5. Chloe
five
“They don’t deserve you,” he says as he leans in for the whisper of a kiss.
His words mean more to me than the fact that he’s holding me in his arms, carrying me through the night, through my night. And that’s already more than anyone—anyone—has ever done for me.
So when he says that they don’t deserve me, instead of arguing like I normally would, I let it in. Hear it. Accept it for what it is—a measure of my value for this stranger, in this moment, just tonight.
The grip around my chest is no longer there. And god, I feel so good in his arms. Warm and safe and cherished.
“Are you comfortable?” I’ve been slouching on his legs for a while now, and he must be starting to feel stiff. “I’m feeling a little better, I could—”
His gives me a squeeze. “Stay here.” His eyes are pleading. “Unless you don’t want to,” he adds and starts moving.
I shoot my arm up his neck. “No. I like it here.”
He dips his face to mine. “I like you here too.”
My mouth opens, our breaths mingle again.
He closes his eyes. Rubs our noses together.
“Your turn,” I say softly against his mouth. “Why no girlfriend? Why the one-nights only?”
“I love women, don’t want the heartbreak.”
I try to ignore the plural, women, to focus on what’s important to him. “What heartbreak?”
“Losing someone.”
“So you had a bad breakup,” I prompt him. He’s not getting away with it so easily, not after what I shared with him. Not after how he talked to me about it.
“No. I caused heartbreak to my brother. He never recovered.”
My heart thumps hard in my chest, and it’s for him this time. How did he cause heartbreak to his brother? “Wh-what happened?”
He shakes his head. “Long story.”
I look around. It’s still dark, there’s no voices or sound of anyone trying to fix anything yet. “We have all night.”
He huffs an exhale. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Let’s start with the girl. Who was she?”
He tilts his head back against the faux wood panel. “Her name was Audrey. She was very pretty, and she was very much into my brother.” His voice is low and almost remote.
“Younger or older? Your brother.”
“Older brother.”
“How old was Audrey?”
“His age.”
“So older than you.”
“Right.”
“How old was everyone? I need context.”
He shuts his eyes and shakes his head with a chuckle. “You’re worse than Skye,” he says.
“Your friend’s six-year-old?”
“Right.”
“’Kay, back to Audrey. How old was she?”
“She was twenty-one, my brother was twenty-one, I was eighteen.”
A very pretty twenty-one-year-old who was into his brother. How does hot-as-sin fit into that? “Keep going.”
“We were at this party… and… I saw her crying in the corner… and I offered her a ride home.” His voice breaks a little. “That’s it.”
That’s it?“What happened?”
His gaze flutters around the elevator before settling on mine. “We got into a car accident.”
Oh crap. “She didn’t make it,” I whisper, hoping he’ll have another answer.
He shakes his head.
I want to ask him about the accident, what happened exactly, but I’m afraid of what I’ll hear. Maybe he was intoxicated? Maybe he was just too inexperienced and made a fatal mistake? “And you were driving,” is all I volunteer, just to make sure I got the basic facts right. The root cause of his guilt.
“Yup. Got hit. Couldn’t get her out of the car soon enough. Car caught up in flames. I tried.” His jaw clenches, the muscles rolling as he grinds his teeth.
I nudge my head against his chest and rock us back and forth. He leans over me to hold me tighter, and his arms crush me. His whole body is trembling, just like mine was before.
Two messed up people clinging to each other in a dark box suspended in midair.
We could be having sex right now.
I’ll take this instead, any day. With him, I’ll take this. This connection, this understanding. It’s more than I ever had with Tucker.
It could be because we’ll never see each other again.
Or it could be because of him. Of us.
I go over what he told me about the girl and the accident. He probably heard a thousand times that he wasn’t to blame. But I get it. He has survivor’s guilt. “Where does your brother fit into all this?”
“She was with him. I had no business driving her home.”
“But you found her—”
“I had no business doing that,” he bites.
Screw that.“You said you found her crying…”
“And I took advantage.”
