Slow Burn (17 page)

I can feel it. I can know it. But he can’t.

My mind flashes back momentarily to the night of the wedding. Of how I asked him—gave him no other option, really—to take me to bed. Did I know then that unzipping my dress and inviting him between my legs would lead to this? Me wanting something more? Me standing in the middle of his apartment, wanting to take the next step but unable to because of the fears that are holding me hostage?

So just tell him the truth, Had. The thought flickers through my mind.

Fuck. Damn. Shit. I just can’t.

“I’m not running from anything.” My voice is steady
when I speak, and I hope he can’t hear the waver of uncertainty on the last word.

I don’t know what I expected in response, but it wasn’t a smarmy smirk and a raise of his eyebrows. “You keep telling yourself that, and one of these days you might believe it. Whatever it is
he
did to you must have been quite a number for you to run like this. Every damn chance you get.”

I have to hide the shock on my face from his assumption. The fact that he thinks I don’t want to be with him because another man damaged me. “You don’t know anything about me.” I start to refute him, and then I realize it might be easier if I let him think that. Let him blame another man for my own shortcomings.

Feed the lie.

“I’m beginning to think that same thing myself,” he says. The potent combination of disappointment and judgment flashing in his eyes causes my anger to fire anew. “But, uh, like I said, be my guest.” He cocks his head to the side on the last words as he pats the door beside him.

“Fuck you.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, earning me that patronizing chuckle again.

“Well, there’s always that possibility, but I haven’t heard an answer to my question yet.”

His unaffected nonchalance throws me when all I want from him is to tell me to choose him. Pick him. Give me the words to anchor my runaway thoughts and give them something to hold on to—weekend mornings where we fall back onto rumpled sheets to make love all day, cooking dinner together, knowing someone will pick up when I call my own house.

But he just continues to stare at me. Then it begins to piss me off as he stands there with amused eyes and the patience of a saint when all I want him to do is to tell me to quit being such a goddamn tease—a fucking coward—and either commit to him or get the fuck out of his life because I don’t deserve him or his compassion.

Because all of the personal touches I’m noticing around his condo—the tattered dog toys, the Carole King CD on his shelf that reminds me of Lex, an orange ceramic giraffe on his coffee table when I love giraffes—if I know all of these personal little touches about Becks, then it makes him real. It makes the feelings for him I don’t want to possess real. It makes him too genuine, too perfect, and too accessible for this girl who wants her heart to be inaccessible.

Make the decision for me
, I scream in my head.

But he doesn’t. He simply stands there, watching me, waiting for me to make the next move. Hoping I make the right one.

“Well, if it’s that hard of a decision—if you think I’m comparable to Slick—then I’ll make it for you,” he says, unknowingly giving me what I want. He turns the knob and swings the door open before leaning against the doorjamb and crossing his arms across his chest.

Shock filters through me as I realize he’s kicking me out. I can’t believe he just did that. I refuse to let my mouth fall open like it wants to because I can’t let him see any of my schizophrenic emotions, which would show him how much I care.

Rejection kicks me solidly in the gut until I feel like I can’t breathe.

I glance around the room, rapidly looking for another exit because I’m pissed and I sure as fuck don’t want to give him the satisfaction of walking past him on the way out. I don’t like that he’s got the upper hand now, especially since it appears we are several floors up and he’s leaning against my only chance to escape.

Jumping off the balcony is looking pretty tempting though.

“Get away from the door.” I stride a few feet toward him, my heels kicking a blue pillow that must have fallen on the floor in his abduction and subsequent trapping of me on the couch.

“Nope.” A soft, lopsided smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, amusement reaching his eyes. His hair is mussed from our struggle, and his shirt collar has been tugged askew.

How can he look like something I want to sink into when I’m so angry at him right now?

“Daniels, I don’t think you have any clue how pissed off I am at you right now.”

When he responds with that condescending chuckle again, I want to knock it out of his mouth. I walk toward him, his smirk in full force, and he just stares at me and shrugs. “As you can tell, I don’t really care how pissed you are, City.”

