Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Willow
“Oh my god, right there,” I moan as Haze kneads my back with his huge hands.
We worked out, or rather, he annoyed me while I worked out, and then I had a tweak in my shoulder. Stupidly, I mentioned how sore I was from sitting at that damn desk all day, which only added to my pain, and a quick neck massage turned into this. I somehow forgot how good he was with his hands.
“You know, I seem to remember those exact words this mornin’ in your bathroom.” Oh, I can just picture the smile he has on his face. Smug bastard.
“Yeah, thanks for that bout of awkwardness with Connor,” I start, but it ends up in a moan again because he finds a notch between my shoulder blades. Thank god we’re back in my apartment. “That was really fucking a-awkward.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about him anymore. Seriously, though, since when are you into the Wall Street types?”
“I don’t have a type.”
“Uh, huh, yes, you do.”
“Oh, you mean my husband?”
“Did you change your name back?” he prompts, shutting me up for a second. “I know you go by Sinclair at work, but I just wondered.”
I swallow hard. “No, I didn’t.”
“So you are still Mrs. Dawson?”
“Shut up and keep moving those hands,” I reply. “You’re here to service my aching muscles, remember?”
He did promise me a rub down, but this isn’t quite what I had in mind.
“You know, if you take off your top and let me use some massage oil—”
“Not a chance, we both know where that’ll end up.”
“Okay, but it’s your loss, you know how well I work those notches.”
I’m about to respond with another threat, but then I clamp my mouth shut. “A massage, H, no sex.”
“Right, this is about you, my love, nobody else.”
“Jesus, it’s only because I’m sore. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“That’s a little hard when I’m massagin’ you.”
“I meant on my back, not anywhere else,” I say. “Just to be clear.”
“So this isn’t just about sex? Talk to me, baby. I’m all ears. If you wanna move to the couch, it’ll be better for your back.”
Uh, huh, like he cares about my back. I’m sitting, and I admit it’s not all that comfortable, but getting naked is only gonna lead to one thing.
“I’m sure that’s a huge priority for you.” My tone is just as sarcastic as it always is, but a little pleading at the same time.
“Hey, I didn’t say bed, did I?”
“I’m still mad at you about this morning.” Despite my reluctance to lie on said couch, I still do it because my muscles ache more than I’ll admit out loud.
“For givin’ you an orgasm before you’d even downed your first cup of coffee?” He piques a brow as I turn to scowl at him.
I huff. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“But it’s true.”
“Shut up and keep those hands moving as fast as your mouth is.”
“You know that’s a synonym for somethin’ dirty.”
This man drives me nuts. I swear to god. “Like you didn’t come all the way up here for more of the same.” I slide my shirt over the top of my head, leaving my sports bra on.
“I didn’t, as it happens,” he says. “I came to see if you’d like to get dinner.”
“Right.”
“How am I meant to massage your shoulders with a bra on?”
“You’ll work it out.”
“I’m only gonna touch you like that when you make it clear you want it,” he says. “I mean, this mornin’ you dragged me into that bathroom. I take it Connor wasn’t quite cuttin’ the mustard?”
“I never slept with Connor,” I say honestly. “I don’t sleep with anyone on the first or second date.”
“What about the third?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“It’s all my business since we’re givin’ things another shot. Somethin’ we should discuss when one of us isn’t topless.”
I remember his words from this morning: ‘Stop beatin’ around the bush. I want another shot with you, Willow. Whatever it takes.’
The crazy thing is, I didn’t think we could ever go back, but now I’m not so sure. We work. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’ve never had that spark with anyone other than him.
I can’t keep doing this to myself. Living without him has been torture enough, but the only time we seem to ever have a deep and meaningful conversation is when we’re naked.
I told him today it was just sex, but I didn’t mean it. I’m not denying the sex isn’t mind blowing — it is — but we’re lying to ourselves if we keep doing what we’re doing without any consequences. Neither of us have been able to move on.
“Did you mean it?” I ask out of the blue.
He halts his ministrations for a beat. “Did I mean what? Us havin’ another shot?”
“No.” I take a breath. “Two years ago you said you hadn’t been with another woman since we broke up.”
“Ah, and you wanna know if I’ve been with anyone since we last hooked up?”
“That would mean it’s been five years, so that’s not possib—”
“I’ve never slept with anyone except you since we were eighteen.”
My eyes widen. “So, the last two years?”
“I used my hand, if you really wanna know.”
“But it’s not the same.”
“I’d agree with you, but no other pussy is gonna do.”
I turn to look over my shoulder at him. “Aust, you don’t have to just say shit. You’re a guy—”
“And that’s pretty much what you said to me last time. Is it so hard to believe that I abstained because I wasn’t feelin’ like just fuckin’ around when I left? You think it was easy for me lettin’ you go?” The frown on his face tells me all I need to know.
Haze isn’t an angry man, not with me. He also rarely loses his temper or shows his frustration, so this must be a sore subject for him. “I don’t think that.”
“But it still happened, didn’t it? That’s what you mean.”
“We need to get past that,” I whisper. “If we ever have a chance at moving on, that’s all I’m saying. You bring it up every chance you get, as if I need a reminder of that day, or the days that followed.” I pull my shirt to cover myself as I twist to sit up. This is going sideways fast.
