Chapter 31
JOSHUA
When I come back to the bedroom with a glass of water for Molly, the room is still heavy with the scent of her, of us, the air thick with the aftermath of what just happened between us.
My body hums with the memory of her, the feel of her skin beneath my hands, the way she gasped my name in the dark.
And yet, as I cross the room and get back into the bed beside her, while I feel like the heat between us has barely cooled down, she seems to feel differently.
She accepts the glass of water and takes her purse from me too.
She puts the glass of water down on the bedside cabinet and gets the birth control pills out of her purse and pops one out.
She puts the others back and closes her purse and then picks the glass back up and she swallows the birth control pill down with the water.
She puts the glass back on the bedside cabinet beside her again, and she puts her purse down on the ground next to it.
Finally, she turns her head to face me, dragging the sheet up over her chest like it’s some kind of barrier between us. This whole time, she hasn’t said a word and when she finally does speak, I wish she hadn’t.
“This can’t happen again,” she says, and her voice is soft, but firm. She sounds determined and I hate that. I really thought she was dropping this shit after the lovely time we’ve had together today and to be honest, it’s beginning to get a little bit old.
I shift myself slightly so that I can see her face. She won’t look at me, but I can see the way her fingers clench in the fabric, how her breath isn’t quite steady yet. I should let it go. I should nod and say sure, whatever you want, and leave it at that. But I don’t.
“Why not?” I ask.
She exhales sharply, shaking her head.
“You know why not.”
“No, actually I don’t,” I tell her. “I know you say it’s because we work together, but it has to be more than that. No one who gels with someone like we do walks away from that for such a trivial reason. So, what is it really?”
She sighs loudly and shakes her head. Her face is unreadable except for her eyes - her eyes tell a different story to the one she’s spinning with her words.
There’s heat there still, flickering beneath her resolve.
There’s a war raging inside her and its one she could easily win if she would just let me in.
“It’s not just that,” she says after a moment. “It’s everything. It’s …” She hesitates, pressing her lips together before shaking her head. “It’s complicated, Joshua.”
I let out a low laugh, running a hand through my hair.
“Complicated?” I repeat. “That’s just a lame excuse. It’s only as complicated as we make it.”
She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. This was a mistake,” she says. She’s starting to sound agitated, but I push on anyway. I’m the one who is getting used here and she needs to either fess up or give in and accept the fact that we belong together.
When I speak again, I try to keep my voice soft and neutral, but I think she can probably hear the frustration prickling at the edges of my patience.
“Do you really believe that?”
Molly doesn’t answer right away. And that, more than anything, tells me what I already know. If she truly thought it was a mistake, she wouldn’t be sitting here, still tangled in my sheets, still flushed from my touch.
“Look at me,” I say, my voice quieter now. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you don’t want me.”
Her jaw tightens, her hands fisting in the sheet. But she doesn’t say it. She can’t.
I reach out, tracing the line of her arm, my fingers brushing over the goosebumps rising on her skin.
She swallows hard, closing her eyes for a long moment before she finally turns to face me.
And there it is. That flicker of something more, something deeper.
She wants me. She wants this. But something is holding her back.
“I can’t,” she whispers, but there’s no conviction behind the words.
I lean in, my lips grazing the curve of her shoulder, my voice low against her skin.
“You keep saying that, and yet here you are.”
“Yes, here I am,” she agrees. And she gives me a grin. It’s small, almost teasing me with its just there presence, but it’s there all the same.
“Well,” she murmurs, tilting her head just slightly, enough that I can see the spark in her eyes, the mischief, the challenge. “Seeing as I’m already in your bed, it wouldn’t be a new mistake, just an extension of this one.”
My breath catches, anticipation thrumming through me like an electric current. But am I really going to do this after she’s literally just said I’m a mistake? She might not really mean it but the fact she still keeps saying it does sting a bit.
“We might as well make the most of tonight,” she adds, and she puts her head down and she peers up at me through her lashes.
My restraint snaps. Fuck it. She can say I’m a mistake all she likes as long as she’s in my bed.
I grab her, pulling her against me, and her laughter is warm against my lips before it dissolves into something deeper, something desperate and filled with longing.
Her hands are in my hair, her nails are biting into my skin, and whatever resistance was left between us vanishes like smoke in the dark.
Tomorrow, she’ll probably pull away again. Tomorrow, she’ll tell me it was another mistake, that it can’t happen again.
But right now? Right now, she’s mine, and I intend to make the most of the time we have left together. And if that means I get hurt in the morning, well it’s not much different to letting her walk away now except I will have a few extra hours with her first.