Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
She didn’t know how she was still standing because her legs were jelly, and the floor was lava.
His voice was like glacier ice over gravel. “How long, Val?” He cocked his head, his eyes devouring every emotion that skittered across her face.
Confused, she furrowed her brow. “How long what?”
His jaw hard, he leaned against his desk, putting all his weight on his hands. His shoulders, broad and strong—capable of carrying the weight of the world—slumped, as though defeated. He dropped his head, and for the first time since see him, she hated looking at him.
She’d done this to him.
Fuck.
Red’s voice, flat and yet soft, carried to her ear. “If you’d never come to Cool Hands that night, if you’d never decided you were finally going to come to me, to show yourself to me, to tell me you were ready to put a label on what we had…. If you hadn’t done it then…how long would you have taken?”
Where was he going with this? “I have no idea—and what’s with the hypothetical? The truth is that I did come to Cool Hands, I overheard you talking with your club brothers about fuck tokens, and I saw you walk out of there to fuck the blonde.”
“Yes, but humor me, Val…how long would it have taken you? How long would you have sat behind your screen, too scared to step up and take what you wanted? If my definition of wait was the same as yours, how long would you have made me wait? Weeks? Years?”
Bristling, she opened her mouth, but he looked up at that moment, his gray-hazel eyes stark with edgy emotion.
“But you didn’t wait?—”
He hissed, shaking his head. “This isn’t even about sex, it’s about intimacy, it’s about what makes a relationship work. I might not have experience with committed relationships, but I have seen, with my own eyes, what it looks like. Cilla and Patriot, Locust and Nadia, Horde and Stephie. For a long time, Frost and Emily.” The way he said those two names had an edge to it she couldn’t quite catch. “They all have something I have been dying to know for myself…and I want it with you.”
Her heart leapt but it was held in check…by fear. God, Red was right.
He sighed, his gaze beginning to warm as he drew away from the desk and reached out for her. She couldn’t stop herself from moving toward him even if her shoes were glued to the floor. Close enough for her to wallow in his scent, he reached out and skimmed a single finger down her cheek, tracing the dry tracks left behind by her tears.
“It’s more than just sex, its touching, its being there for one another, holding them in your arms when you need a hug, or nursing them back to health when they’re sick. It’s about making them hot chocolate when they’re sad or tucking their hair behind their ear when they’re being adorable. Its seeing them succeed, being there to give them a high-five when they kick ass at something. It’s about sharing more than just your body with someone, it’s about sharing your life, your ups and downs, your wins and your loses, the good and the bad—and while I can talk to you through your screen, I could never feel your arms around me when I was having a shit day. I couldn’t put my arms around you when you were missing your mom. You couldn’t slap me on the back and congratulate me for a job well done, and I could never sit beside you and watch as you wipe the floor with some cyberpunk looking for an ass-whoopin’. Online, behind screens, we were living half a life—less than half a life, because I only ever heard your voice, at least you got to see me, my expressions, my smile, my frown…you never gave me that pleasure. I only knew the bits and pieces you threw me—how is a man, desperate for the one he loves, supposed to live without being able to take a full breath?”
Again, his finger traced her cheek, down her jaw to her chin, where he grasped her with his thumb and forefinger, keeping her face upright…so she couldn’t turn away.
“I was barely surviving.” He swallowed, his eyes closing as though holding back tears. “How long were you expecting me to live like that, Valentina?” At the last word, he opened his eyes, and she was obliterated by the look of absolute devastation and yearning in his eyes.
Recoiling from that look, his words, and the truth in them, she tried to step away, but his hands dropped and gripped her shoulders, holding her in place. His strong fingers held her tight enough to keep her there but not so much that he hurt her. Even in his emotional state, he was careful with her.
Her voice breaking, she cried out, “I don’t know! I couldn’t just come to you, Damian! After the accident, I was broken—mentally, physically, emotionally. I’d lost my mother, endured months of painful skin grafts and rehab, then I had to find a new normal living in a group home with other broken kids. I didn’t feel human, not for a long time, not until I slid into your DMs. You helped me feel like I could be more than just the shadow of a woman?—”
“And you made me feel like I was more than just a body people wanted,” he interjected, a plea in his voice. “You made me realize that I was yearning, desperately, for a connection with someone, a deep connection that went beyond what could be seen. I’d never seen you, but I felt that connection to you, and I know you felt it to me. I had been searching for it without knowing, and you gave me what I had been gasping for. You did that, no one else. You gave me something I could no longer live without, something I never want to live without….” Those words stole her breath.
He… yearned for her?
You did feel that connection, so you know he’s telling the truth. So why are you being such a pussy ass bitch now?
“So how long would it have taken you to finally put me out of my misery? You say I was helping you, and I know you were helping me, but when was that supposed to develop into something bigger, better, something whole and healthy?”
“I don’t know! I was scared, okay?” she finally admitted, though she knew he’d known all along. “I wanted to be with you, Damian, more than anything, but I was so fucking scared that you would take one look at the broken, ugly, real-life Valentina, and you’d run for the hills.”
