Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) (20 page)

I ruffled my hand through my hair as my mind scrambled. “It was a foolish mistake. Something only a young, hopelessly romantic chap would do when he thought he needed to settle down. I was too young. Too naive. Maybe that’s what Monica realized even before I did.”

“Yeah.” She sounded a bit defeated.

My heart felt like a pin had been taken to it, deflating all the happiness we had only just created moments ago.

More silence spread between us like a confusing fog. I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t want to ask her how she was feeling, because I was afraid what her answer would be.

“So… your heart’s been broken too then.” She sounded like she was speaking more to herself than to me.

“I don’t think we can ever love properly without having it broken a time or two, ye know?”

“I don’t know… Well, I didn’t, I don’t think,” she stuttered.

“What did it feel like?”

“What?”

“Being in love.” She sounded slightly hesitant.

I shifted so I could see her better. Felt a sort of bitterness gurgling in my gut. “Well, considering my faulty past, I don’t think I’d be a good judge.”

“I think…” Hannah said, stopping as if she didn’t mean to speak at all.

“What do ye think?” I asked, tracing my fingers down her arm until I got to her breast, cupping it in my hand.

She sighed, rolling toward me as if giving me full permission to touch her at my leisure. And, no matter how much I wanted to do that, I wanted to know what she thought even more.

“What do ye think?” I asked again, bringing my hand up to her face and trailing my fingers over her lips, wanting desperately to pull the words from her.

Her hand caught mine, squeezing lightly. “I think she was a fool.”

Something like relief rushed through me at her admission, but it still didn’t take away the doubt that lingered for a very long time in the shadows of my thoughts. “Maybe so. Then again, maybe it was something I didn’t complete in her that made her stray.”

Hannah propped herself up on her elbow and stared down at me, nibbling the corner of her bottom lip.

“I don’t think it’s that. I think some people are just broken and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I shifted, mirroring her pose. “That’s kind of cynical. Don’t you think?”

She rolled her eyes. “Says the man who had his heart broken.”

I wasn’t sure why her flippant comment angered me, but it did. “I gave it a shot, and it failed. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on love as a whole.”

She gave a half sort of shrug, lowering her eyes so I could no longer see them. “It’s easier not to love. Less collateral damage that way.”

“Ye make it sound like war.” I huffed, rolling over onto my back.

“It kind of is, isn’t it?” she said, demons swimming in her eyes. She rolled onto her stomach with a sigh. “To me anyway. I only saw anger and abuse. How do you push all of that aside after witnessing it for seventeen years?”

She had me on that. How could you? It would take a miracle… a breakthrough. Something major to show her love and pain were two sides of the same coin if she’d let it be. I had no answers for her. No epiphany to regale her with. I only had me. And I wasn’t so sure I was good enough, no matter how bad I wanted to be.

BEFORE ED, I NEVER UNDERSTOOD the need to slow down.

But lying in the dark with our bodies so close, spilling secrets and random facts about our lives until sleep knocked at our door made me want to do just that. Made me want to tie chains around the ankles of time so it would drag on, because I wasn’t sure when we’d have the opportunity again.

And, somewhere inside those moments, I unconsciously slid into a place where we were both stripped of flesh and bone, down to the very essence of who we were.

A place where I came to know who Ed really was.

A passionate, giving lover. A humorous friend. A man with a dream for something more. A guy who was head over heels for me.

He made it easy, simple even, to fall into him. To let his kisses and his delicate touch take me to another universe where pain didn’t exist. Where love flourished and he and I walked the tips of the clouds hand in hand.

Listening to his heart beat softly under his skin as he drifted off to sleep, I tried to picture myself in a future where we stayed together. All I could think about was the sky in Rum Cay. Watching it turn pale shades of gray as the clouds picked up in speed, sending my hair whipping around my face and my heart trampling inside my chest.

About the rain dropping hard and fast on us all at once, like tiny torpedoes slamming into our skulls. About the panic that clenched my throat as we rushed to close the shutters, trying to keep what little sanity we had left as we realized we were about to face a storm we had yet to weather before.

Love seemed to be like that. Like chaos and unpredictability. Ed was worth it and more, but that hurricane was exactly what it felt like the moment he held me and didn’t run away while I unleashed what I’d held inside me for so long.

It was like the skies tearing open to purge itself of all it had pent up so the sun could finally shine through again. Like Mother Nature’s way of cleansing all the bad to make room for the good.

Only, I knew I wasn’t good.

I was that storm.

I was destruction personified.

I was…

I was broken.

Ed deserved more than that. He didn’t need another Monica in his life. Another female who didn’t know what she wanted and stepped on hearts for fun.

Recognizing I was just as guilty felt like a dump truck unloading on me.

Because he
had
stayed.

For me.

No one had ever done that before, and it opened my eyes to a new way of connecting with someone. A way that made my heart send a flood of feelings to my tear ducts. He showed me sex didn’t always have to be about the physical excitement my body felt. He connected my heart to a moment I didn’t even know existed.

My feelings for him were blossoming in a way I hadn’t intended, and it scared the crap out of me.

I had a track record for running. For screwing things up. What made our situation any different?

The fact that I didn’t want to run. That’s what.

By the time morning came and our final match took place, I had everyone, including myself, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. We had won. Placed first in a world cup I’d dreamt about for a while. Even so… all I could think about was the declining amount of days we had left in England.

The short time that remained for Ed and me.

After the bout, a small part of me was swept up in the adrenaline rush of winning, but it was Ed’s face I looked for in the crowd. His smile that made my heart race down the track to no return. His bright gaze that made my stomach do all the flips it should have done over winning.

I was in trouble. Point blank.

