Chapter 31 A few orgasms and you’re all high and mighty #2
Reaching up, I grab her hips, allowing her to rock against me before slowing her. “We can’t do this.” I go to lift her off of me, but she takes my hands in hers, landing them on each of her boobs.
I groan in ecstasy.
“Touch me, Paddy.”
My thumbs involuntarily swipe over her nipples. The shrill whimper she makes has me thrusting my hips up.
Stop.
“Morgan.”
“Please, Paddy. I’m ready.”
“No.” I remove my hands and hold her arms behind her, sitting up straight. “Not yet.”
She’s breathing heavily, looking down at me. “If you love me, and I love you, then why can’t we do this?”
My teeth grind together. My heart squeezes. This isn’t how I wanted this weekend to go. But I can see the look in her eyes. She isn’t going to let this go. “Because I’m trying to do what’s best for you.”
She smiles but gives me a wry look. “I know what’s best for me.”
How can I tell her that isn’t strictly true. “Trust me?”
“I do trust you, Paddy. That’s how I know I want this.” Her hips subtly roll forwards, her slick pussy rubbing against me.
I drop my head to her chest. “Why do we have to rush this?”
“Because you showed me how to live in the now. And right now, I need you, Paddy.”
My head rolls side to side. “You need me to be the bigger person right now and see beyond all of this.”
Looking down at us both, Morgan lets out a sad sigh. “Okay.”
My grip on her arms loosens, and once she’s out from under my hold, she’s climbing off me.
Grabbing the duvet, she covers herself, and I know my shitty attempt to do the right thing has well and truly backfired. Her eyes never meet mine, her self-confidence dwindling right in front of me.
“Talk to me.” I lean forwards and sweep her curly locks that I love so much behind her ears in an attempt to make this right.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Her direct question has my body turning to ice, muscles rigid and tense. “How do you mean?”
“I mean,” she starts, tone thick with rejection, “what’s the problem? Why do you keep making me feel like I’m so special, then stop when I tell you I want more?”
My heart cracks. Sweat begins forming on the back of my neck. “It’s complicated.” I try in vain to ease her mind, seeing her getting more confused.
“Is it me?”
Yes. “No.” My hand pulls at the back of my neck.
She’s quiet. Watching me. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“You’re lying.”
“What?”
Morgan points at me. “You always do that when you’re lying.”
My hand drops to my lap with a thud.
Jumping off the bed, my heart hits my throat when she starts grabbing her clothes from her half open suitcase. If this goes how I think it’s about to, then I can kiss goodbye to her ever trusting me again.
I take the sheets with me, scrambling to stop her—to make her listen.
Listen to what? The truth?
I should tell her. Fuck. My head spins.
“Morgan.”
“No, Paddy. I can’t do this anymore.”
I take her hand in mine, but she snatches it back harshly.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Her eyes dart up. “Making me feel stupid.”
I frown at her. “I didn’t want you to feel stupid.”
“Well, you did.”
My gaze drops. This isn’t the right place to tell her what’s going on. But I need to give her something. Some slither of the truth that’s going to help her see why giving in to our needs would be so fucking disrespectful of me. I can’t do that to her. I won’t.
“Listen…” I manage to hold her gaze. “There are some things you need to know.”
“About you?” she counters quickly, pulling an over-sized T-shirt from her bag.
I shake my head as she pushes her arms through each hole, leaving off her bra. Her hair’s tangled wildly on top of her head, and she scrapes it off her face with an accompanying blow of her breath.
My heavy sigh has her glancing up at me before she grabs a fresh pair of knickers. Without looking at me, she slides them up her legs. “I know what you’re doing here, Paddy. You’ve been weird with me for the past week.”
I balk. “Weird with you?”
The waistband of her knickers snaps against her hips. “Like you’re scared I might break or something.”
She’s right. And it kills me.
Moving to the edge of the bed, I try to stay calm as she slides her jeans up her legs, fastening the button and pulling up the zip quickly.
“I’m looking out for you. That’s all.”
Standing with her socks in one hand, she deadpans me. “Looking out for yourself you mean.”
“What?” I ask gruffly, not understanding her at all.
She plonks her behind to the bed. It makes me wonder if I should be getting dressed too, because whatever’s racing through her head makes it look like she’s about to bail. Her movements are fast and bordering on panicked.
“You know exactly what I mean.” She puts one sock on.
“No, actually, I don’t.”
Followed by the other.
“You’re doing this for you,” she says sharply. Ice cold.
“Doing what?” I place a hand on her arm, feeling the instant warmth of her skin and the familiar pang of excitement that I do whenever she’s this close to me.
“Looking after me. You’re doing it for selfish reasons.”
Is that what she thinks?
You haven’t given her anything else, what is she supposed to think?
