40. Chapter 40
“What about Lindsey?” Helen asked.
Lindsey. The name sounded out of place on Helen’s lips. Graham dropped his arms and said, “I told you, it’s over.”
“Did you end it with her? If I turned you down—if I told you to leave and never come back—would you still break up with her?”
“What you say to me tonight doesn’t have any bearing on my relationship with Lindsey. It’s not fair to string her along anymore,” Graham admitted—to her and himself. “Even if you don’t want me.”
She scoffed. “When have you ever been fair?”
“I’m serious, Helen. Lindsey is a good person, and she’s put up with a lot of my shit lately. But I don’t love her, and that isn’t changing.”
“She’s still with you, on this trip, isn’t she? What are you going to do about that?”
“Put her on a plane? I didn’t exactly plan this.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Want me to call her? I will if it’ll make you happy.”
“What am I supposed to do with all this, Graham?” she asked shrilly. “You saying it is one thing. Reality…”
“Tell me you don’t love me.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is. If you don’t love me, that’s it. I’ll walk out the door. I’ll lose your number. Sever it clean this time.”
She stared at him. “What if I don’t say I don’t love you?”
“Then I take you with me, and we spend the next few days, or weeks, or whatever it is figuring out what to do next.”
“I can’t—I can’t just go with you.”
“Why not?”
“I have a job.”
“You work at a university. Aren’t you off for the summer?”
“I’m a biologist. Research never stops, Graham.”
“Can’t you take a vacation?”
“I have other…responsibilities.”
“Like what?” He glanced around. “I don’t see a cat.”
“Who’s going to get my mail?”
“You’re worried about your mail?”
“You know what I mean. I didn’t plan for this. I can’t just—”
“What? Weren’t you the one who said I blew it because I was too afraid of moving to Austin with you? Why’re you so afraid to leave for a few days with me?”
She didn’t answer, just shook her head.
“Do you love me?”
“I fucking hate you,” she snapped.
“Shut up. Do you love me?”
“Don’t tell me to shut up.”
“For the love of Christ, Helen Octavia Elsburg, do you love me?”
“Yes, of course I love you,” she screamed in his face. “That’s why I hate you so fucking much—”
Her admission shattered his last vestige of restraint and Graham smothered whatever else she was going to say with his mouth.
Her nails dug into his sides as if she was going to push him away.
Not this time. She needed to remember how much she needed him.
Graham drove her back into the nearest wall and pinned her to it with his erection.
She loved him. Helen loved him. The truth made him frantic, desperate to make up for lost years.
He ran his hands down the body he’d never gotten over, palms curving around her breasts to the nipples poking through her T-shirt.
Her chest lifted, urging him to remind her how good they used to be together.
He traced both firm tips in vicious circles with his thumbs until her back bowed off the wall and she fisted his collar.
“Graham,” she panted.
“You have me,” he said, sucking hard on her neck.
“Stop.”
“What?” He was twisting her nipples in his fingers and she was panting in his ear. There was no way he heard her right. “If you’re angry, take it out on me. I can take it.”
She tightened her grip on his collar and pulled him away.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Helen stared up at him with a concerned notch between her hooded, lusty eyes. “How I do know any of this is real?”
“Are you kidding?”
After a minute of kissing, she could hardly catch her breath and her cheeks were flushed as bright pink as the gloss smeared around her lips, her nipples were sharp enough to cut glass, and he was sure—if she let him get close enough to touch her—her yoga pants were soaked through. How was this not real?
His palm hit the wall. “What more do you need?”
“I don’t know.” She peeled herself off the wall and managed a few shaky steps. “I don’t know, but this,” she motioned to the space between them, “I don’t know what to think. I—”
“Then stop thinking. I meant what I said. Tomorrow isn’t going to be any different, and it wasn’t any different for me yesterday.”
“Yesterday you were with someone else.”
“What do you want me to do? Want me to say I made a mistake?”
“Just one?”
“Many mistakes, over and over, for years? Fine, I completely fucked up, but I’m here now, and I’m not leaving you again. Even if it means I have to move all the way to Austin and sleep on your doorstep for a month to prove it to you.”
“As if you would.”
He threw up his hands. “What do you think I’m doing here? Want…want me to ask you to marry me? I’ll do it if that’s what you need to hear.”
“Just what everyone woman wants,” she said sarcastically, having caught her breath. “A proposal of convenience.”
“There’s nothing convenient about trying to convince you that I want you. Forever.”
She moved behind the couch. “You’re not serious.”
He wasn’t letting furniture, or anything else, stand between them again. He followed and stood close enough for the tips of the nipples he’d worked up to brush his chest with her every inhale. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Helen lifted her chin. “You look like an animal. Forget how to shave?”
“You like my beard. Answer me.”
“What was the question?”
“Will you marry me?”
“There must’ve been something extra special in that Pappy Van Winkle.” Helen waved him away and stalked toward the kitchen.
“Why?” He stayed on her heels, chasing her around the center island. “You know that’s where this is going. Why else are you still alone?”
“Who said I was alone?”
“You’ve been waiting for this.”
“If that’s what you want to believe.”
“I’ve been waiting for this.”
“You’ve been dating someone else for the last year. That’s hardly waiting.”
“Knock it off,” Graham warned.
He spun her around by the arm, her long, dark hair flipping behind her.
She slapped him with her free hand. His erection throbbed and it was all he could do not to fuck her on the wood floor.
She raised her hand to slap him again, and he caught it.
With a wrist in each fist, he planted a hasty kiss on her mouth.
“You knock it off,” she snarled, backing into the island.
“You’re such a brat. Why won’t you admit you want to be with me?”
“I never said I didn’t.”
“Why is it always a fight with you?”
“That’s the way you want it.”
“Then say you’ll marry me!”
“Fine, I’ll marry you!”
As soon as Graham released her arms they wrapped around his neck, and she attacked him with her mouth.