I was more than grateful for the distraction when the reporters and the sponsors nearly toppled down the door to our locker room when the world cup ended. Myra did her best to answer as many questions for the three of us as she could, but talking with them couldn’t be avoided.

We were the stars of a sport fast moving in the ranks of sports to watch.

“You have a great face. Has anyone ever told you that?” a rep for a major commercial makeup company said to me.

“Not in that context,” I answered as I lifted my water bottle to my lips.

The lady extended her card and took my information down. Told me to call her once I returned to the States regarding a possible ad contract that would put my face on the line of waterproof beauty products they planned to promote heavily.

It was a break I’d hoped for—a way to pay the rest of my way through college. It was life changing. A means to an end.

Defeating Team England opened doors I never thought possible. But it didn’t fill my soul the way I hoped it would. Didn’t make me feel like I had met my calling the way I thought it would have.

And, deep down, I knew exactly why.

I MET UP WITH ED after the circus of cameras disappeared. The girls and I made plans to celebrate at the pub Charlie and Ed took us to the other night.

I honestly didn’t care what we did, as long as it involved his electric touch and smooth-as-silk charm.

I felt like I was back in middle school again when I saw him perched up, one leg supporting him against the wall with his hands in his jacket pockets and a crescent moon smile on his lips. Being with him was like that first sip of alcohol. That warm, fuzzy feeling floating in my limbs. Polluting my mind with three-syllable phrases and starry-eyed gazes.

“Hey,” I said as the other girls pushed past me, shouting USA out into the night.

“Hey yourself,” he said, pushing off the wall. A chill tried to work its way between us, driving me closer to him, until my hands were on the edges of his jacket. “Should I get your autograph now, or after I tear every piece of clothing off that stunning body of yours and ravish all those special spots I’m only just beginning to figure out?”

Damn, but he knew how to work me.

A solar flare of yearning exploded inside my body as my pulse went frantic.

It was the look in his hooded eyes that grabbed my nerve-endings. The way his breath brushed against my lips, leaving my skin feeling like it had been dipped in fire.

“That all depends,” I said, toying my fingers around his jacket collar. Pulling him closer so no air was left between us. There was commotion in my bloodstream. A mess of tension only he could ease.

“On?” He brushed his lips over mine. Never surrendering the kiss I so heavily craved.

“On how hard you work for it,” I said, stealing the kiss.

Every inch of me was awake and aware as his back hit the wall and his hands wove into my hair with a hunger that made me burn from the inside out. His tongue found mine, tasting and taking what I offered as I pressed myself as hard as I could against him, not caring where we were or who could be watching.

He was the heat I thirsted for.

The sustenance I hungered for.

The relief to the ache in my heart.

“Keep it up and I’ll take ye right here, love,” he said against my neck as he nipped and worked his way to my collarbone. “You’re driving me mad.”

He kissed me again, somewhere between wild and gentle. A more settled kiss. The kind of kiss shared between lovers familiar with one another.

My heart skipped, landing somewhere beyond the moon.

I gasped when he pulled back, my breath searching for his. I didn’t have words to answer him. Just my hands roaming up the inside of his shirt. Over the rippled valley of his stomach. Up the plane of his chest to the sensitive flesh of his neck.

I wanted him. Every part of him. Mind, body, and soul.

His hands found the skin of my hipbone, and a fresh batch of sparks ignited across my skin as his fingers dug in. “What do you say we skip the bar and lock ourselves in your room?”

His teeth scratched against my neck. “That feels… I mean, sounds amazing,” I said, eyes squeezed shut as his finger trailed up my stomach and ran along the bottom of my bra, sending sharp explosions over every inch of my body. Splitting me right in half.

I felt the strain in his biceps when he moved me back a step, putting distance between us. Felt the force of the space between us like gravity trying to pull us back together.

“If we keep on like this, we’ll never make it there,” he said, his chest rising and falling unevenly. “Ye’re intoxicating, Hannah.”

“And you’re beautiful,” I said, wishing I was brave enough to close the distance between us again. But he was right. He was the moon and I was the earth, and we rotated around each other, pushing and pulling like two magnets, creating something remarkable between us. Something that, once started, couldn’t be stopped.

He slid his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close. Just the act alone made the excruciating chill in the air more bearable. Made the confusion of the thousands of emotions bursting within me that much easier to tuck away.

“Listen,” he said as we started walking in the direction of my apartment. “My aunt called a little bit ago.”

My heart stopped. “Is she okay?” I asked at once, thinking about the girl from the bar. The bruises I knew all too well.

“She’s good… everything’s fine,” Ed rushed to say, wanting to ease my worry. “She called about my jacket. The one I gave to the girl. Asked me if I’d come ‘round tomorrow to get it. I haven’t been over there in a long time. If it wasn’t for the girl, she’d probably have given me a good whack across the head.”

I laughed at the imagery. His aunt, though I’d only seen her for that short amount of time, seemed the exact type to do just that. Stern when it came to love and respect.

“Anyway, I wanted to know if ye’d come with me,” he finished, keeping his eyes straight ahead. Even though he wasn’t looking at me, I knew he was holding his breath. Could feel the way his muscles tightened as he waited for my response.

I knew I should have said no. Knew the more time I spent with him was the more time my heart had to develop feelings I knew I couldn’t do anything with. The end of my trip was fast approaching, and the States were calling my name.

I had to go home. Eventually.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was the way my skin felt alive underneath his touch. The pace in which my heart beat in sync with his when we met each other on the mattress, making that the center of our universe. I would enjoy those precious moments. Lap them up as if they were my last meal.

Because reality was hinged to my wrists, and my bleak future was knock, knock, knocking at my door.