Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
DANI
Wade nearly leveled me with that question. My heart was thudding wildly in my chest with anxiety spinning in nervous flutters in my belly. You see, there were so many things I told myself I couldn’t have.
I’d never been good at relaxing, especially not with men. What happened with Wade, although it was in no way his responsibility, had fucked me up in the head. I was tense about sex. And yes, we used a condom. Turns out, they were right in sex ed—no birth control was one hundred percent.
I tried dating a few times, and it had never gone well.
I was too tense, even more tense than usual.
After that pregnancy and almost deadly miscarriage, I had a whole list of things to worry about if I were to get pregnant again.
One thing I knew about Wade was he had always wanted kids.
You’d think most high school boys wouldn’t talk about that, but he did.
What if I couldn’t give him something I knew he deeply wanted?
With Wade’s gaze on me like a laser, my mouth opened, then closed, and then opened again.
Wade’s big hand curled over mine again. I hadn’t even noticed I was cold.
I was so rattled. That pesky arousal that always seemed to flare whenever he was near kept me hot and bothered inside.
Meanwhile, this entire conversation was so unsettling that I was running hot and cold.
His thumb brushed back and forth over the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist. My eyes fell, almost shocked at the sight. This man who had once been a boy I believed I loved was now holding my hand.
Wade was a bear of a man. He easily cleared six feet and then some, with broad shoulders. The rest of him was all brawn and muscle, all the way to his hands. He had strong, rugged hands. The calloused surface of his palm holding mine sent little sparks skittering across the surface of my skin.
“There’s always something to lose,” I finally replied, my voice thick with emotion.
Wade’s thumb stilled, and I felt trapped in the intensity of his gaze. “Of course there’s always something to lose,” he replied slowly.
Like a sharp piece of gravel striking a windshield, with the sound enough to make you jump, I remembered Wade’s mother died when he was a little boy.
When his dad remarried, his stepmother adopted him.
She was lovely and wonderful and everything a boy could want in a mother.
Yet, he’d still lost his first mother. I suddenly felt small, not thinking about just how thoroughly he knew that lesson.
“Wade …” I began, quieting when he shook his head quickly.
“No need to go there, Dani. It’s just, I understand. I can’t say I know what it was like for you, but I know there’s always something to lose. I happen to think we lose the most by not even trying.”
We sat there at that small table, simply staring at each other.
With every second that passed, my heart knocked wildly inside my chest and flutters spun in my belly as heat suffused me.
Wade’s dark chocolate gaze chased away the chill lingering from my emotional dump.
It had been so hard to carry that secret.
I hadn’t realized just how heavy it had been until now when I had finally let it be known.
Sometimes secrets chipped away at your heart.
Are you really going to try to tell him now?
My go-to coping skills to deal with what had transpired between Wade and me had been avoidance and denial.
They went hand-in-hand. My avoidance was just not letting myself get too close to him.
I never denied the pain of what happened.
What I denied was letting myself think Wade could ever have meant more to me.
When Wade’s thumb brushed, just once, over my wrist, it sent a streak of fire chasing across my skin and spinning into the heat suffusing every fiber of my body.
I stood from the table abruptly, almost snatching my hand from his. Hugging my arms around my waist, I realized I was almost shaking. My go-to coping skills were failing, because if I couldn’t avoid him right now, then my denial couldn’t kick in and protect me.
I was fighting a war inside myself. Wanting to snap at him and tell him to fucking leave, and wanting to fling myself into his arms and ask him to make me forget everything.
But that way lay the abyss of uncertainty. I was so afraid to let myself really want him. Rising through the cacophony inside was my heart, beating fast and true. No matter what, I wanted Wade.
Wade, with his long freaking arms, reached out and caught the hem of my shirt, tugging me close. “Okay, stop thinking so hard. Look, I didn’t mean to push, or to rush you.”
He stopped when I shook my head. “You’re not pushing.”
His lips curled, just the slightest bit, at the corners.
The warmth in his eyes nearly undid me, because that was what made me fall so hard for Wade before.
Somehow, his presence was soothing to me.
