There are no natural highlights.
We’re edging into winter. It’s not a trick of the light that Cruz’s lips appear so full and gorgeous. I love the slight bow of the top.
His cock throbs beneath me. It’s still trapped against my stomach.
I’m all heat and wild animal impulses. I want to grind myself along the hard length of him.
I want to drive us both mad. All the fear and anger at the fear, all the confusion and the last of my resistance flee, and I’m left stripped down to the bare facts that Cruz is Cruz and I’m me.
There’s this tense, blistering attraction between us that we can’t do anything about, but it doesn’t change the fact that I keep thinking about him, keep wanting him, and that I’m on top of him right now.
“Sorry,” he breathes, so quiet, tone gone to buttery soft velvet.
That one word undoes what little control I have left. I don’t push his hand away when his fingers trickle down my back in a gentle caress. I’m sure he’s checking to be certain that I’m not hurt from the fall.
This close, his lashes are so thick and dark. His eyes are so beautiful, steel gray, ringed around his blown-out pupils. I watch him blink, lashes fluttering up and down. What would they feel like fluttering against my cheek? My neck? My nose?
The longer I focus on him, likely a flushed, panting, very obviously attracted wreck myself, the pinker his cheeks get.
I’m not imagining it. The color is real. It’s adorable.
“Are you hurt?” I push up a little, one hand braced on his shoulder. My other hand shouldn’t reach out and caress his cheek, but it does. Did he shave right before coming over here? His skin is so smooth.
He shudders beneath me. “No.”
“Your knee…”
“Sometimes gives out. I’m fine. I can get up.”
“Okay.” I don’t move. Neither does he.
I’m the one who bends over him, who lowers my face to his until my breath skates across his lips. He stares back at me, unblinking, confusion and longing burning in his eyes. “What about all that stuff you said? The kiss conditions?”
I laugh at the ridiculous way he said that.
Also at the silly conditions that I rattled off.
His cock kicks in his jeans at the sound of my laughter, like my happiness is the biggest turn on of all, and that sends waves of heat and need crashing through me.
“I’m willing to defer some of that for a while. ”
“Some?” He looks almost shy.
Tenderness spikes in my chest for this huge, rough man who has such a strange, gentle, wonderful soul.
“I can defer all of it.”