Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
It’d been a week since I slipped out of Siena’s house in the pre-dawn hours, my phone number scribbled on a piece of paper I’d propped up in front of the coffee pot, but she hadn’t called. One week of me obsessing about the curvy, dark-haired beauty and the best damn sex I’d ever had.
But my fixation wasn’t just about the sex either—though that had been good enough to fuck with my head—but everything else about our night together.
The way she seemed to see right through my bullshit.
The look on her face every time I made her laugh, like it surprised her each and every time.
And the way she touched me afterward—tender, reverent, like she couldn’t believe I was real.
So why hadn’t she called?
I was standing in front of the apples, mulling this over while debating between Granny Smith and Honeycrisp, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. Like a goddamned mirage.
She was on the other side of the produce section, dressed in a navy blazer and a tight pencil skirt, her hair twisted into one of those sleek updos that screamed “boardroom bitch” in the best possible way.
My pulse kicked up in anticipation as I moved toward her. But then she turned around, and my stomach dropped like a stone. This woman wasn’t Siena—not by a long shot—and if I weren’t so fucking hard up for her, I would have realized that before I went and got my hopes up.
This woman, beautiful though she was, didn’t have enough meat on her bones, and her hair was definitely lighter. In fact, nothing about her was right at all. She looked nothing like the curvy, dark-haired beauty who’d wrapped her luscious legs around me and moaned my name like a prayer.
I let out a rough breath and scrubbed my palm over the back of my neck. Jesus. I was seeing ghosts now.
Colt would have a field day if he knew I was stalking the produce aisle like a lovesick teenager.
I jammed six apples—I couldn’t even tell you what kind—into the reusable bag my brother’s girlfriend, Eden, insisted I use and spun on my heel to head toward the registers, cutting my grocery run short.
And ran straight into someone, the impact sending a jolt through me. I dropped the bag and watched in horror as apples bounced and rolled in every direction. A Granny Smith spun to a stop against a woman’s shoe.
“Shit. Sorry,” I muttered automatically, dropping down to gather up my wayward produce. Once I’d corralled them all back into the bag, I pushed to my feet, prepared to offer up a more sincere apology, only to have my next words die on my tongue.
There was no mistaking her this time.
Tan skin, big green eyes, and a full, luscious mouth. But instead of the slicked-back ponytail she wore that night, her hair was now a wild halo of curls cascading down her back. Her scent—that same one I smelled in my dreams—reached my nose, causing all the blood in my head to rush south.
“Siena.”
She looked just as stunned as I felt, frozen mid-step with her basket dangling from one arm.
“Gage,” she said, her voice high and breathy. Her gaze dropped to my mouth, and her cheeks went a little pink. Her eyes darted away like she’d been caught thinking something she shouldn’t. Like maybe she remembered how it felt to have me between her thighs—and maybe she didn’t want to.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “You okay, honey?”
She nodded, but there was a hint of hesitation in the motion.
“You sure?”
She pushed a curl behind her right ear and nodded again, this time more certain. “You didn’t bump into me that hard. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You, uh…” I gestured vaguely toward her outfit—jeans, trendy sneakers, and a soft, long-sleeved shirt stretched over her tits. “You look different.”
Her chin lifted an inch. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” I said quickly. She looked fan-fucking-tastic. “It’s just—” I rubbed the back of my neck, nerves prickling my skin. “You surprised me, is all. I thought I saw you a minute ago, but it turned out to be someone else. Then I turn around and here you actually are.”
She let out a soft, tight laugh. “Yeah. Here I am.”
A beat passed. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but didn’t dare. I also wanted to ask a dozen questions, but knew better than to launch them at her all at once.
So I went with, “Can I take you to dinner?”
Her brows lifted. “Now?”
I huffed out a laugh. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon. “No, not now. I meant tonight. Or tomorrow. This week. Sometime. Anytime.”
She shook her head, her faint smile dropping. “Gage.”
The way she said my name—her voice low and her tone sad and apologetic—made my gut twist. She was going to say no. I just knew it.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, her voice soft but certain as her gaze flicked momentarily away and then back again.
I blinked away my hurt. “Because?”
Dimly, I heard the sound of a kid crying a few aisles over and someone’s cart ramming into a display of cans somewhere behind me. I felt like the world should stop for what was happening, but it didn’t—it just went on, oblivious to my plans with this woman crashing down around me.
“It was one night,” she said, shifting the basket on her arm. “A great one, but I think we should leave it at that.”
I wanted to press, to shout from the rooftops that it’d been one of the best fucking nights of my life.
It wasn’t just the way Siena had come apart for me.
It was how I’d let myself go, too. I wasn’t usually like that with a hookup.
That rough. That dirty. I hadn’t held back with her, and she hadn’t asked me to.
Hell, she’d begged me for more. But what if she’d just been caught up in the moment?
What if I’d crossed a line without realizing it?
What if I’d scared her?
The thought made my knees feel weak.
“Can I know why?” I asked, my pulse thudding in my ears. “Was I too much? Did I do something wrong?
She glanced down, then back up. “No,” she said, and her voice wavered just a little. “It’s not that. It’s just … I think it’s better if we don’t see each other again.”
I stared at her, searching her expression, desperate for some kind of explanation that made sense. But she gave me nothing—just cool detachment and polite finality.
So I nodded slowly, forcing myself to accept it even as I wanted to beg her to see me again. “Okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I can respect that.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “Don’t love it, but I’ll respect it.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, wide and searching, like maybe she’d expected me to argue. Push. Make a scene.
