Epilogue #2
I reach past her and pull the coverlet back.
Not like a man undressing a woman. Like a man preparing shelter.
A quiet place to land after the war has ended.
I expect her to perch on the edge or fuss about the pillows, but she doesn’t.
She kicks off her heels and climbs in slowly.
Curling onto her side in the middle of the mattress, almost in a fetal position if she were tucked in tighter.
She looks small. Weary. Her body knows this pose too well. Like she’s lain here too many nights like this, alone, lonely, and hoping that it will erase something that never fades.
“I don’t know what to say, Babs.”
She shoves the top of the covers down, reaches a hand to the mattress, and pats it.
“There’s. . . there is nothing to say,” she whispers, her gaze moving from me to the bedroom door still left open.
I cross the room in quick strides, close and lock it. They’ve heard enough. She deserves privacy to sleep, rest, or fall apart. I sit on the edge beside her. Not touching, just there. Her eyes close, but she doesn’t drift off. She’s still awake inside, circling the storm.
“I didn’t know,” I say softly, more to the air than to her. “I didn’t know how deep it went.”
She doesn’t respond, but her eyes open. A tear slips down her temple into the pillowcase.
“Will you?”
Her voice trembles. Falling off again. Completely unsure.
“Will I what?”
“Hold me.”
It’s light. Weightless in volume. Heavy in yearning.
I work my boots off, leaving dirt on her expensive rug.
Another thing she’d fuss over if things were different.
With her facing toward me, I round the other side of the bed.
Slipping in behind her. Avoiding her dark eyes, her openness, and those tempting lips I want to kiss pain from.
I lie beside her. Not pressed against her. Not invading her space. Just close enough that she’s not alone. That this time, when the world caves in and the lights go out, someone stays.
Her breathing is uneven.
“You must think the worst of me, Hollister.”
She glances back, finds my arm, and places it over her waist. Reaching for me and sending different signals to my brain and cock. To distract the tingling bringing my balls to life, I speak again. Quiet and close to her ear.
“I don’t.”
She looks straight ahead, staring into space.
“How could you not? I sound like an unfit mother. Maybe I was. I’m sure of it.”
“You sound like you were young. With no support.”
I leave out the part of her bastard husband that doesn’t deserve to walk this earth after what he did to his own family.
“You had no one to turn to and didn’t know what to do.”
She frowns.
The only response I get.
I know she doesn’t believe me, finding them as excuses.
One whispered to her son, who threw it right back, saying it wasn’t good enough.
It’s a hopeless cycle that can’t be solved.
Just an acknowledgement of what it was, loaded with mountains of hurt and apologies and a delicate thread of a promise to try again.
“You said he’d hate you. Instead, he hates me.”
“I wouldn’t call it—”
She turns, sharp, cutting me in half with her venomous look. It’s a rally cry. I see it as her not being weak and wilting under the pressure of their relationship, but as a strength that she’s lived with heartbreak and still went on with her life.
“Don’t say he doesn’t. You saw it just as much as I did.”
I release a long sigh. Choosing my words carefully.
“I wouldn’t say hate. But anger, devastation, and heartbreak, yes. All those things. A mirror to you, actually.”
She nods faintly, but says nothing. Just stares past me into the shadowed corner of the room, like the memories are thickest there.
I shift closer, slowly. Let my hand rest more firmly across her middle. The soft dip of her waist warms beneath my palm. Her fingers find mine and squeeze not hard, but tight enough as if clinging to a lifeline.
“Not the only one who failed him, you know,” I murmur, voice low, threading into the dark like a confession. “We all did.”
“No,” she whispers, eyes still locked on the shadows. “No one failed him like I did. Maybe my ex.”
The quiet that follows is unbearable and hollow.
An emptiness I don’t know how to fill. So I dust my lips over her shoulder.
Her breath hitches, and her fingers flex in mine.
She moves closer, but I stop kissing her.
I’d love to be with her in that way. Love to make both of us feel far better than we do.
“I know this isn’t the time—”
“It is,” she cuts me off, changes sides to face me. Her hand on my cheek. “It’s the only time. Because if you touch me when I’m composed again, I’ll pretend I don’t need it. I’ll pretend I’m fine. That I don’t ache for it.”
I go still, every muscle taut. Wanting her. Knowing it’s a shitty move if I allow it to happen.
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not.”