More like, came to the rescue. “I bet it didn’t take much convincing for Audrey to get into your car.”
“I was always trying to one-up him.”
“So what? Seems like what any little brother would do.”
“It was selfish.”
“You were eighteen. You saw your chance to hook up with a beautiful twenty-one-year-old girl. I bet you already had game, back then.”
A sad smile shadows his face. “I saw her crying at the party, my brother nowhere to be found, and I saw my chance. I offered her my shoulder to cry on. Then I danced with her. Then I took her home, hoping to get lucky.”
“I don’t think she was that into him anymore.” It’s obvious to me his brother had just broken up with her.
“Doesn’t matter. She died, and the next day he enrolled.”
My throat tightens. His loss, his misplaced guilt, all that he’s bottled up. He has it way worse than I do. What could I possibly say or do right now, right here, to help him through this? “Maybe it’s time to let all that go,” I offer.
His soulful eyes meet mine, gutting me. “Yeah, maybe. Someday.” He shuffles his legs. “Looks like we’re in this for a while. You cold?”
“No. But I should get off you.” I start to wiggle, but his arms keep me right where I am.
“Not if I can help it.” Lifting himself on his heels, he slides us to the corner of the elevator and arranges me so I’m stretched out on him, my back to his muscular chest, his legs stretched under mine, his arms encapsulating me, my head leaned back against his throat, his chin on top of my head. His heartbeat is slow and steady, and his voices rumbles into my own chest when he asks, “Comfortable?”
“Never been better,” I whisper and close my eyes.
A flutter of lights blink on and off, waking me with a start. My eyes lock onto dark fabric, I register the inebriating smell of spice and soap, and I latch onto the arm holding me tight. I push myself up on him, and he lets me.
He blinks. “Did you get some rest?” He chases a stray hair out of my mouth and traces my cheek with his knuckles. Not ‘Hey, power’s back.’ Not, ‘Finally!’ No. He wants to know if I got some rest.
“I did.” I push myself off his chest and smooth his shirt. “You?”
His gaze roams my face, and his voice comes out raw when he says, “Best night of my life, Clover.” He doesn’t say it like it’s a joke.
He means it.
“Me too,” I whisper.
We should probably stand and get ready for the elevator to start, so I get up and hold the handrail while he stands and stretches. He puts his key card against the elevator panel, but nothing happens.
I take a shaky breath, needing to say what’s on my chest before the night gets away from us. “If we don’t get to sleep together. As in, you know…”
He takes my waist in his hands and brings me to him. “Still the best night of my life. By far.”
“Yeah, me too.” I swallow, a lump forming in my throat. “Umm… if we don’t, you know…. Does your rule still stand? The no names thing. The never seeing each other again. We could be just friends?”
He turns to face me, rakes his fingers in my hair as if he’s combing it, and this time he tucks it behind my ears and smooths it continuously, like a nervous tick. Like he’s thinking things through. “I could never be just friends with you.” With both his hands behind my nape, he brings me up to him and takes my mouth in his, a slow, soft, sad kiss. I strive to keep my eyes open, to commit him to memory. His eyelids are shut tight like someone who wants to—needs to—bottle everything up. Then he lets go of my mouth and holds me tight in his arms. “Never told anyone what I told you tonight. I want you to carry this for me. But I can’t be anything more. Can you give me that?”
I hold in my tears. “Of course.”
“One more thing,” he adds with a smirk. “No more assholes. Promise me.”
I force a chuckle. “Promise.”
Seeming satisfied, he tries the key card again, and this time it bleeps.
His hand freezes on the panel. “I don’t want to presume… it’d be understandable if you wanted to rest… you know. We already spent half the night together,” he whispers, the tickle of his mouth against my temple sending delicious shivers down my spine. “What do you want from the other half?” He sets his chin on the top of my head. His heartbeat drums against my core.
I tilt my face up to meet his eyes, now clear green in the bright light. My mouth goes dry. “I want more. I want everything. I want all of you.”