Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Tess
The afternoon is so full of chitchat and easy banter that I almost forget the way the day started. Save for the few moments where I catch Kit looking forlorn, gaze trained on some distant, unseeable point, it’s easy to pretend this is a normal occurrence for us. That I always pick fresh cucumbers for a side salad with Betty Llewellyn while Kit helps his father temp the meat, a plethora of crushed beer cans giving shape to the limp trash bag at their feet. That we always gather around the table Pete crafted by hand and chat over pulled pork that’s so succulent I’m pretty sure I smack my lips audibly. The same feeling that crept over me while I sat with Gary in Loveless settles deep within me. A feeling like belonging. Like home.
It’s only when we finally retreat to the bedroom at the end of the hall that reality hits me square in the face. Namely that there is one bed, two of us, and a whole lot of questions that I’ve been too polite to ask but now feel unable to suppress.
I quickly grab a few items from my bag and say without looking at Kit, “I’m going to the restroom.”
From where he stands, peering through finger-parted blinds that block our view of the driveway, he says, “Sounds good.”
The door hinge squeals when I open it, but he doesn’t glance my way.
I take my time brushing my teeth and doing my skin care. Mostly because I’m avoiding the too-small room and the too-small bed and the way I should feel uncomfortable about all this but I don’t at all. By the time I’m ready to change into my pj’s, there’s a knock at the door.
“Almost done!” I say.
“Sorry, Tess,” Kit’s dad mutters. “It’s, uh, a bit of an emergency. And Betty’s in the other bathroom.”
“Oh.”
I wad up my clothes and open the door. Pete’s red-faced and grimacing on the other side. “Sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize.” I smile awkwardly and cling tighter to my pajamas. “Good night, Pete.”
“Night, Tess.” He says it quickly, but with no less warmth, as we swap places in the restroom and the door once again is shut between us.
One step into the bedroom and I have to fight back the instinct to gulp like an out-of-her-depth movie character. Kit sprawls on top of the covers wearing nothing but gym shorts that leave very little to the imagination. One arm is slung over his eyes. His skin, looking so soft to the touch, is a deep shade of tan from a week spent in and around the water.
How has it only been a week? Time—which so often folds in like an accordion for me, making years feel like days—stretches out instead, turning a few bright moments into an entire history.
With each rise and fall of his chest, his muscled abdomen ripples. My gaze dips lower, to the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband, and the bottom drops out of my stomach.
“You okay over there?” Kit mutters without removing his arm.
“Um, yes.” I shuffle a few steps into the room. “Your dad needed the restroom, so I’ve gotta change in here. Just keep your eyes covered, okay?”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “Tess, do you think I’ve never seen boobs before?”
That sobers me up. I kick his foot where it dangles over the edge of the bed and he yelps. “It’s truly a miracle that you convinced someone to marry you.”
“Guess that’s why I’m divorced,” he replies, voice melancholic. It sucks the heat right out of the room, and any satisfaction I’d been feeling at my snipe dies a painful death in my hollow chest.
I clear my throat and, with my back to him, begin unbuttoning my blouse. “Things seemed to go well today. Your parents were really happy to see you.”
His responding grumble is noncommittal.
My bra tumbles onto the pile of my crumpled shirt, followed by my shorts and underwear. I slip on a pair of drawstring shorts and a matching navy-blue top. “The way you talked, I half expected to be met with burning pitchforks. Here they are letting us sleep together in sin.”
That gets him to remove the arm. He sits up on both elbows and quirks a brow. “Does that mean there will be funny business after all?”
I spin to face him, crossing my arms over my chest. “No. And stop avoiding the subject.”
His gaze travels over me slowly, so much so that I feel it as it goes, warming me from the inside out. His irises are still more midnight than hazel. So dark I couldn’t read his thoughts if I tried. He presses his lips together and shakes his head, suddenly staring through me rather than at me.
