Chapter 22
twenty-two
HANNAH
To continue to torture myself, I waited up for Beau on the nights he was working.
And since the night—which held a sacred space in my mind and would forevermore—it seemed he was working every night.
If he wasn’t working, there were family dinners, events.
If I didn’t know any better, Beau was trying his best to ensure that we didn’t have alone time together.
It was probably for the best. That’s what I told myself as I made sure I was with Lori on all of my nights off. She needed me too.
Things were going on with her family and their response to the pregnancy, even more complications with Finn.
I could sense the hurt pulsating from her on both fronts, so I was careful not to push.
Nor did she about Beau. It was nice, watching movies, sometimes going out for dinner—though it was mostly too cold for that, and she’d muttered something about Finn having a patrol car following her when she was driving in bad weather.
She was a friend. Fast becoming my best friend. Hanging out with her was not a hardship. It fed the part of me that I didn’t know was starving. The part that needed sisterhood.
It wasn’t like I’d been wholly miserable since the night, just supremely sexually frustrated and confused.
Hence me waiting up for Beau. Because a starving woman would accept scraps.
I wanted to feast on the relaxing of Beau’s shoulders when he laid eyes on me, the slight twitch in his lips, the heat in his gaze.
To savor the feeling of wholeness I got from him when he came home.
There would be amiable greetings, him glancing at the book I was reading, asking rudimentary questions. Me asking about the restaurant.
All very civil. Pleasant, even.
If both of us weren’t existing within the shared knowledge that we wanted to rip each other’s clothes off.
Then it was torture. But still, I remained on the sofa, waiting. Because I’d collect whatever small interactions I could. Because an evil part of me hoped for Beau to let his less-than-noble intentions take over.
When the door opened and shut, I dog-eared my book and stared at the doorway, my body buzzing with expectation.
I never failed to marvel at his large frame, taking up the space. At him doing normal things like shrugging off his jacket.
Beau’s eyes touched mine where I was sitting on the couch. His entire body relaxed, softening upon seeing me.
My heart exploded. Since that fateful night, there hadn’t been any more questions about what Beau wanted—me. He wanted me. There also hadn’t been any more cruel remarks. Though there remained a healthy amount of distance.
But this expression was not guarded.
He didn’t take his eyes off me as he hung up his jacket and took off his boots.
I’d gotten good about sensing Beau’s energy. It wasn’t subtle. He wasn’t subtle. To me, at least. Every time he entered a room, the temperature changed for me. Everything changed. The way I breathed. The way I moved. Talked. Before a few weeks ago, those changes weren’t entirely positive.
Now things had morphed; my body relaxed and my breathing evened, yet my heart rate spiked while running my eyes over him.
Though our interactions were no longer laced with his disdain, there were varying undertones of sex within them.
Sometimes it was impossible for Beau to tamp down his desire, and I felt it in my very core.
Other times, he was pleasant yet detached enough for me to wonder if I’d somehow hallucinated everything. I knew Beau wasn’t trying to fuck with me. He was trying to navigate a difficult situation.
As was I. The smart thing would’ve been to move out. Get some distance. Lori had already mentioned she had a spare room I could live in once Clara was in school, and I was in my final semester.
But the mere thought of leaving then made me feel vaguely ill. Although doing it early would be the more logical and less masochistic option, the thought alone was unbearable.
I’d stay, torturing myself with what ifs and fantasies while waiting with bated breath for Beau to be a worse man, if only for a night.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, watching as he walked to a cupboard in the kitchen, reaching up for a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
The glug of the whisky was my only answer. Holding the glasses, Beau traveled from the kitchen to the sofa, handing one to me.
“I’ve never had whisky before,” I said as I took the glass. “I’m pretty sure I don’t like it, since I don’t have a beard or chop wood for fun.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Humor me.”
My body sizzled in response to his nearness, his attention, then his half smile as I took a small sip. I wrinkled my nose.
“Don’t like it?” he asked.
I inhaled, my throat burning but warmth filling my belly. “It might grow on me.” It was strong, complex, and scorched me from the inside out. Not unlike the man in front of me.
He’d grown on me plenty.
