Chapter 17 Callie #3
His eyes still wouldn’t return to me as he crossed into his open closet and came back out with a shirt fisted in his hand. Tossing it at me, he passed me, veering for the shower.
“Nope. Just didn’t need to finish.”
I stood, trailing him while I held onto the shirt. Because I didn’t want to be naked in front of him any longer, I pulled the heather gray material over my head.
“You’re lying. What the hell just happened?” I should have kept my voice down, and considered Laura below us, but my heart felt like it wanted out of my chest, and I hated that I’d put myself in such a vulnerable position with him.
He reached into his glass shower and turned the chrome handle until a steady spray of water heated the tiles inside. Wes ignored me as he lowered his jeans, and boxers, his cock was still stiff and hard.
I gestured toward it for emphasis. “I’m still fucking wet, you’re still hard. Why are you acting like this? Why even start it at all?”
He finally turned toward me and roared back, “Because I’m fucking weak, Callie. Okay? I can’t have you in my bed again and pretend like it’s not the only place I dreamed of you being for the past seven years. I can’t see you naked and not want to touch you.”
His whiskey gaze slid down my frame as pain slid into his features.
“Even now, it’s killing me not to touch you. You’re in my shirt, and I can’t put my hands on you, or hold you.”
I stepped forward to cut him off, thrusting my hand at my chest. “Then why don’t you? I’m standing right here.”
Tightness crept into the side of his jaw as he dipped his face, staring at the floor. The silence made my chest ache, and suddenly I wasn’t sure if I could handle this truth from him. Before I had a chance to walk away, he didn’t give me a choice.
“I can’t get them out of my head.”
My fingers pushed through my hair as I waited for him to finish, but the weight of his gaze nearly had my knees buckling.
“What can’t you get out of your head?”
With sadness in his gaze, he stared at me before shaking his head.
“Every single motherfucker who’s had you since you left me.
Every person who tasted you, touched you, held you…
I can’t get them out of my head. With you kneeling in front of me, your mouth on me, all I could think was the others you’ve tasted.
That same position, that sultry look, that perfect way you know to push your tits out, pinch those dusky nipples while making me hard as fuck.
How many other guys fell into that, thinking they were the luckiest person on planet earth to have you? ”
My mouth parted with a shaky breath as I processed his words.
The guilt tore at me with phantom teeth, and a desperation to soothe his hurt lingered on the tip of my tongue. Right as I opened my mouth to explain myself, he opened the shower door and stepped inside, abruptly ending our conversation.
Tears blurred my vision as I lowered my gaze to the floor and briskly paced my way back to the bed. I wanted to keep going, all the way down to the guest room, but I didn’t want to cause a scene if Wes was serious about me sleeping in his bed.
So, I threw the covers back, pulled my underwear on, and turned off the light.
Once the room was dark, and I knew Wes was still in the shower, I let the tears fall. And for five minutes, I allowed myself to break.
It was so easy in my mind, how the past went.
Painful, but clear cut.
I gave Wes a choice, and he didn’t choose me.
So, I chose myself, and while I knew Wes did know how many people I had been with since we broke up, not even one of them had ever seen me in that position I’d just been in with him.
I hooked up with my clothes on, usually with them just bending me over the couch and getting off, but I’d never once put my mouth on another man.
I had never let another man taste me, the way he had.
I had never even orgasmed. I’d made myself sick when I allowed my hurt to draw me into such a toxic place that I agreed to hooking up. If I was over Wes, I wouldn’t have beat myself up for it, but with each person, it all came back to him.
The one hookup that lasted three dates was only because it was around my birthday and I was feeling sorry for myself, but I’d never forget how he had lifted my dress and took what he needed from me while I held onto the edge of my kitchen table.
Tears ran down my cheeks, and not because he’d entered me bone dry.
I cried because that guy had been the third person I had hooked up with, and through the years, I kept thinking the pain of Wes would wane, but it never had.
If anything, by that time I’d gotten to the last one, the ache was unbearable.
It proved that a metal casting had been molded around my heart, and only Wes would ever fit it. He was permanently there, and I was doomed to never love again.
I couldn’t change the past any more than he could. This was why I didn’t want to give in to him because there was too much water under our bridge to navigate any of the waters without incident.
We were broken, and there was no amount of chemistry that would repair what we’d done to each other. I knew where this road would end. Wes was still tied to this club, and I still refused to ever be a part of it.
Based off what just happened, it didn’t matter anyway.
Wes didn’t want me other than to make a point, and tonight, he’d made it.
I just didn’t expect the point to be dagger sharp, or to cut so deep.