“My parents never wanted me to marry Courtney. Thought I was too young to be making such a big decision, when I had my whole life ahead of me.”
I perch on the edge of the bed, one hand propped close enough to his leg that the hair tickles my fingertips. “And what’d you say to that?”
He snorts softly. “That I was the same age they were when they got married, and it seemed to be working out for them.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. “Never pegged you for a romantic.”
The ceiling fan rocks overhead, rattling in its frame. Kit stares up at it, and I stare at him, wondering how we both aren’t blinded by what we see. Him, the yellowish light overhead. Me, the tender devastation chiseled into his features.
“Dad told me the night before the wedding that if I went through with it, then it better be forever. That marriage is sacred, and he didn’t raise me to be a man who walked out on his family.”
My throat becomes sandpaper, coarse and biting as I swallow. Since the first time we met, I’ve sensed that, despite not really knowing me, Kit could see deeper into me than anyone else ever had. Now I’m finally seeing him—if not to the core, then very damn well close.
He’s a man who lives to please others, and does so under the pretense of keeping them safe. Perhaps that’s why he feels so familiar. We both know a thing or two about performances.
“Kit.” I rest my hand on his shin. “Have you ever considered that it’s not your parents you’ve disappointed?”
His gaze envelops me like a hand grasping onto a life raft. “Who else?”
“No one.” I shrug. Then, more gently, I add, “Maybe yourself.”
We stare at each other for a long while. Eventually, when I’ve memorized the few flecks of gold still visible in his eyes tonight, I move on to studying his face. The dark stubble. The high cheekbones and well-maintained brows. His nose, which is bent slightly in the middle and discolored in a way that looks permanent.
Without realizing, I’ve closed the distance between us, lying alongside him to get a better look. I trace the uneven surface of that crooked bridge with a delicate finger, though I know the physical pain has long since passed. “How did you break your nose?”
He shakes his head, then closes one hand around my wrist and turns over my hand, exposing my inner forearm to the light. “How’d you get this scar?” he asks, pointing to the puckered white skin near my elbow.
“I fell out of a tree when I was nine.” He doesn’t stop trailing his fingers over it, and I don’t want him to. “Your turn.”
“Got in a fight with the guy who was in bed with my ex.” His nostrils flare, and his eyes close briefly. When they reopen, his features have relaxed ever so slightly. “I had so much anger, but looking back, he didn’t owe me anything. He hadn’t made me any vows.”
“Eh, he owed you human decency,” I correct, and he lets out a raw-sounding chuckle. “But I know what you mean. Sometimes you feel so much inside you that you have to do something physical to get it out. For some people that’s fighting or working out or getting tattoos. For others, it’s all three.”
“Oh yeah? And what kind of person are you?”
“The kind who never sits still.” I flatten my lips. “Also, the tattoo kind. But only one!”
This time, his laughter is genuine. It shakes his whole body, and the bed in turn. “What tattoo did you get?”
I roll my eyes, then hook a thumb in the waistband of my shorts and pull it downward, exposing just enough that he can see where my tan line ends and the small blot of ink begins. “Namaste symbol. Had a brief stint where I was convinced I wanted to become a yogi.”
“As in the bear?” he quips. I reach for a pillow to slam down on him, but he captures my arm and pins it to my side as he clicks his tongue. “I thought you weren’t the violent type.”
I rip my arm from his hand and pull back the covers, climbing underneath them and giving him my back. “I don’t know, Kit. Something about you just demands it.”
The mattress shifts and sags as he rolls to his feet, pads across the room, and turns off the light. When he returns, he tucks himself into the blankets. Even with a foot or so of distance between us, his heat seeps into me, heightening my senses until I swear I could map his body on instinct alone.
We lie there without speaking, the sound of our breathing its own conversation, as I try to forget how his hand felt locked around my arm. Pinning me. The warmth of it, like fireworks beneath my skin, simmers for so long I’m afraid I won’t be able to sleep.
