Chapter 26
Kaylee
How is it possible that I have been having the most erotic experiences of my life, and we haven't even had sex yet?
Yet...
Like it's preconceived and impossible to avoid.
The rules are in place for a reason.
We're married but we can't stay that way.
This whole situation is just a short trip, a departure from our normal lives, and eventually, whether we want to or not, we have to go back to reality.
I'll return to the grocery store, growing increasingly bitter and hating my job until I quit and find a new one that I know I'll also begin to hate.
He'll spend his time rescuing others and becoming a hero in so many lives.
I pull in a deep breath, swiping my hand over the foggy mirror, and stare into my reflection.
I want to smile and allow myself to live in the moment, but the looming end is inevitable. Just thinking of leaving this house and not seeing him again makes my stomach turn and my skin grow clammy.
I'm not supposed to care. I'm supposed to be the one who wants to leave and get back to my life, but there's something about him and the way his eyes light up when he's near that also makes me want to cling to him and beg him to keep me.
I shake my head, the insanity of that thought a little too close to forming on my lips.
I finish drying off from our shower, before hanging the towel up and pulling a shirt he left for me over my head.
I have no idea what happens when I go into the bedroom.
He could be there or he could be gone.
We didn't have a discussion after I made him come.
We simply washed up, smiling at each other with wordless appreciation.
He got out and toweled off while I rinsed, and then he was gone, closing the bathroom door behind him.
I don't know if he was giving me space after what we've experienced together or if he needed space himself.
Maybe it's my opinion about men, but more than once I've wondered if sex with me would mean anything to him. In my history, men are capable of having sex and it means nothing other than a release, a way to take the edge off with no other emotions involved.
It's never been like that for me. It's how I ended up tangled with an ex-boyfriend who was still married, albeit one who was getting a divorce.
That man is why I left home. When he reunited with his wife, I became the homewrecker, the one who the wife hated and made sure to tell all her friends what I'd done. As if I was the one who darkened his doorstep with lies on my lips rather than the other way around. I had to face the shame in my mother's eyes when she heard the gossip at the local grocery store.
Vegas seemed like a much better choice after that. There are hundreds of thousands of people here and their faces change nearly every day. I was looking forward to it, but then I settled in and found comfort in the same in-and-out routine every day, and now I feel just as stuck as I did back home.
Darkness coats me when I turn the light off and leave the bathroom.
I can sense Ellis in the room, but I walk around the end of the bed and climb under the sheet and blanket without a word. I can't formulate the right words to say right now, and I feel like if I start talking, I'll blurt things I shouldn't say because they'll be met with him trying to counter my thoughts.
I'm not supposed to be catching feelings for this man, despite the marriage license that binds us together for the time being.
He doesn't speak either, leaving me lying there, gripping the blanket under my chin, and staring up at the ceiling.
I don't know how long I fight the urge to speak, but it seems like days tick by, each second making me more and more uncomfortable than the second before it.
I can't count how many times I open my mouth to speak and snap it closed again. Although I feel like I have a million questions for him, I don't think I'll like any of his answers, and then I feel guilty for not letting him prove to me who he really is.
I'm not a fool. I know that just wanting something from him doesn't mean I deserve it. Wanting him to be a certain way negates who he actually is.
The man is beyond good-looking, and as corny as it sounds, I imagine he could have any woman he set his sights on. So there's a reason why he was single before he showed up at the warehouse. He wasn't in a relationship because he wasn't looking for one.
I have no idea why he volunteered to tangle his life up with mine in the first place.
"Is this weird for you?" I whisper, part of me hoping he's already asleep and won't be capable of answering the ridiculous question.
"Yes," he replies instantly, and the one syllable has the power to make my eyes burn.
I know this entire situation is awkward for both of us, but to hear it from his lips hits me right in the center of my chest. I didn't imagine the confirmation would be so painful.
"I've thought about it for a while, but I still have no idea why I feel more comfortable with you than I ever have with anyone before."
Hope and something akin to giddiness begin to bloom inside of me, and I'm grateful for the darkness cloaking us so he can't see the smile that forces its way across my face.
"Are you usually around people you don't like?" I ask, turning over to face him, and feeling him do the same.
We aren't touching, but we're close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body near me. An ache for connection begins to swim inside of me, urging me to inch a hair closer.
"No," he says. "I've always done my best to situate myself around people I can trust."
"Trust," I whisper, the concept a little foreign in my experience.
"Why do you say it like that?" he asks. "Who betrayed you?"
"Who hasn't?" I return, bitterness from my past swelling in my throat.
"Morgan?" he asks, and her name from his lips startles me.
He's paid enough attention to what I've said to remember her name, and that detail endears him to me just a little more.
"Never Morgan," I assure him. "I didn't have the best time back home. Some stuff went down, and people I thought were loyal to me weren't."
"That's heartbreaking," he says, startling me when I feel his palm on my face.
With tender fingers, he brushes a lock of hair off my cheek, urging it behind my ear.
"Sorry," he whispers, having noticed me jolt at his touch. "I just wanted to see your face better."
