Chapter 33
ADAM
Everything past the reception post-bouquet/garter toss, was a blur, a countdown to being alone in the house with Billie. And now we were. I let us inside, the leftover scent of her perfume swirling around me the moment I shut the door. For a long heartbeat, neither of us moved.
“I’m…” Billie began but then stopped and just stared at me.
I held my breath waiting to hear what Billie was going to say.
“Thirsty,” she blurted out before turning around and retreating to the kitchen.
Thirsty. Right. Okay.
I followed behind the clicking of her heels.
The kitchen was cast in midnight blue, the only light coming from the fridge, which Billie opened in search of water.
I leaned against the counter, watching her from a few feet away, the same way I’d watched her all night.
The dress she wore was dark green, sleeveless, with a skirt that fell just above her knees.
I’d spent the entire reception picturing what it would look like in a pile on the floor, envisioning what she’d look like out of it.
She poured two glasses and handed me one. Her hands shook just a little, just enough for me to notice. I took the cup from her, our fingers grazing, the contact brief but electric.
“Thanks,” I said.
After taking a sip, she leaned against the counter across from me. “It was a beautiful wedding. It was very Bailey.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. It had been beautiful. All the more so because of her. “Your sister seems happy, they both do. You did an amazing job with them.”
Her shoulder lifted in a shrug, dismissing the compliment.
“I’m serious. I was here, I know how much you did for them.
Your grandparents were great, they provided a roof over your heads, and food on the table, but you were the one who took care of them, the day-to-day stuff.
Homework. Baths. Fights. That was all you.
I wasn’t here for the teenage years, but I have to assume it was you who dealt with the first heartbreaks, taught them to drive and helped with their SAT prep.
College. It was a lot to be on you. You did good, they are happy. ”
Tears started to form in her eyes. She looked down at the ground as she sniffed. “Thanks.”
It got quiet for a while. The silence stretched on.
A car drove past on the street, its headlights flashing through the curtains, and Billie’s eyes followed it as if she were searching for an escape route.
I could feel her thinking. I could feel her pulling away, even as she stood a few feet from me, and I wanted nothing more than to bridge the distance.
She finished her water, set the glass down, and exhaled. “I should… get some sleep.”
She turned in the direction of the stairs, paused, and looked back at me. Her face was open, vulnerable, the mask she wore for everyone else dropped. “Goodnight, Adam.”
I wanted to stop her. Every cell in my body ached to move, to pick her up and set her on the island and ask her to just stay, please.
To beg her to stay. Not just for tonight, but for every night.
To actually be my wife. But that wasn’t fair.
She didn’t want kids. She never wanted kids.
She declared that at eight years old and never changed her stance on it. So, I didn’t move.
“Goodnight, Billie,” I managed. My voice sounded disconnected from my body’s, like someone else’s.
She walked away, her steps slow and measured.
When she reached the bottom of the steps, she stopped, backlit by the soft glow from the porch light.
For a second I thought she’d keep going.
But she turned around. She looked at me with those storm-green eyes, and I felt every regret I’d ever had gather in my throat.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what?” My voice was gravelly with arousal.
“The fact that we had sex,” she stated bluntly.
The words echoed, bouncing off the tiled entry and the empty rooms filled with the years of things we hadn’t said. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I gripped the edge of the countertop, holding myself in place, because if I let go, I’d be across to her in a second.
I felt as if my heart was about to explode from my chest. Not because Billie had caught me off guard—though, fuck, the way she’d pivoted at the threshold and put me on trial nearly knocked my knees out—but because I’d wanted this conversation and dreaded it in equal measure.
I wanted to grab her, to make her understand all the things I couldn’t say without screwing them up, and to do it in such an embarrassing, undignified way that I’d leave her no choice but to walk away from our friendship.
She stood there, her left hand curled around the banister, knuckles white, cheeks flushed. She was so damn beautiful that I had to bite the inside of my cheek just to remember how breathing worked. I looked down at the ground and tried my best to compose myself.