“Thank you.” Kit whispers the words into the dark, so softly I’m not certain I really heard him. But when I roll over to investigate, there he is, a breath away, eyes glittering in the dim glow cast by the moonlight leaking through the blinds. “For today. For being here.”
His breath smells like mint, and it mixes with the headiness of his hair cream to create something delectable. Something like a memory. The scent of our kiss at the aquarium. At the Horseshoe.
My exhale stalls in my throat, forming a knot that I can’t swallow past. I told myself I could do this. Be his friend. Even psyched myself up to share his bed without succumbing to this feeling. But now that he’s so close that it’d take no effort at all to close this gap and sink into him, I’m suddenly not so sure of my ability to resist.
Then he bridges that gap, tucking a stray hair behind my ear, and I loose that breath like it’s on fire.
“Penny for your thoughts, Tess?”
I shake my head against the pillow, the flannel sheets scratching my cheek. “You can’t afford my thoughts.”
He huffs a laugh. “I think I’ve been saving up for this moment my whole life.” I can feel his gaze roving my skin, heating every nerve ending that it touches until I’m flush right down to my throat. “What if I promise you an entire carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream?”
My pinched smile bursts apart in a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re beautiful.” He says it like he can’t help it. Like the words were poised to leap from his tongue whether he parted his lips or not. “Not even beautiful. That word doesn’t do you justice. You’re magnetic, Tess. I can feel your pull as sure as my own heartbeat.”
“Sounds dangerous,” I breathe. My brain is short-circuiting. All I know is Kit’s presence and the amount of effort it would take to touch him, which is so very little.
His lips part, and his tongue traces them, leaving them glistening. Kit is always handsome, but something about his face cast half in shadow, painted only by moonlight, has my blood on the verge of a simmer. I haven’t felt an awareness like this since my first crush at thirteen, and even then, I don’t remember it being nearly this intense.
My clit throbs between my legs. I pin them closed, trying to soothe the need rising there like the tide. Kit’s nostrils flare, as though he can scent my desire, and when he speaks, it comes out more like a growl. “Feels more dangerous to ignore it.”
I don’t want him to be right. I want to be perfectly in control and so firm in my convictions, but my damn body hasn’t gotten the memo. My hand finds his, and I guide it back to my hip, where those fireworks spark an inferno that scalds me from the inside out. He tugs me closer, till our bodies are flush against one another. The hard plane of his chest is firm against my breasts. I can feel his length pressing along my lower abdomen. Then his hand slowly slips from my hip, along the exposed skin of my thigh, to hook around my knee and draw it over his leg. If he couldn’t tell I wanted him before, the heat of my core against his cock is probably a dead giveaway.
“Kit—” I whimper.
“Just ask me,” he says wickedly. “I’ll take all that aching away if you’ll just say you want me to kiss you.”
Through the haze of desire comes the memory of his vow not to cross that line until I ask him to. Pride rears up inside me. The only emotion strong enough to squelch this hunger. I push off him, severing the connection that had me near drunk with its effect, and retreat to the far end of the mattress, which is admittedly not far enough.
I still feel him. Smell him. Still want him so badly my fingers tremble, until I bite them down on the edge of the comforter and clutch it to my chin.
I don’t turn away from him. If I do, I’m afraid I’ll forget that I’m trying to prove a point, and we’ll be right back where we started in no time flat.
“Good night, Kit,” I say through gritted teeth.
He chuckles darkly, lifting one arm to tuck his hand beneath his pillow so he can stare at me over the slope of his bicep. “Good night, shnookums.”
It takes forever for me to actually fall asleep. And when I do, it’s only because Kit wiggles his way across the divide and folds me against him. It’s one night, I reason. And we’re only cuddling. Come tomorrow, with a little distance, I’ll be right back to standing on firmer ground.
Half-awake, I swear I feel his lips brush my forehead, but by then I’m too far gone.