Chapter Ten #2
"You love it." He bites the side of my throat, already working me open with two fingers.
I bite my tongue, trying to stifle my cries, not willing to give him the satisfaction of hearing them, but it's no use.
As soon as he curls his fingers inside me, I sob out loud, my body melting against the side of the car.
Within seconds, he has me in his arms, tossing me down over the hood. "Spread your legs," he demands, gathering my hair up in his fist. "Wider, baby. Make room for your man."
My man. God, he has no idea how much I want that. How damn badly I want him to be mine, not in secret, not just for a little while, but forever.
"That's it," he croons, the head of his cock brushing my folds. "You're such a good girl for me, Loralei." He slams inside me, bottoming out in one thrust.
"Ash," I whimper, writhing against the cool metal.
"Shh," he breathes, kissing all over the side of my neck. "I've got you. I'll take care of you."
He fucks me slow and deep, and then hard and fast, not letting me get used to the rhythm before he changes it up, leaving me hovering on the edge until I'm sobbing and begging, desperate to go over.
"What time is the gala?" he asks when tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and I can't take any more.
"Seven!" I cry, giving in because I need to come so badly, I feel like I might die. "It's at seven."
He presses his lips to the side of my throat in a sweet kiss. "Good girl," he breathes against my skin, his voice so soft, a tear rolls down my cheek. "Now, come all over me."
He starts moving again, slow and deep, his lips still against the side of my throat, as if he's tasting the beat of my heart with every thrust.
"I love you," he says.
I splinter in his arms, shattering into pieces with those three little words ringing in my ears.
When I can breathe again, I wriggle out from beneath him, spinning to face him. "What did you say?" I ask, pretty sure I look like a wild woman.
"You heard me, Loralei," he murmurs. "I didn't stutter."
"I…" I press a hand to my forehead, my mind spinning.
"I love you."
Okay, so I did hear him correctly. He's in love with me.
"You think we've been hiding because I'm ashamed of you or something, but that couldn't be further from the truth," he says, tucking himself back into his pants. "Maybe we've been hiding because I don't want you to realize how fucked up my life is before you decide you feel the same way about me."
"Ash…"
"I can't give you all this," he says, motioning around us.
"This isn't my life right now." His throat works convulsively.
"But I want it to be. I want to be the man who gets to waltz into the library and take you to lunch without causing a scene.
I want to be the one who can take you to dinner without every fucking camera in the vicinity invading your privacy. I'm not that man, Loralei."
"I never asked you to be him, Ash," I whisper.
"You didn't have to ask, beautiful. My world wasn't made for you."
I cringe, taking a step away from him. "What does that mean?"
"It means you deserve better," he says simply. "You shouldn't have to deal with the bullshit that'll come your way if I don't have everything sorted out before…"
"Before what?" I ask, watching the way his jaw clenches. "Before you decide it's okay to love me openly?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Isn't it, though?"
"Hell no," he growls, his blue eyes flashing. "You've always been good enough, Loralei. But I don't want you walking away from me when you realize that my world isn't good enough for you."
I stare at him for a long moment, and then shake my head sadly.
"God, you're such an idiot," I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself.
"I never needed your world to be good enough, Ash.
The only thing I ever wanted was you. You think I care if they shove cameras in my face or plaster me all over the freaking papers?
I never cared about that. The only thing I've wanted since I met you was you.
I fell in love with you. And I was willing to hide because I thought we were protecting your privacy.
But I never signed up to be the damsel in your story, Ash.
I never asked to be infantilized like that. "
"Loralei, I…" He takes a step toward me, looking stricken.
"I have to go," I mutter, backing away.
"Loralei, wait."
I shake my head quickly, the whole world blurred by tears.
"No, Ash. I think I'm done waiting," I say, climbing into the car.
I think I've spent my whole life waiting to be brave enough or strong enough or to feel like I was good enough.
And the truth is, I always have been. It just took meeting him to realize it.
But I can't wait for him to realize that I don't need him to protect me from his world.
I just need him to let me into it. If he can't do that, then maybe there is no future for us.
Maybe all we were ever meant to be was two people who met in a storm and realized that we were too different, after all.
I don't need to be a rockstar or a supermodel. I just need him to realize that I'm not a little girl who needs to be protected from the big, bad world, either. I might be shy, but I'm a grown woman, capable of making my own decisions.
Right now, I'm not sure he's ever seen me that way.
"Hey," Sarah says, stopping beside my car in the parking lot after Book Club, worry on her face. "Are you okay, Loralei?"
"Fine," I lie, tilting my head down so my hair falls in my face to hide my eyes.
Truth is, I'm a liar. I'm not fine. I spent most of Book Club on the verge of tears, just trying to hold it together.
Part of me wants to rush right back to the cabin and take back everything I said. The other part is still mad as hell.
Ash doesn't want to choose me. He wants to choose for me.
A miserable sob chokes me.
Sarah gasps, hurrying around the side of the car to pull me into her arms.
"I'm sorry," I choke, fanning my face. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Yeah, you do," she says softly. "You fell in love with him, didn't you?"
I blink, her face blurred by tears. "What?"
"Ash Kilborne," she murmurs, her eyes locked on my face. "I saw you two sneaking away at the library the other day. I didn't realize that's who he was until I spotted him getting into his SUV in the parking lot. He accidentally dropped his sunglasses, and I recognized him. You've been seeing him?"
"I…" I nod miserably. "For the last two weeks."
She hugs me again, empathy written all over her face. "Want to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about," I mumble, staring at the stained cement. "I thought we were hiding to protect his privacy. Turns out, we've been hiding because he doesn't think I fit in his world."
Sarah makes a sound in the back of her throat that's part shock, part anger. "He said that to you?"
"Pretty much," I sniff, swiping at my eyes.
"He tried to play it off like he thinks I'm too good for his world, but we both what he was really saying, and it wasn't that.
And you know what? Maybe he's right," I whisper.
"Maybe I don't fit in his world. But it's not like he didn't know that to begin with, you know?
It's not like I pretended to be someone else.
So why let me fall in love with him if he was just going to keep me in some compartment that is never allowed to touch the rest of his life?
Why let himself fall in love with me if he was just going to decide that I couldn't handle who he is? "
"I don't know," Sarah says softly. "Love makes you stupid sometimes."
I snort because she isn't wrong. It turned me into an idiot, didn't it? Even knowing he was going to break my heart, I kept going. I kept letting myself fall. I can stand here and blame him all I want, but at the end of the day, I made my own choices, too. That's not on him. That's on me.
And I hate how much I miss him already. I hate how much I wish I hadn't asked him to go to the gala with me. I hate everything about this.
"This sucks," I whisper, my bottom lip quivering.
"What are you going to do?" Sarah asks, squeezing me in another hug.
It's a good question. And right now, I don't really have an answer. I just know that, no matter how much I love him, I can't be with someone who looks at me and sees someone he has to hide. I can't be with someone who can't love me openly unless it's on his terms.
Maybe I am a boring librarian, but I deserve better than that.
If he isn't willing to give me that…what then?