“Do you have any idea how important the job of mine you’re jeopardizing right now is to me? How you just kidnapped me from a potentially huge opportunity?” I yell at him, my sanity ebbing with his blatant disregard for everything I’ve worked for.

“It looks to me like you were doing a damn good job of jeopardizing that client yourself.” That cocksure smirk on his face goads me, pushes me. “Couple more shots and another tongue down your throat, and hell, Had, you might get more than a publicity job out of it.” He raises his eyebrows at me, a nonverbal
Try me
, and I can’t help but react at the buttons he’s pushing right now. Every single one but the one I really want him to push. “At least you’d be getting paid for it, right?”

I’m unable to speak at that, the unexpected nasty side of Becks I’ve never seen before throwing me off balance. So I move, using my nervous energy, and take a few more steps toward him. The hallway light falls over a segment of his face, and despite the contempt in his words, I can see the desire in his eyes—as well as the fleeting confusion about what in the hell I was up to with the guy in the club.

“Get out of my way.” I sneer at him as I begin to go through the door. His hand flashes out and grabs my arm
before I can make it over the threshold. Our eyes lock on each other’s, his fingers flexing at my wrist as he fights whatever internal battle he’s waging right now.

And I really don’t care. God, yes, I’m being selfish—would readily admit that to Becks if he hadn’t completely clouded my thoughts—but all the same, I just need to go so that I can clear my head of all this shit. But that’s impossible when he makes me want him—kissing me like I’m his last breath so that all I want to do is stay right here—before shoving me away like the sack of potatoes he carried here over his shoulder.

“That easy of a decision, huh? You sure about that?”

I snort out in disbelief. Want me, push me away, and want me again. Can this get any more confusing? But I’m not sticking around to be insulted. To be manhandled, kissed until I’m breathless, accused of wanting to sleep around, and then be told to stay. I try to pull my arm from his grip, but he holds firm.

I fight to ignore the little thrill that shoots through me and reverberates around the anger.

“Let me go, Beckett. I’d best be getting back, at least someone should benefit from my whorish ways.” I grit the words out because at this point I don’t even know if I’m angry because I want him and he doesn’t want me anymore or if it’s because he wants me and I can’t give him the more he’s asking for.

I want to scream, to rage, to kiss him, to fuck him, to hate him, to let him walk away and not want more. And none of those things is going to fix that ache in my heart I get when I look into his eyes and see him asking me again for an answer. For a sign of where this could take us, if we can work out our kind of complicated to make it our kind of right.

“You leave, Haddie, I’m not chasing you again. So you’d better make sure that’s what you want.” His voice is quiet steel. “And if you stay, I’m going to start tying some knots in those goddamn strings of yours.”

His words make shivers run up my spine, make the ache in my heart throb, and send a panicked fear straight through me. Because God, yes, I want. And I don’t want. Everything I’m feeling is in such extremes right now that I feel like I’m going crazy.

As I begin to tug my arm from his grip, my only thought is to escape the inexplicable hold he has over me so that I can think straight without his presence clouding things, but he tightens his grip. “Really? Gonna leave just like that, huh? Take the easy way out? I figured you for a fighter, not a coward.”

And I don’t know if it’s the moment, his words, his proximity, or my fear but it all collides into a wrecking ball of irrationality when I turn on him. “You don’t get to judge me!” The volume of my voice escalates as every part of me wants to expel my irrationalities out on him. I lunge at him, hands flying, hurt reigning, emotions overloading.

My hand connects with his solid chest with a thud, and it’s nowhere near as satisfying of a feeling as I thought it would be. So I try again, and what pisses me off even more is that he stands there and takes it. He doesn’t fight back, doesn’t try to grab my hands to stop me. He just stands there and accepts it.

Even has the gall to laugh softly at the lack of harm I’m inflicting.

“Let me go!” I shout, fists connecting, rage increasing. “You asshole! How dare you make assumptions about me, about my job … call me a whore after you’ve sampled—”

“Then quit acting like one …” He grunts as I move my knee, and he blocks it efficiently, which only infuriates me further. “You want to hurt me?” He chuckles. “Go right ahead. Hurt me like you want to do to the bastard that hurt you.”