“That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Her head turns to me with caution. “Yes, it is. You’re too scared to go back to work, so you’re testing your skills on me.”
“Testing my skills? What the hell are you talking about?” My gruff voice sounds angrier than I mean it to, but I can feel my hackles starting to rise. I hate her thinking that I would do anything like this to her.
“You’re using me to see if you can still help people. Well, newsflash, City Boy, you can’t.”
City Boy?
That irks me. “Morgan, you’re talking nonsense.”
She springs off the bed like a jack-in-the-box. “Am I?” she hollers, both of her hands going into her hair. “Then prove me wrong. Explain it to me, Paddy. Explain to me why you let me close, then you push me away, over and over again.”
A tsunami of pain washes over me.
When Morgan notices my expression, she lets out a breath, steadying her shaky voice. “I don’t understand any of this. I love you, but it’s clear that has only ever been one way.”
Her words have me on my feet and closing the gap between us. “That’s bullshit,” I choke out, one hand holding the sheet around my waist, the other cupping the side of her face.
She tries to pull away but for the first time ever, I don’t give her the room. Fuck that. Not this time. She can’t think that the feelings I have for her aren’t real.
“I always do right by the people I love, you know that.”
Morgan frowns before she laughs. It’s fake. Filled with animosity.
“What is it you want me to do?” Because I’m trying here, baby. I’m really fucking trying.
“I don’t think you and I are right for each other. As friends, we’re great, but like this,” her hand flicks between us, “it’s not going to work.”
She might as well have put a bullet in my brain. Agony. Total. Fucking. Agony. That’s all I feel.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?” she counters with a snap, and I have never seen her so sure about anything in my life.
I stare at her. Muscles tense and rigid.
My throat burning. “I actually take back thanking you for putting so much time into me,” she huffs distastefully again, before turning to the window in our room.
“I mean, if you didn’t provoke these wild emotions in me, I wouldn’t have done half the things I have in the time we’ve been hanging out.
I thought I was grateful,” she lets loose a pained sigh, “but I wish you had never bothered.”
I turn on the spot, scrubbing a hand down my face.
Seeing her so emotional is tearing me to pieces.
I have to look away. I have to gain some fucking composure.
“Spending time with you was never about me. I wanted to spend time with you because I fucking love you, Morgan. You helped me in a way that I didn’t know I needed.
The only thing I regret is leaving here three years ago.
But everything else I would do a thousand times over if it meant I got to spend more time with you. ”
“So?” she says softly but dismissively, with enough force to hurt.
I turn to face her. “So,” I begin, edging closer to her, gripping the sheet tighter. “I would give up everything for you in a heartbeat if I knew it would make you happy.”
“Why?” she asks, this time looking over her shoulder at me.
“Because I love you, curly fries. Always have done. Always fucking will do.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No.” I take another step forward. “You’re my be all and end all, Morgan Brooks. My forever. The reason why I’m still here working a shitty arse job with my old man.” I swallow and take a breath, keeping my emotions in check.
“You’re here because you can’t go back to work yet. Don’t make out like it has anything to do with me.”
“Actually, I was given the all clear to go back last weekend.”
Her voice raises instantly. “What?”
Sweet Jesus, I keep making this worse. I blow out my cheeks. “Tom called me.”
“So you lied to me? Twice.” Her voice cracks like frozen ice.
I bite the inside of my mouth, tasting copper. “I’m sorry.”
Her voice wobbles. “No, I’m sorry. Sorry for ever trusting you.”
As she strides past me, I reach for her hand, but I’m met with the full force of her palm.
My cheek stings. A flare of pain zips across my face, and the harsh sound echoes in my ears.
She stares at me for the longest time, both of us in silence, shocked by her reaction. She’s never done anything like that before.
Ever.
I’m not sure what my next move should be, but just as I’m about to open my mouth to tell her it’s okay, a tiny huff of air leaves her. She turns and strides towards the door.
She’s leaving.
Leaving me.
Walking away from everything because she doesn’t trust me.
The quiet sting of her creating distance fills me with dread.
She doesn’t understand.
“Morgan, you can’t leave.”
“I have to,” she stammers back, feet staggering as she dumps them into her shoes.
“You can’t.” My tone is urgent. Panicked. Stressed. She isn’t listening. She can’t hear me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck do I do?
Like an eruption that I have no control over, my lips part, and every single doubt that has plagued me and twisted my head over the past few months, pours out of me like a river bursting its bank.
I can’t control it.
Can’t stop it.
“You’re not well.”
Her feet stop, her fingers on the door handle; eyes turning scared, she twists her head to me.
She waits for the explanation she deserves.
I sigh heavily, knowing there’s no going back. “You’re sick, Morgan.”
Her eyes glaze over; something I’ve never seen happen before.
“Can you hear me, Morgan? You need help.”