Stay With Me (20 page)

She sniffed and dabbed at the corner of her eye.
“I’m sorry, too. You’re right. I should’ve told you about them and asked you to
help me understand why they’re wrong.”

“We can do that if you want. Go through them one by
one and look at what’s true and what’s not. It would be good for me, too. I
don’t want to worry about that now though.” He lifted her chin. “I want to
enjoy the rest of the evening with you, okay?”

“Okay.”  The tears had stopped. Gosh, she was
beautiful. Her brown eyes shuttered closed as he kissed her lips. Then he
pulled back. “How can I have an argument with you when you have those
ridiculous blue lips?”

She slipped a hand over her mouth. “I forgot. How
bad is it?”

“Oh, it’s bad. Let’s see if we can get it to wear
off faster.” Her hand fell and one side of her mouth rose in a grin before he
smothered it with another kiss.

***

Thank God it’s Friday.
Truer words were never
spoken as far as Chris was concerned. It had been a long week fraught with
unexpected problems. Problems with people, machinery, and just about everything
else. He had a two-day reprieve, and this evening he had a date with Rebecca.
If anything or anyone could make him forget about his lousy week, it was her.
Just the thought of her had him smiling as he tugged at his necktie, loosening
it so it hung around his collar.

 He unbuttoned his wrinkled white dress shirt with
one hand while he opened the refrigerator with the other. He pushed aside the
milk and the juice, and then crouched to move a bag of wilted lettuce and some
mysterious leftovers.

I work in a brewery, and I don’t
have a single beer in this place?
He discovered a lone bottle on the door’s bottom
shelf. Not the best place for a beer, but it was all he had. He grabbed the
bottle opener from the counter, opened it, and took a long drink as he fished
the tails of his shirt out of his pants.

A knock sounded. He didn’t expect Rebecca for
another hour.

Despite his surprise, a smile broke free when he
saw Rebecca standing on the other side of his door. “Hey, I thought you were
coming at seven o’clock.” He stepped back to let her in, and she walked into
the kitchen, waiting for him to join her. Her eyes darted to his open bedroom
door. Thank goodness he had made the bed this morning.

They had planned on a casual dinner and a movie,
but it didn’t look like she had changed her clothes after work. How could she?
There wouldn’t have been time. She wore a long crinkled skirt that reached her
ankles and a snug-fitting tee with a silver bangle belt. She twisted her
fingers and let her left ankle tilt, the low-heeled shoe falling on its side. 
Rebecca seemed almost nervous to him.

“I didn’t want to wait to see you,” she said in a
rush.

He smiled and took her hand in his. Her palm seemed
a little sweaty, and he wondered what had made her so anxious that she rushed
to seem him straight from work.

“Rough day?”

She shook her head, and her gaze locked onto the
half-empty bottle of beer still in his hand. “Do you have another one of
those?”

He lifted the bottle and glanced at it, holding it
up. “This? I didn’t think you liked beer.”

“I haven’t given it a fair try. It looks good to me
today.”

He turned his head slightly and narrowed his eye at
her. “Really?  This is all I’ve got, but the rest is yours if you want it.”

She took it, and her hand shook a little as she
raised it to her lips. “Mmm.”

He laughed.

She wrinkled her brow and glared at him. “What?”

“You’re a horrible actress. You can say, ‘mmm’ all
you want, but that look on your face tells me you haven’t acquired a taste for
beer yet.”

“I guess not.” Despite her admission, she proceeded
to take another swig. What on earth was going on?

“So, not that I’m not happy to see you, but do you
want to tell me why you’re here straight from work chugging a half-drunk beer
you don’t like?”

Her gaze met his for a half second, and then she
turned and walked into his living area. “I wanted to see you. To be with you.”
Her voice dropped until it was low and husky, but still unsure. “Alone.”

She set the empty beer bottle on his end table and
turned back to him. While her hands still twisted with nervousness, clear
affection sparkled in her eyes. She stepped toward him and pressed her hands
against his chest. He had forgotten until he felt her hands through the thin
cotton of his undershirt that he had been about to get undressed when she
arrived.

She tilted her head up to him, and he happily
obliged her with what she sought. He let his hands fall to her waist and leaned
down to kiss her. Even though it ran contrary to everything he felt, he kissed
her as he always did with a gentle ease. When he touched her lips, the pressure
he felt returned was anything but gentle. It was hard, greedy, demanding, and
wholly unlike Rebecca.

Sweet mother of mercy!
She pulled at his
shirt, yanking the tails out where they remained trapped by his belt. It sent a
thrill through him that had him returning her kiss with an equal amount of
intensity, but it also set off a silent alarm. Something about this whole
situation wasn’t right.

He had almost convinced himself to back off from
the kiss when he felt her hands at his waist struggling with his belt buckle.
He pulled away, grasping her wrists tight in his hands and pushing them away
from his pants. He let out a breathy moan before he took a small step backward
and said, “Whoa. As much as I’m enjoying this—and God help me, I’m enjoying
this—I’m not daft enough to think you were suddenly overcome by your passion
for me and drove over here to seduce me. So, what’s this about?”

