Chapter Ten
I didn’t want to talk about Mike.
If Eric was my ‘sweet first love’ story, and Derek was my first ‘done me wrong’ story, and Timir was my ‘wrong-place-wrong-time’ story, then Mike was my ‘what the ever-loving hell were you thinking’ story.
Every woman had at least one.
And no one ever wanted to discuss them. Least of all to a man they had made out with and had at least a begrudging respect for.
Because no one wanted to admit they were stupid enough to make such a huge, epic mistake.
I had.
Mike was the mistake of a lifetime.
The worst part of it was the fact that I hadn’t been eighteen and stupid. I hadn’t been drunk. I hadn’t been duped or coerced into it. I had, quite frankly, known exactly what I was getting into, and I went ahead and dove in anyway.
And I had been the ripe old age of twenty-seven at the time.
“So I had no fucking idea if you like sushi, but I ordered enough for two, including some veg rolls in case fish isn’t your thing.”
“Fish is good,” I said, going to the kitchen as Sawyer reached in the bag and pulled out tray after tray of rolls and one container of seaweed salad.
“Dig in,” he suggested, handing me the chopsticks that I pulled apart and used to mix some wasabi into my soy sauce. “Alright,” he said, having eaten his first bit while my mouth was still full. “Tell me about him, Riya.” I chewed and shook my head, looking down at the counter.
He paused long enough for me to think he was going to let it go.
“When I was fresh out of the military, the first time I had stepped on American soil in more years than I care to admit, I fell into bed after bed, trying to make up for lost time or trying to find some softness after so many years of hard. Fuck if I know which. Anyway. I grew up with this kid, Matt. He went into the service with me and Brock, but he went home a lot sooner and started his life over. One drunken night at a bar, I hit on his baby sister. I brought her back to my place. We had a one-night thing. Neither of us wanted more than that. Her, because she knew that I wasn’t in a settling-down phase.
Me, because once I sobered up, I knew what an epic fuck-up the whole thing was.
Matt found out. To this day, he still won’t speak to me. ”
My gaze went to his somewhere in the middle of his story, my brows drawn together. “Why are you telling me this?”
“We all fuck up, babe. We do stupid shit. Especially where the opposite sex is concerned. It happened. It’s over. Stop being so sore about it. What happened with Mike?”
Stop being so sore about it.
That made it sound a lot more simple than it was in reality.
I shook my head, letting out a breath. “I fell in love with him.”
“And that is a bad thing because…”
“Because he was married,” I admitted, the shame of that reality making my gaze drop again, making my cheeks heat, making my belly twist up enough that I put down my chopsticks because I was pretty sure there was no way I was going to eat.
“Alright…”
“I didn’t know at first,” I rushed to add. To me, that was important. It didn’t make what followed any more forgivable, but I felt it at least took a small speck of the awfulness of the whole thing away.
“But you knew eventually. That’s why you can’t make eye-contact right now,” he guessed.
“Mike was a lot of things—smart, successful, charming, handsome, cultured, funny, a good cook. Really, he was the whole package. I should have known men who are the whole package are almost never single.”
“How’d you find out?”
“We had been dating for about four months when we had to stop at the food store because he was making some epic family recipe of his. It was apparently some kind of big deal to him to make it for me. I was just coming back from grabbing the green onions he forgot when I saw him kissing a pretty blonde woman’s cheek.
Then I watched as he put his items in her cart while this woman positively beamed at him.
And it was right then that some inconsistencies started to stack and make sense. He was married. That was his wife.”
“What happened after that?”
I snorted. “He left the food store with her. I watched him do it. He caught my eye on the way out, ducked his head, and just kept going. I had left my purse at home, so I had no money to even call a cab. I had to walk home,” I recalled, remembering how mad that particular part had made me.
Not only was he a jackass cheater, not only had he made me the other woman, but then he had absolutely no concern about making sure I got home safely.
“But that wasn’t it.”
“It was for a long time. Then one night he showed up with two big suitcases. He said he had left his wife, that he wanted to start over with me, that he was a giant, unforgivable ass, but that he hoped I had it in me to forgive him.”
