Chapter 33
Brandon
Evie’s mouth is locked with mine. I don’t know how it happened, exactly.
One second, she was charging me like she was about to smack me, and the next, I’m intercepting her raised wrist—and that’s when she softened.
Apologized. As I held her hand suspended midair, chest heaving, the moment was so charged with adrenaline and emotion that the scale we routinely balance together tipped us toward passion in the heat of the moment.
The first time we were intimate, she was as soft and pliant as a petal.
Now, her nails maul at the back of my scalp like she’s trying to rip my hair out of my head.
Her mouth moves feverishly against mine, her movements confident in a way they never were before.
A part of me misses the way she used to allow me to take the lead, but this kiss is all hers, and I follow her off the deep end.
“Tell me you love me again,” she whispers between kisses, grabbing my waist and pushing me into the dark hall, guiding me backwards down the hallway.
“I love you,” I mumble against her mouth as we stumble toward her bedroom—because I do, and she’s deprived me of this for far too long. I don’t know what to do with my hands. They begin at her cheeks, then move to grip her waist, then move lower.
The backs of my knees collide with her bed, and she shoves me down onto it, and then she’s on top of me, straddling my waist. I can barely think through the fog of my desire, but then she’s lifting her arms into the air, taking her shirt with it—
My brain comes online again.
“Evie,” I warn, grabbing the hem of her shirt and pulling it back down. I sit up on my elbow and shift her off me, throwing my legs over the edge of the bed as I attempt to catch my breath.
“What?” she gasps, tipping my face up. Cradling my cheeks in her hands, her lips come down on mine again, harder this time.
My lips part, and I groan into her mouth, more out of frustration than anything else, wondering how I’m going to summon the strength to tell her no when this is exactly what my flesh wants in this moment—to relieve the pressure that’s been mounting between us with a language that comes far more naturally to me than any other. I’m going to need supernatural help.
Jesus, not in my strength, but Yours. Please.
“What’s wrong?” Evie whispers when she sees I’ve stopped heeling to her advances. She sits back on her haunches and frowns at me in the dark.
“Evie,” I sigh, tugging on my hair as I shift away from her. “We can’t. This is wrong.”
Not to mention odd. She went from seeking to slap me to pulling me down onto her mattress within the space of a few minutes. She should be screaming that she hates me right now, not kissing me senseless while attempting to unbuckle my belt.
Her face hardens. “You told me you were in love with me.”
“I am,” I say, laughing humorlessly. “But this isn’t love. This is something else.”
Passion. Lust.
I know all about it.
She sniffs derisively and looks away. “I know you want to.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” I mutter gloomily, wiping a hand through my disheveled hair. “But make no mistake, Evie. If I’m ever lucky enough to make love to you again, my ring will be on your finger. No exceptions.”
She glares at me before pushing off the bed in a dramatic huff. She begins pacing the length of the room, and I watch warily as I recall how she paced anxiously around the powder room on her wedding day.
This lion is about to roar.
“Evie,” I temper, rising. “I would have thought you’d be more upset with me after what I told you. This”—I gesture to the bed behind me, then between us—“isn’t healthy—”
“You’re one to talk,” she snaps, halting to face me. “You think gaslighting me into believing everything I felt was one-sided is very healthy, Brandon?”
I flinch at the term gaslighting. But there’s no denying that that’s what I did.
I hate myself for it.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think or feel anymore.
” She throws her hands up when I remain silent.
“Is this what you like?” she whispers brokenly, desperately searching my expression.
“When I push you away? Because you just love the chase?” I grimace, insulted.
“I don’t know what you want. I push you away, and you chase me.
But when I stop running, you push me away. It doesn’t make sense!”
“I’m not pushing you away,” I murmur, stalking closer. She shuffles back. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on inside your mind because I love you, and I don’t want history to repeat itself.”
She sneers. “Would you stop trying to psychoanalyze everything I do?”
“Talk to me, Evie.” My voice shakes on her name. “Please. Tell me what you’re thinking. How you’re feeling. I know I’ve hurt you.”