Beau took a long sip from his own glass before rounding the couch.
“How about I get to know you?” Beau offered from his designated safe distance at the other end of the sofa.
If he wanted a safe distance, it should’ve been in another state. Another stratosphere.
“Get to know me?” I tucked my feet under me, staring at him. I wanted to know the source of his energy, what was responsible for the change I felt tonight.
He nodded. “I would like to get to know you. As a person. Your past. Truthfully, Hannah, I want to know everything about you.”
My entire body electrified, nerve endings igniting under his gaze, at the depth of his words. Beau wasn’t dancing around the pulsing, living entity between us. Beau was plainly showing his want for me.
The seed of hope I’d been nurturing longer than I cared to admit sprouted inside of me. A green, vibrant living thing.
Even though my body instantly stiffened at Beau wanting to get to know me.
That meant questions about my past. Sure, he knew about Waylon and hadn’t run for the hills.
He had still wanted me in a variety of tawdry and delicious ways after I’d told him about my now ex-husband.
The speed at which Marty had gotten the process done had me scared.
It was too good to be true. Too clean. I was still waiting for the catch.
Now Beau wanted to get to know me. Further. Even with his knowledge of Waylon.
That was bad enough. But knowing about the trailer park, the mother who cared less about me than her next fix, the hunger, the cold, the dirty clothes, and all the scars that came from that… that didn’t exactly make me a desirable prospect.
Even though I was terrified at showing Beau those sides of me, I was willing to take the risk. For him.
I took another sip of whisky. “What do you want to know?”
Beau’s eyes glittered for a moment as he took a sip of his own.
I braced myself.
He leaned over to grasp something on the coffee table, something I hadn’t been aware I’d left there until I saw it in his hands. “Why do you have a library card?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Doesn’t your generation have Kindles?” he continued. “Even I have a Kindle.”
His eyes were intent on me, dancing.
“You need glasses to see the words? And have them so big there are only two words per page?” I teased back.
He rewarded me with a smirk. “I’ve got life in me yet, and I can see just fine.” His eyes traveled the length of my body.
And just like that, the slight flush of my cheeks turned into a full-body inferno. The light banter and atmosphere of teasing had made way for sexual tension so thick, you couldn’t cut through it with a chainsaw.
I took a deep breath.
Then another.
The area below my legs throbbed. My mouth moistened. Need clutched onto me like a parasite, sucking all coherent thought. All I wanted to do was taste Beau’s lips, fill my body with his decidedly large cock.
His eyes were hooded, his face so tight with hunger that it was clear he was thinking along the same lines.
What reason did we have not to fuck again?
Beau took a visible breath, like he was steadying himself, talking himself out of something. He gripped my library card with such force, I thought he’d crush it.
He looked down as if he only just remembered it was in his hands.
“Library card.” His words were thick, voice hoarse and sounding half mad. “Why do you have one?”
“I, um, love to read.” I cleared my throat as if the action would scoop all the desire I felt for this man out of me.
“Always have. We didn’t have money for books growing up.
I’d buy second hand when I could, but then I’d have to take them…
” I trailed off, smelling stale cigarette smoke, fresh liquor, hearing the TV blast, my mother yelling at me for something or another, her latest boyfriend leering or sneering at me while I tried to immerse myself in a fictional world.
“I tend to get immersed in books.” I smoothed down the throw on the sofa, not looking at him.
“And it wasn’t … safe to get immersed so completely when I was at the place I lived.
” I didn’t call it a home. It was never that.
I hadn’t had a home until I met a little girl named Clara and her grumpy father.
I rolled my neck, still not looking at Beau but memorizing every scent, feel of this living room into my being so I could carry this home around with me when I was gone.
And I would leave. No matter that things with Beau were …
whatever they were. Clara would be in school, there would be no reason for him to have a full-time, live-in nanny.
I’d be forced back into the life that I’d been so sure was my escape—nursing school, getting a job, paying off my loans, getting on my feet.
The thought of that future now made me a bit queasy.
I blinked the room back into existence. Beau was watching me with an intent expression, brows knitted together, hands balled on his knees, his features no longer playful or light.