“So…after all that we knew about one another, after all that we shared about one another, after opening my heart and soul to you, telling you how I felt about you, the bottom line is that you didn’t believe me.”
The blood drained from her face, her mouth dropping open in shock.
“You didn’t trust me. Despite everything you said, about how you wanted to be with me, how you cared about me, how you wanted a future with me, you still didn’t trust me to want the same things? You honestly thought that I was just blowing smoke up your ass, that I was just saying what I thought you wanted to hear. I was lying, right? I couldn’t possibly mean it when I said I loved you and I didn’t care what you looked like, right?”
“No,” she blurted, “you’re twisting this?—”
“Am I?” he interjected, “or am I just not willing to take the full blame for what happened?”
Shaking her head, she tried to organize her thoughts, to make sense of what he was saying, but that voice, that bitchy too true voice, was there, taunting her, “he’s right…you did this, too….”
No! She hadn’t lied to him, betraying him. She’d been truthful from the start.
Were you? Truthful? With yourself?
“How long, Valentina, before your love for me outweighed your fear of the taking that risk? How long would you have made me wait because you were scared? How long, Valentina, did you expect me to let your fear dictate my hopes and dreams?”
She didn’t even know where to begin to answer that, not that she had time, since his phone rang right then.
He grunted, pulling the cell from his pocket, and peering down at the screen. Anger slashed his features as he declined the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
“Robocaller?” she asked, willing to say anything to break the tension between them. Anything but what she really wanted to say.
Like how you were both in the wrong, and how you feel like shit for making him feel like he isn’t more important than your goddamn fear?
Yeah. That.
He shook his head. “Just some bullshit that won’t stay gone.”
Aw fuck, there was that persistent curiosity of hers, and he must have seen in sparking to life on her face because he narrowed his eyes at her and cupped her chin.
“Nuh uh, not right now,” he asserted, making her pout. His mouth curled into a panty-melting lopsided grin. “You’re adorable when you don’t get your way, you know that?”
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Let’s circle back whatever the hell that was you were talking about.” Yeah, she surprised herself with her willingness to continue their painful, but fucking necessary, conversation. Her life might seem like the worst romance novel right then, but she’d be damned if some cliché miscommunication trope ruined her chance at a happily ever after.
He narrowed his eyes, his jaw working as he ground his molars together.
“What I was talking about was how miscommunication and lack of trust kicked our asses from the jump.”
Yup, there it was.
“I didn’t communicate with you, and you didn’t communicate with me about our definitions of ‘wait.’ I didn’t consider that you meant something different, and you didn’t consider that I meant something different. Mistakes were made because neither of us considered the other. I fucked up by not even considering celibacy, I get that, I own that, and I realize that it only sharpens your lack of trust in me. Then again, my Daisy, you had so little trust in me to begin with.”
She shook her head, unable to peel her eyes away from the agony in his gaze.
Once again, tears burned the backs of her eyes; he was right.
“It wasn't you that I didn’t trust, Damian,” she murmured, loving that she could call him by his real name, a perk he’d only ever offered her. “It was…it was the circumstances I didn’t trust.”
She didn’t trust that what they had wasn’t too good to be true.
He nodded once. “I get that….”
Did he?
He nodded again, as though reading her thoughts.
“I get that you have been through some shit in your life, you lost someone you loved, you endured pain—alone, and you were ridiculed and bullied about your weight, your looks, your scars. You internalized all of that, carried it with you, let it color the way you look at life…at relationships. It isn’t a leap to think that someone who shuts themselves up in their home, working behind a screen all day, has trouble making friends…may even not know how. May not even want to. I get that, my Daisy, I understand. It has never been an issue for me?—”
“You flashing that naked chest at everyone makes making friends awfully easy. It’s like a cheat code for a power up,” she grumbled, and he chuckled, his smile blinding in his swarthy face.
Damn…he could knock her the fuck over with that smile.
Suddenly, his smile died, and he was all seriousness again. He cupped her face with one hand and brushed her hair away from her face with the other; some of the strands had become stuck to her face…probably with tears and snot.
Gross.
Perfect, just how she wanted to look, fat, ugly, and viscous.
Red leaned down and pressed a kiss against her forehead, lingering, his lips surprisingly soft.
“I wish you would trust me…trust what I feel for you….”
She stiffened, realizing he must’ve read her thoughts, again.
“Red,” she sighed, “I want to believe what you say, but?—”
“No buts,” he declared, “I fell in love with you before I even knew what you looked like, so what makes you think that after seeing you, touching you, kissing you, inhaling your scent, and memorizing every curve of your face that I would suddenly fall out of love with you, that being with you, the woman I adore, will somehow terrify me?”
Well…when he put it like that….
She shrugged. “I want to believe you, Damian…I think…I just need time.”
He grunted then pressed another kiss to her forehead, this one hard.
“You don’t get time, my Daisy, because I plan to keep you right here until you get those fucking ‘buts’ out of your head.” Suddenly, a wicked smirk curled his lips. “Matter of fact, the only ‘but’ that will enter your mind over the next two days is going to be mine.”