“So you did.”
“I loved him. Stupid of me, but that’s not really something you have a lot of control over, I guess. He moved in. Things were good for two weeks.”
“Until…” he prompted, putting down his chopsticks and planting his hands wide on the counter.
“Until I woke up alone in the bed and went to look for him. When I walked past the bathroom, I heard him on the phone. He was telling his wife some bullshit about being at a conference and that he would be home soon. He missed her and loved her and… yeah. We were so done then.” I paused, shaking my head at myself.
“I should have known, really. They never leave their wives.”
“That’s not untrue,” he agreed, and I figured he would know a lot about that in his line of business. “What happened after?”
“I found his wife and I told her. I let her scream at me because I felt I deserved it. Then I helped her figure out all the tired-ass lies he fed her so if she wanted to pursue a loophole in their prenup, she could. And then… that was it,” I said, shaking my head.
“Hey,” Sawyer’s voice said, but suddenly it wasn’t from across the counter; it was right at my side.
When my head lifted, I looked right into his deep green eyes, his head ducked just a little so he could give me full eye contact.
“Three things,” he started, giving me a small smile.
“One, you didn’t know at first. That doesn’t make you the bad guy.
That makes him the bad guy. Two, when you did know, it was over.
And when he showed back up again, you believed him.
That’s what happens when you love someone: you believe them.
You can’t love someone and be suspicious of them all the time and doubt what they say when their words and actions all seem to point to them being truthful. ”
I took a deep breath, finding I had been holding it, waiting for the judgment. Somehow, I was really worried he would think less of me. Why that mattered so much, I wasn’t sure. But it did.
“And three?” I asked when he didn’t go on.
“Three is simple,” he said, reaching out and putting his forefinger under my chin, angling it up further.
“Eric, Derek, Chris, and Michael were fucking idiots. They had you, and they all fucked it up. Timir, we will have to leave out since he wanted to lock you down, and you fucked it up,” he added with a smirk that I felt myself smiling at.
“You can’t start doubting that you’re a good person because other people dicked you over. ”
His thumb moved out to stroke up my cheek and a small shiver moved through my body at the sweetness of it.
I realized as I sat there with a man who was, for all intents and purposes, all but a stranger to me, that he actually knew me better than all the men aforementioned.
That was a strange situation to find myself in.
Usually, it took weeks or months or even years with someone for all the deep, hidden, dark, or dirty secrets to come out.
Sawyer had learned them all in a matter of days.
It was a truly unique circumstance to find myself in, and it made me feel almost overwhelmingly vulnerable around him.
“There’s that look again,” he said, his voice dropping a little, referencing the look I gave him that led him to kiss me the last time.
“I can’t help it,” I admitted.
“I know,” he said, the corner of his lips tipping up, but the humor didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m just so goddamn irresistible.” I let out an unexpected snort that had that half-smile of his turning into a full one. “Yeah, that’s good for the ego.”
“My life’s mission—to stroke the ego of already cocky men.”
“There are two words in that sentence that I would like a lot more if they were put together,” he teased, but there was a heat in his eyes again.
“Stop,” I said, shaking my head at him.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like you know…”
“That you have on navy blue lace panties that half of your ass must hang out the bottom of?” he asked, and he was right.
His body shifted slightly closer, his finger moving slowly down the column of my neck, over my clavicle, then down my chest. “I wonder if the bra matches,” he mused, his gaze following his finger as it traced over the swell of my breast that didn’t have a bra covering it at all.
His fingertip slid over the hardened peak of my nipple, making my back arch as I took a deep breath.
His breath rushed out of him as his hand shifted sideways, his fingertips going toward the side of my breast as his thumb started gently moving over my nipple in circles.
A low, almost inaudible whimper escaped my lips, but Sawyer heard it, and his gaze rose, his eyes heavy-lidded as he watched me, taking my nipple between his thumb and forefinger and rolling it, making my hand slap down on the counter to keep on my own two feet at the rush of almost overpowering desire.