His words tear into me because his assumptions are so off base, and yet my head’s so messed up that I’m pissed he’s talking about Lexi like that.

“You have no fucking clue what I’ve been through,” I shout in a voice broken from my exertion, while his calm demeanor fuels my anger, my hurt, my everything. “How dare you—”

“That all you got Had?” he says, his grip like iron, his voice laced with amusement.

“I hate you!” I yell needing more of a reaction to justify my hysterics. “Let. Me. Go!”

And of course, I continue to hit him. Continue to shout obscenities about what he can do with his opinions, where he can shove his boy-next-door charm. Words fly and punch harder than my fists do. And I’m so messed up that it feels so good to hurt someone else for a change rather than being the one to take it.

I’m on the verge of hysterical—making no sense whatsoever—and I don’t even care anymore because I’m so sick and tired of caring that for once I let it all go. All of the hurt and the pain and the shutting everyone out so that when he finally wraps his arms around me, I don’t know what to do but struggle some more.

And he just holds on, my name a repeated murmur on his lips, the warmth of his breath against my hair as I cling to him.

But something happens in the moment—I struggle a few more times and then all of the fight leaves me.

I sag into him as large hiccupping sobs overtake my body, and my spiteful words turn into incoherent murmurings. My fists still pound against his chest, and he takes a hand and smooths it over my hair and holds my head against him, his thumb rubbing reassuringly back and forth on my cheek. He rests his chin on my head. “I’m right here, Had. I’m not going anywhere, so let it all out. C’mon … shh … c’mon.”

And it feels so damn good to need him. It feels so nice to use someone else to help with the emotion I’ve barricaded for so long that I can’t stop it from pouring out and running
down my cheeks. It is such a relief for him to be strong while I break down in this foreign place with a man I don’t want to want but can’t seem to separate myself from somehow.

So Becks holds me as I fall apart. As the months of grief and fear of the unknown become a perfect storm of release. Until my body trembles and my nose runs. Until my feet ache from standing in my heels and my fingers are sore from gripping his shirt so tightly. All the while he just holds on and says nothing aside from reassuring words, telling me that it’s okay. That I’m going to be okay.

Time passes.

My walls begin to crack.

I’m sure the moon moves across the night sky at my back, but I don’t know for sure because my eyes are blurry from crying so damn much. I have no idea how much time has lapsed. And now that my tears abate, now that silence has descended around us like a smothering pillow, the realization of what I’ve just done hits me full force. Shame follows quickly on its heels. I’ve got a moment of desperation where I know I need to salvage my dignity, but no idea how to go about doing that. I squeeze my eyes shut, uncertain where to set my feet beneath me on this ever-shifting ground, and try to pull away from him, but he just holds me tight, not allowing me to escape.

Emotionally or physically.

“Please, let me just go home, Becks.” I don’t even recognize the strange whimpering voice that comes from my mouth. The sounds of a person on the brink of losing it again.

“Not gonna happen, Montgomery.” He presses a kiss to the side of my head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

We stand there in the darkened room. At some point, he shifts us to the couch. He’s seated, with my body cradled across his lap—butt between his parted thighs. I don’t know how we got in this position, but I know that not once has he
loosened his hold on me. It’s almost as if I’m a scared jackrabbit he’s afraid will bolt the minute he releases me.

And he has good reason to think that.

I find an odd comfort in the silence for once. I’m concentrating so hard on not crying—on not thinking about tears—that I find it hard to think about anything else: Lexi, Becks, living without feeling.

Dying.

I find consolation in the rhythm of our chests resting against each other’s, from the physical contact that allows me to steal his warmth and use the reassuring beat of his steady heartbeat to soothe my aching soul.

And my mind must be so exhausted from the ridiculous display that I put on at the club that at some point, I succumb. So for the second time in a week, Becks sits with me as I fall asleep.

This time I just happen to be in his arms.