Or it had been, once upon a time. The last few years, I’d been so busy avoiding him, and trying really hard to forget that.
I bit my lip, worrying it with my teeth. I tried to take a deep breath, but my pulse was a little too wild for that. “You’re not rushing me,” I finally said. “It’s just …”
When I couldn’t get the words out, Wade tugged me a little closer, reaching for one of my hands. I took a breath as his warmth closed around my cold hand again. “You always were a worrier. I would imagine now you worry more than you used to.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, my voice frayed. I hated the sense of vulnerability I felt when I didn’t have my guard up around him. But there wasn’t much to do about it.
“Well, lots of people worry about getting pregnant. Hell, we even used a condom. Didn’t much matter. It sounds like you went through hell.”
I suddenly didn’t want to dwell on this anymore. If denial wasn’t going to do its job anymore, I would just give in to the current of desire racing through me and sweeping me out to sea.
There was only one person who could keep it from sucking me under. And right now, his warm, dark gaze held mine.
“Can we stop talking?” I asked.
Uncertainty flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t back away. Wade wasn’t that kind of man. Oh no. He pulled me a little closer until I was standing between his knees. Blood rushed in my ears as my heartbeat galloped along madly.
Uncurling his hand from the hem of my shirt, his hands slid to the dip of my waist to rest on the other side. “Is this when you tell me to get the hell out of here?”
Hope shot up a flare in my heart, its brightness almost blinding in the darkness of the tiny corner where I’d shut it away.
I swallowed and shook my head. “No.”
Because I didn’t know what else to do, and I was all out of words, I lifted my hand, trailing my thumb over the scruff along his jaw.
I traced up around his lips right before I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.
With him seated and me standing between his knees, our faces were almost exactly level.
I could feel energy coming off of him in waves and the sense of restraint as he held himself back.
My heart, which I had armored behind steel doors and special locks, broke free. It felt achy and sore and naked, as if I had shielded it from the very sun for too long and now it might burn from the heat of it.
I needed Wade not to hold back. Because if he did, then I might start to think. And thinking never took me anywhere good. At least not when it came to Wade.
Drawing back just a tiny bit, I spoke. “Don’t you hold back on me, Wade.” My lips brushed against his with every word. The sensation was subtle, but each word sent streaks of heat spiraling through me where they spun into the fire building at my core.
“Bossy much?” he murmured.
The feel of his lips curving in a smile against mine sent my heart into a whirl. I giggled.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, this time my heart clenching so tightly it almost hurt.
Thank God I didn’t get a chance to think. Wade angled his head to the side, sliding one of his palms up my spine to tangle in my hair as he fit his mouth over mine and kissed me.
Our kiss got hot real fast. With his tongue gliding against mine and the low sound of approval that came from the back of his throat, I was a needy girl in a matter of seconds. Stepping closer, I sighed into his mouth at the feel of his hard, muscled chest pressing against me.
Restless, I made an impatient sound in my throat. He tore his lips free from mine on a groan. “Fuck, darlin’, you’re going to drive me crazy.”
“That’s what I was going for,” I said breathlessly.
In a distant corner of my mind, I marveled at myself. This girl—one who giggled, one who got breathless—was a girl I thought was long gone.
That same tiny corner of my mind was a little worried, a little worried I might fall too hard. I never had been able to sort out the tangle of how I really felt after the way things went sideways with Wade. It all got so messy, and I was a jumble of emotion, inside and out.
But when I looked into his eyes and saw nothing but desire, my thighs clenched, and I felt lucky. With every beat of my heart drumming that I should let go, this felt so right. I actually believed I shouldn’t worry about anything but this very moment.
“We’re not doing this in a chair,” Wade said gruffly as he loosened his hand in my hair and set me back away from him slightly.
“You got a problem with chairs?” I teased as I stepped back when he stood.
A hot shiver skated over my skin when he rose to his full height.
Back before I clung to denial and avoidance, I’d always loved how much of a man Wade was.
Even in high school, before he filled out completely, he exuded this easy sense of masculinity.
It wasn’t something he strived to be. He simply was.
Tall, strong, bordering on brawny, but with that easy smile and that generous spirit.