Her eyes well up again. Shimmering in the low light, but she doesn’t blink them away. She holds my gaze. Testing whether I’ll flinch. Whether I’ll run now that I’ve seen it all. The grief, the guilt, and the ugly fallout of a life lived too long in silence.
Leaving is the last thing I want to do, even if I’m unsure about what we are to each other. I lean in, brush my lips to her cheekbone, and collect her tears with my mouth. I kiss the salt. The sorrow. Her strength. Her hand slides into my hair and holds me there.
“Make me forget.”
Her voice breaks. Lip tucking into her teeth. Not sexy, more unsure.
“Babs.”
Everything about this feels wrong. Feels off, even if I want it more than anything. I want to lose myself in her. Rewind these silent days, text messages, and voicemails. Go back to the Hamptons. Our fortress by the sea, where nothing and no one could reach us.
“I’m not sure.”
Her hand moves out of my hair, slips down to the side of my neck, and rests there.
“I am.”
I want to believe her. My cock and balls want to be in her. But she left me hanging. My necklace is gone from her neck. Replaced with those damn pearls of her ex-husband. Another thing I thought she had moved on from.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I whisper, searching her dark eyes as if they hold the answers.
Her stare is long. Her lip releases from her teeth in an exaggerated sigh.
“If I hadn’t come today, if I hadn’t been here because Dom asked and I thought he needed me.
. . I mean, I was worried. About you and me and whatever is happening. Which I thought was nothing.”
Being tangled up with her on her bed is testing my resolve. My cock is half hard with my hand full of her body. My mind is cloudy and numb after everything that has happened.
“Why didn’t you call me back? Not even a text, Barbara.”
I do the only thing responsible and untangle myself from her. Moving to the edge of the bed, to clutch the covers. Turning my back to her helps me focus as I stare at her soft rug.
“Don’t you see? I couldn’t fix us without fixing him and me.”
The bed dips behind me. The palm of her hand on my shoulder blade. Her cheek leans into my arm.
“I tried. I went over there on Sunday. Met his girlfriend. Tried to talk it out, but it was a disaster. I kept trying, but he wouldn’t take my calls either.”
Another sigh ripples out of her. Hot against my shirt. A revelation I didn’t know. While I was reaching for her, she was reaching for him. Logically, I understand. But everything else in me hates it. Wanting to be reached as equally, if not more than I am reaching out to her.
“I don’t know what happened to bring him and you here today.”
She pauses, her hand rubbing soothing circles over my tight muscles.
“And now?” I probe her, still waiting for her to reach for me.
Not physically like she suggested a second ago, but emotionally. Truly wanting me after all those embarrassing and practically begging messages I left her.
“And now, things are different. The last conversation we had in the observatory was my worst fear, about my son finding out. That already happened. One obstacle cleared.”
I glance down at her. She’s right and wrong. We have so much more mileage between us.
“And?”
She’s so wound up in her emotions and not used to sharing that it’s back to pulling teeth.
“And, I want us to stay very careful and very discreet. That,” she pauses, looks toward the door before continuing, “Today is enough confrontation for a while. I’d prefer not to have any more, especially in public. Private in my own home, where the staff will talk, is already an issue.”
Her hand slips from my back. Pushing me back to crawl into my lap and straddling my legs so we are eye to eye. Her arms wind around my shoulders. My hands drift down to cup her trim waist, ensuring she won’t fall backwards.
“Is that too much to ask?”
Very careful and very discreet.
Those words ring back again. The first time I agreed to them, it was more fun and almost taboo. It’s like keeping a secret that no one knows about, but this time, everyone in my tight inner circle knows.
Her requirements for privacy are from the world.
From her ladies at the club. The society circles we orbit.
That shit doesn’t matter to me. If she wants to remain in the cocoon I created for us in the Hampton, but here in Boston, I’ll be all for not sharing her with anyone ever.
Keeping her locked in with me, just enjoying and pleasuring each other, makes me happy. Brings me hope.
“No, Barbara. Today was enough.”
For the first time since I got here, I smile. Then I kiss her. Not to seduce but to anchor. To remind her who she is with me. Seen, free, wanted, and now safe.
Her lips tremble beneath mine, then open.
Hungry and desperate. She tugs at her skirt, pulls it higher to inch closer to me.
I have a better idea. Cupping her ass, I stand, never breaking the kiss.
Her arms tighten around my neck, clinging to me with the same desperation I voiced in all those calls.