But I wasn’t that guy.
And if I had hurt her, even unintentionally, the last thing I wanted to do was make it worse.
“Guess I’ll, uh … see you around. Or not.”
She hesitated, then gave me a faint nod before turning and disappearing down the aisle.
I stood there for a second, my fingers tightening around the handles of the bag.
It was just one night—she’d said so herself.
So why the hell did it feel like I’d just been gut-punched?
As soon as I stepped through the mudroom and into the kitchen, Colt raised an eyebrow from where he stood at the counter, shaking garlic powder into a mixing bowl.
“That all you got?” he asked, nodding toward the bag of apples.
“I thought you were picking up mayo,” my other brother, Nash, said from his stool at the counter. “And orange juice.”
“Forgot,” I muttered, tossing the bag onto the counter and grabbing Colt’s beer. I lifted it to my mouth and took a long pull from the bottle.
Colt shot me an annoyed look—for stealing his beer or coming home empty-handed, I wasn’t sure. Likely a mixture of both. “You forgot two things on a three-item list?”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, finishing off the beer and tossing the bottle into the recycling bin next to the sink.
“What the hell’s eating you?” Nash asked.
“He’s probably still mooning over that woman from the bar,” Colt said, smirking faintly as he started forming hamburger patties for later.
At the mention of Siena, my chest went tight.
Colt’s smirk faded as he glanced back up and met my eyes. “You heard from her?”
After a beat, I nodded. “Yeah. Ran into her just now at the store, actually.”
Nash leaned forward, resting his forearms on the counter. “And?”
I shrugged, trying to play it off like I wasn’t bothered. “She doesn’t want to see me again.”
Something unreadable flashed across Colt’s face. “Did she say why?”
“She said it was a great night, but that we should leave it at that.” I exhaled through my nose. “I asked if I did something wrong. She said no, but …” I trailed off, shaking my head.
Nash’s voice was cautious when he asked, “Did something happen to make you automatically think that?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Colt frowned down at the burgers. “That doesn’t make sense. You said it was good.”
“It was the hottest night of my life,” I said, and then felt myself flush. “But now I’m wondering if maybe I crossed a line. I was …”
I blew out a breath, trying to figure out how to explain to my brothers what that night had been like without giving them a play-by-play of all the ways I’d made Siena come.
“Rougher than usual,” I settled on, rushing to add, “not in a bad way, I don’t think. She asked for it. Hell, she begged for it. But I let go with her in a way I never do, and now I can’t stop thinking that maybe I scared her off.”
Nash was quiet for a beat, then he hopped down off his stool and crossed the kitchen to pull three beers out of the fridge. Passing one each to Colt and me, he popped the top off his. “Did she say you scared her?”
“No. Nothing like that.” The look on her face as she’d let me down came back to me, and I tried my damnedest to interpret her expression. Wary, yes. Conflicted, certainly. But not scared or frightened. At least I didn’t think so. “Just that we’d had our fun and should move on.”
“Some people don’t do repeats,” Colt offered. Then, with a snort, added, “You don’t do repeats.”
I huffed out a small laugh before my lips dipped into a frown.
“And the one time I want to, look where it gets me.” I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. “But it didn’t feel like that’s what this was.
I genuinely thought we connected. The way she looked at me … the things she said.”
Colt set a cooked burger on top of the growing pile. “You trusted her.”
It wasn’t a question; more a statement of fact.
I stared into my beer for a second, then gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah. I did.” My words came out sounding gruffer than I meant for them to, my voice thick with something that felt a lot like regret.
Truth was, I hadn’t let myself go like that with anyone in …
hell, maybe ever. Not just the roughness of it—though, yeah, that too—but the way I let myself want.
The way I hadn’t held back. There were secret, buried parts of me I kept locked up tight—desires I rarely acted on—because most women weren’t looking for a man who liked control the way I did.
Who enjoyed taking his time drawing pleasure out of a woman until she was near tears …
until she couldn’t speak. Until she was writhing and begging and completely and utterly at my mercy.
But Siena? She hadn’t just tolerated me at my most unrestrained—she met me there. Matched me stroke for stroke, word for filthy word. I didn’t just give her everything—I trusted her to take it.
And I thought she had.
Which was why this—the silence, the refusal to even talk about it—was fucking with my head more than I cared to admit.
“Yeah,” I said again, quieter this time, the truth of it settling low and heavy in my chest. “I trusted her.”
I swallowed another mouthful of beer, the bitter taste sharp on my tongue. “And now I can’t stop thinking that maybe I misread everything. I mean, clearly I misread everything, otherwise she would have jumped at the chance to see me again.”
For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Colt spoke, his voice quiet but certain. “I wish I had better news for you, brother, but she told you what she wanted, and now you have to respect it.”
I nodded, even though I hated that he was right.
I wasn’t a sit-back-and-see kind of guy.
If there was a problem, I found the solution.
If something needed fixing, I fixed it. Something wasn’t right about Siena’s reaction to seeing me again, and I chafed at knowing I couldn’t get to the bottom of that.
I pressed the heel of my palm to my chest and rubbed like I could smooth out the ache lodged beneath my sternum. “Just wish I knew what the hell went wrong.”
Colt’s gaze dropped forward with a slight shake of his head. His voice was low when he said, “Sometimes you don’t get answers, man. Doesn’t make your feelings any less real.”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The ache in my chest felt too heavy, too raw.