Her lips tremble, and then her face crumbles. “Honestly, Brandon?” she wails, then pauses. Tears roll down her face, and I step toward her, aggrieved, but she raises her hand and backs up another step. Her back bumps up against the closet door, and she flinches.
I struggle to keep my distance while she cries.
It feels like an eternity before she speaks again. “Somehow,” she croaks eventually, wiping her hands down her face. She rubs her tear-soaked eyes with her fists. “The truth is so much worse than the lie I believed for so long.”
She collapses, as if her body can no longer support her weight.
I catch her before she hits the ground, winding my arms tightly around her waist to support her.
She resists me, pounding weakly against my chest. “I loved you!” she wails into my shoulder, and I hold her tighter, trembling as I fight the wave of emotion that crashes over me.
It pulls me under its current, spinning me around, disorienting me with its intensity.
“I took care of you,” she sobs. “I was there for you through everything. I stuck by your side when no one else did. But you left me. You weren’t there when I needed you! Why?”
The truth of her words breaks me. I betrayed the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.
I will have to live with the consequences for the rest of my life.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” I whisper into her hair, unsure what else to say. “I’m so sorry.”
She clutches fistfuls of my shirt in her hands, allowing me to support her as she struggles to breathe. I shush her frantically, stroking her hair, her arms, desperate to calm her down. “Why? What did I do?”
“Evie, Evie,” I choke out, the tears streaming down my face now. I struggle to support her as she wilts like a dying flower in my arms, overwhelmed by the weight of my own grief. We spill to the floor together, and I pull her onto my lap and begin rocking her, hoping it’ll soothe us both.
God, what have I done?
“You did nothing wrong, Evie,” I assure her, struggling to keep my composure. “Nothing at all. I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t want me,” she sobs quietly, drenching my shirt. “Why doesn’t anyone want me?”
“I want you,” I whisper. “I did, I do, and I always will, Evie. Always.”
Those words seem to soothe her. After a moment, she groans and reaches for my hand, squeezing it hard. “Oh, gosh. I’m sorry,” she gasps, hiding her face in my shirt.
Confused, I glance down. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“I’m overreacting again,” she moans.
“You’re reacting perfectly reasonably,” I say. “Believe me.”
“I’m not. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this.”
“Please stop apologizing.”
Still clinging to me, she sighs and buries her face in my chest.
“You said this afternoon that you thought I manipulated you,” I say after a few minutes, when her breathing has evened out and I can tell she’s calmed down.
“And that I used you, then tossed you aside.” Those words are now branded on my soul.
They will leave a scar when the wound heals.
“But it was never my intention to sleep with you, Evie.” I take a slow, steadying breath.
I ask my patients to bare their souls to me daily, but when push comes to shove, I can’t seem to do the same—even when it matters most.
Evie squeezes my palm, telling me to take my time.
I can’t seem to find the right words, so I start with an image.
“The morning after, when I woke up with you still lying there peacefully in my arms, drooling against my bare chest—the bitter reality of our situation dawned on me, Evie. You were only twenty-two. My best friend’s kid sister.
And everyone knew how I was with women.”
She lifts her head to look at me, curious.
“Everyone knew that you’d had a crush on me since you were a kid.
And I had only just given my life to Christ, and I was trying to change my ways, yes—but even still, I knew that no one would take our relationship seriously.
They would have taken one passing glance at the situation and assumed I was taking advantage of you. Especially Jamie.”
Her brows draw together like she’d never considered that before.
It gives me a small amount of hope that she might understand my perspective better, now that she’s willing to hear me out.
But I know, deep down, that there will never be a sufficient enough reason or valid enough excuse to rationalize the way I betrayed her.
She deserved so much better.
She looks down, her expression unreadable as I go on.
“I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my friendship with him,” I explain, feeling ashamed when I hear my lame reasoning out loud for the first time.
“Not for a relationship I wasn’t sure would last.” She lets out a shuddering sigh.
“We were in such different phases of life, and I had a demanding career, a newborn son, and loads of emotional and spiritual baggage I was still working through.”