I feel put on the spot. The limited light of the moon coming in from the sheer curtains is at his back, casting him in shadow and all but putting a spotlight on me.
My eyes flutter closed for a brief second when his hand lingers on my face, but then he pulls it back, and I feel the absence of it in a way I'm sure I shouldn't.
"What was his name?"
I snap my eyes open, despite not being able to see his face well.
"What do you mean?"
"I figure it was a man who hurt you so badly," he says, his tone conversational. I think if I had time to analyze the ease of it, I'd find a hint of irritation as if he hates the guy who would have that audacity to upset me in any way.
"You have a degree in psychology I don't know about?" I tease, but, honestly, I could fit all that I know about this man in the palm of my hand.
His laughter blankets me, but I know I can't allow myself to snuggle down in it too deeply. This isn't real. Our marriage was his split-second-thinking idea to save me from some very bad men when I stupidly put myself in a situation that I couldn't get out of on my own. This isn't a love match. Fate wasn't working overtime to put us back together after he ran into my cereal display at the grocery store.
The only happy ending happening here is that he might've saved my life after I made a series of stupid decisions. I'm grateful to him for being there, despite how he may have perceived my initial irritation with him showing up.
"No psychology degree," he says, his voice low and intimate.
Another bout of silence swirls around us, but I don't feel pressured to speak, as if he's waiting for me to spill my guts to him. It doesn't stop that need from rising, the one that was always there when I was younger and being ignored by people who called themselves my friends.
"I grew up in a small town," I begin, sort of loving that I have his undivided attention. "The kind of place where everyone knows everyone. There were never any secrets, no matter how adamant someone was that they wouldn't tell a soul what you told them."
"Sounds miserable," he says.
"I was just as guilty, I guess. A friend would tell me something and I'd whisper it to someone else." I pull in a deep breath, having confessed that for the first time. "I was part of the problem that I slowly began to hate about everyone else. My friends knew about me losing my virginity before I could tell them, because my boyfriend at the time started running his mouth before I even went to bed that night."
"Piece of shit," he mutters, sounding genuinely mad about what Troy had done.
"He's a class act, let me tell you."
"Tell me," he urges. "I want to know everything about you."
His words make me freeze, because there's such sincerity to his tone that I could almost make myself believe that he's telling the truth.
"Please?" he begs after a long silence.
"I'm not a very interesting person."
"I don't believe that at all."
I pull in a deep breath, ready to give him the CliffsNotes version of my life.
"Small-town life was also very rural. I'm sure people in the city would've called us hillbillies. My family didn't have enough money for large animals like horses or cows, but I took every chance I could get to go to my friends' houses who did." I pause to smile, thinking back to the times before puberty, when life was just so much easier. "I wanted to be a veterinarian so badly."
"Why didn't you become one?" he asks, as if such an expensive endeavor was as easy as showing up at a major university and telling them my full name and date of birth.
"I didn't really have the grades for it," I say, shame heating my cheeks. "As much as I wanted to help animals, I just didn't care about school. It felt like a popularity contest that always ended with me being picked last. I think those repeated hits to my self-esteem was how I was so easily manipulated by Troy."
"The piece of shit," he adds.
"Yes," I say with a chuckle. "Troy, the piece of shit."
"What did he do?"
Instead of just blowing off his question, I pull in yet another deep breath and lay it all out for him. I tell him how easily the guy coaxed me into the bed of his truck. How he had pretended to be my boyfriend, like we were in some stupid teen movie, only I was the joke and the popular guy didn't actually fall in love with me.
I tell him about keeping my job at the local discount store despite the whispers I endured every day from people who only came there to make fun of me.
I even confess to being so low at one point, that years after he married and temporarily split from his wife, I let him right back in, convinced that we were destined to be together. The blips that occurred along the way were just something we would tell our grandchildren someday.
I end my story with how I finally got brave enough to leave town, only to end up here with only one friend and no social life to speak of.
He doesn't interrupt. He doesn't give me advice on how to live a better life. He simply listens, and for the first time in my life, I feel heard.
It's just one more thing I'll have to miss about this time together.
"See?" I ask with a self-deprecating smile. "Not much to know about. Definitely nothing interesting about my life."
"If you have his address, I can easily go whip his ass for you," he says, instead of feeding my insecurities.
I huff a laugh, not pulling away when he reaches out and swipes his thumb across my cheek.
"Tell me about yourself," I whisper, hoping he'll reciprocate.
He pulls in a ragged breath, and for a second I think he's going to deny me, but then he tells me about his own childhood and how being raised by parents who considered him and his siblings as props led to him joining the Marine Corps and not returning to his hometown when he got out.
"Cerberus called me up one day and offered me a job. I liked what they did, that they helped people in some of the worst situations, so I told them yes."
"As easy as that?"
"As easy as that," he agrees.
"You seem to make some really hasty life decisions."
I can hear the smile in his voice when he speaks.
"I'm starting to think my craziest decisions are going to be the best ones I've ever made in my life."