“One of the reasons we broke up is because we never communicated,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “You don’t tell me what’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours, and until you do, this can’t continue.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “This?”
He waves a hand between us. “Sex, babe. Trust me, I want it more than anythin’, but the whole point of my self imposed celibacy was because I needed to find myself again. You did too. I was wounded, sure. I wanted you to beg me to stay, and that was selfish and wrong of me…”
“And I didn’t,” I whisper, my eyes springing with tears. “I didn’t beg you, did I, Austin?”
“No, and that’s okay, because you never have to do that, but what isn’t okay is you keepin’ things from me. If we’re seriously gonna have another shot at us, then I need to know what’s goin’ on upstairs, baby girl. I can’t play guessin’ games with you.”
“I know. I’m working on it.”
“I know we both had rough childhoods with our parents. Deep down I know they loved us, and my mom tried hard to keep the family together, but we can’t blame them for how we are as adults,” he says, surprising me.
“I know you have issues with your dad, and I don’t blame you for that.
But he can’t come between us if it’s what we really want. ”
I cup one side of his face. “I know you feel as if you aren’t good enough in my dad’s eyes,” I say, hating how I’ve put that look on his face.
It tells me he really does still think that.
“But it’s not true. Yes, I should’ve fought for us more than what I did, but we were different people then.
We hardly knew what we wanted when we got married, and a rebellious part of me did it to piss my parents off, but I still loved you. ”
He piques a brow. “Do you love me now?”
I bite my lip. “I never stopped loving you, Aust, you know that.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“We try.”
He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, squeezing them before he opens them. “Then we gotta do it right.”
“As in?”
“As in we get to know each other all over again. Properly. Talkin’ is a good place to start.”
This man befuddles me. He spends the last five years all but celibate — bar the few times we hooked up — and here I am on a golden platter, and he wants to talk.
Maybe that’s why I fell in love with Haze in the beginning — because he wasn’t like other guys.
He was never afraid to tell me how he felt, even if that made him look vulnerable.
I wish I could be more like that, and I vow to try.
I know they say leopards can’t change their spots, but they can pivot.
And I want to pivot, I really do. I can’t let him get away again because I’m too afraid to reach for what I want.
“I’m half naked and you want to talk?” I balk.
He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “While my dick is gonna protest, I think we both know what needs to happen here. I love bein’ inside you, bein’ close to you, but this will become about sex all over again, just like it did two years ago, and we had nowhere to build from there.”
“I’ve never met a man like you before,” I blurt. “You really want to talk about getting busy?”
“Didn’t say that. I said, ‘I want to know you’.” He taps a finger over my heart. “What’s inside here. The many layers to Willow Dawson. I know it’s gonna take a while to get there, but I’ve got all the time in the world.”
Willow Dawson. Not Sinclair.
“Haze, if we fuck this up again…” I look up to the sky.
“What?” he coaxes, stroking my cheek. “What will happen?”
I take a breath, feeling the anxiety creeping in. Now is not the time to panic, it’s Austin. Your best friend.
“I will die, Haze. I will fucking die because I can’t take heartbreak like that again.”
When his eyebrows knit together, and his body tenses just that little bit more, I understand now that he never even knew I was heartbroken. He thought that’s what I wanted. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I cup the other side of his face. “You did the right thing. We both had things we had to do and accomplish, that part I get, but I’ve never found anyone to connect to like I do with you.”
“You don’t know what it means to me hearin’ you say that,” he confesses. “And when the time is right, I wanna make it up to you. Instead of you beggin’ me, I want to be the one beggin’ you. On my knees, crawlin’ to you.”
My lips part but no sound comes out.
“Babe?” he chuckles. “Did I render you speechless?”
“Neither of us has to beg, especially not you.”
“I don’t know, it could be kinda kinky.” He winks at me and I chuckle, even though a tear betrays me. Haze wipes it away with his thumb.
“Trust you to spoil a touching moment.”
“I love you, don’t ever forget that. Everythin’ I do, good or bad, is because it’s always been you.” He puts a finger over my lips. “You don’t have to say it back, only if and when you’re ready. That’s what I want more than anythin’ else.”
I do love him. I’ve always loved him. “I don’t have to wait, Aust. You know I’ve never stopped loving you, even when I was heartbroken and mad and all the other things, but I have to get better at this, because what we did before didn’t work.”
“I know that, which is why I’m sayin’ we do it right this time. It isn’t just about rekindlin’ what we had, it’s about fallin’ in love all over again.”
His words shock me, but he’s right.
“I’m always gonna be me. I don’t know if that’s really what you had in mind. I’m stubborn, impatient, hotheaded—”
“And beautiful, giving, generous and kind,” he finishes. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Is that a poke at my height?”
He presses a kiss to my lips. “Never. Shorty.”
“I’ll remember you said that when you’re on your knees.”
“Oh, that day is comin’, Little One, it’s comin’ real soon.”
I know it’s a promise he intends to keep, even if I fail to admit this is scary territory. Haze has the power to ruin me like nobody else. I just hope he knows what he’s doing with my heart this time.