“Do you really not have anything to say? Did it mean that little to you?” she asked, and there wasn’t any venom in her voice, just this raw, vulnerable curiosity that sounded like hope and terror all at once.
I made myself meet her gaze, and when I did, I could feel the tension in me coiling tighter, not releasing.
“Yeah, it means so little—” I pressed my palms to the counter, like if I didn’t anchor myself to the granite, I’d go floating right through the roof.
“—that I haven’t stopped thinking about it, not for one second of the day.
Having you here has driven me crazy. I’ve spent every day telling myself it didn’t matter, that I had to forget it happened so I didn’t say something or do something that would—” I stopped myself.
Her chest was rising and falling in short breaths. “That would what?”
The way she was looking at me told me that I wasn’t the only one feeling the things I was feeling, but I knew that in the morning she’d regret it, just like last time when we got back to the house and she regretted it.
She didn’t speak to me for two weeks after we had sex.
I didn’t want this to jeopardize our friendship, or become a habit she regretted. “It doesn’t matter. Just go to bed.”
“No. Tell me.”
My jaw ticked. “I’m not saying anything because I’m scared I’ll say the wrong thing.”
“The wrong thing?” she repeated.
“Yes, I’ll say the wrong thing and you’ll leave, or I’ll say the right thing and you’ll stay, and then ten years from now you’ll leave, and either way, the result is the same. I lose you.”
“Ten years…leave…what are you talking about?” She shook her head. “We slept together, I just want to know what you think about it. You’re not going to lose me.”
I stared at her, not sure why she was playing this game. She had to know, had to know how I felt.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“You really don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“How bad I want you? How much I’ve wanted you since…
forever. How you being here has driven me crazy.
How it’s taken every ounce of self-control I have not to strip you out of your clothes and touch and kiss and lick every single inch of your body, to bury myself inside of you, especially since you became my wife.
I know it’s not real. I know it’s just on paper, but fuck, it feels different.
You feel different to me.” I took a breath, my chest constricting.
“So, did it mean that little to me? It meant everything to me. You mean everything to me.”
She stared at me, not speaking. My heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear anything else. Maybe I’d gone too far.
“Billie, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have—”
She cut me off by closing the distance between us and kissing me.
The world shrank down to just the space between our mouths.
Her lips were soft, but the kiss was urgent, like we were making up for all the years we wasted pretending we were nothing but friends, nothing but people who circled around each other without ever giving in.
She tasted like lime and salt from the margaritas she’d had at the wedding, and I was sure I tasted like desperation.
Her hands curled up to my jaw, fingers trailing over the scruff, and I almost lost it when she pressed her body against mine, heat rolling off her in waves.
I pulled her closer, one hand at her waist, the other sliding up her spine.
The satin of her dress was slick beneath my palms, but I wanted to feel her, not fabric.
I found the zipper and worked it down, slowly, giving her time to stop me if this wasn’t what she wanted.
She didn’t stop me. She didn’t even hesitate.
She moved in, tilting her head, deepening the kiss, her tongue teasing mine.
She made an impatient sound in the back of her throat, and she nipped my bottom lip with her teeth, sending a surge of arousal straight to my groin.
A shudder ran through my body as I gritted out against her mouth, “You’re killing me.”
She pulled back just long enough to drag her gaze over me, from my face to my chest to the part of my body that was already straining against my pants. “I’m returning the favor.”
My brows furrowed in confusion.
“When you left, you took a part of me with you. A part of me died inside.”
I could see what the sincerity in her confession cost Billie.
Her admission caused an urgency to roar in me. I pulled her to me, my tongue claiming her in an impatient, possessive kiss. She was mine, even if she wasn’t.
We were standing in the kitchen, her sister’s reception was still going on next door, but the world had dimmed to just Billie and me, our bodies fused together with a heat I’d spent years pretending didn’t exist. The first kiss had been a desperate fusion, now every brush of her lips was calculated torture, every bite and tug at my mouth dialing up the need until my body screamed for release.
I craved her in a way that was almost painful.