“You know how I feel about you.” He could tell she
was off script now. She had planned on him succumbing to her unspoken offer and
wasn’t prepared to answer his question. If she was nervous before, she bordered
on panic now. Her breaths came quick and rapid, and he couldn’t attribute it all
to their kiss.

“Well, Rebecca, I think I do, although you haven’t
really told me.” Heck, if she wanted to get in his pants, she should at least
be prepared to tell him she loved him. He could see already by the way she
looked at anything in the room but him that he wasn’t going to hear it now. He
couldn’t for the life of him figure what had turned his demure beauty into a
brazen temptress, but he knew now why she wanted that beer.

“Maybe not in so many words, but—”

“Words are good, Rebecca.” He loosened his hands on
her wrists and slid them along her palms until they were holding hands. He
waited for her response, but she turned it back on him.

“You say you love me. Don’t you want me?”

She had to be kidding.
I want you so badly I
can’t sleep at night or think straight all day.
He wasn’t about to say that
out loud, not when she would use it to justify doing something rash and
foolish.

“I do love you, but this isn’t about how I feel
about you. I get going too far in the heat of the moment. I pull myself back from
that ledge every time I kiss you, but this is premeditated. You want to use me
for something, and I’d like to know why.”

That stopped her, like she hadn’t considered this
wasn’t what he wanted. When she didn’t respond, he cocked an eyebrow in
question.

It took a full five seconds, but her whole veneer
collapsed as if she finally realized that she had in fact been using him to
suit her own purpose.

“I’m so sorry.” She clapped her hand to her mouth.
Her eyes took on a wet, shiny appearance that soon left tears rolling down her
cheeks.

Her tears caused an ache in his heart, and he
pulled her to him. “Shhh. It’s okay.”

She cried into his shirt for a minute or two before
she lifted her head. “I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

“Of course, but you still haven’t told me what this
is about.” She stilled as he stroked her hair, but she acted as if he hadn’t
even spoken.

“I didn’t think of it that way. I was so selfish.”

His heart still pounded from that kiss, and the way
she looked so broken and vulnerable tempted him to kiss her again.

“If you give me a minute I’ll get changed, and we
can go get something to eat and talk through this. Just sit tight.”

He headed to his bedroom, and closed the door
behind him. With a couple breaths, he tried to stop thinking about that kiss
and where it would’ve gone if he would’ve let it happen. He changed his
clothes, then glanced in the mirror as he ran his fingers through his hair.
When he opened the door, Rebecca stood with her back to him. By the way her
slim shoulders shook, he knew that she was crying.

He came up behind her and cleared his throat to
make sure she knew he was there before he folded her into his arms. “Hey, it’s
okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Tears choked her words. She turned
to face him, and her eyes were red-rimmed and teary. “I’ve made a complete fool
of myself.”

“What are you talking about?” He could see where
she would feel bad about it, but he couldn’t understand what would make her
feel foolish.

“I threw myself at you, and…and…” The tears came in
heavy waves now. “And I’m such an idiot. You don’t even want me. No one ever
has, and no one ever will.”

At first she resisted, but then she let him pull
her into his arms so that she could relax against his chest. “You think I don’t
want you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Rebecca, why do you think I had to leave this
room? Why do you think I suggested we go out? Because I do want you, and while
I like to think I have a fair amount of self-control, I have limits. And I
really don’t want to test them tonight.” Her gaze dropped to her feet, and he
took her hand again. “You ready?”

Breathing deeply, her eyes finally met his.  “I
have some clothes in the car. Do you mind if I change?”

“Of course not.”

She retrieved her clothes from the car and changed
into shorts and a shirt in Chris’s bathroom.

Chris didn’t like the unnatural silence, but he
figured they could wait until they got to the restaurant to sort things out.
The little sandwich shop in town would be perfect—large enough to afford them
some privacy but busy enough to keep the drama to a minimum. It had the added
advantage of being devoid of comfy horizontal surfaces. Considering how he
still didn’t know if he deserved a pat on the back or a kick in the rear for
putting a stop to her advances, that was a plus.

They ordered soup, sandwiches, and iced teas, and
the waitress brought the order to their table in the corner. Chris said the
blessing, and they ate—or in Rebecca’s case, picked more than ate.

When they were done, Chris stacked the dirty plates
and pushed them aside. He reached across the table for her hand, but Rebecca
merely looked at it and settled her hands in her lap. Chris tried to pretend
that simple action didn’t feel like a knife to his heart. This rift that
erupted in his apartment seemed more serious than he had first thought, and his
heart seized a little. “Do you want to tell me what’s happened?”

***

Rebecca stared at her hands and began. “I overheard
some people talking about me in the break room.”

Chris nodded, waiting for her to elaborate. “I take
it what they were saying wasn’t kind.”

She shook her head. “I’m a joke.”

She could hear every word of the conversation in
her head. Neal, that little weasel in human resources, talked to Marcus, the
frat boy in the cubicle behind hers.

“I heard she’s got a boyfriend.”

“Poor jerk. Either he’s as much of a prudish prig
as she is or he’s gettin’ some on the side.”

The next voice belonged to Angela, the
receptionist. “You guys are mean. Have you ever even spoken to her? She’s
sweet, even if she is a little straight-laced. I think you’re spiteful because
she’s too smart to give either of you reprobates a second look.” Angela’s heels
clicked on the tiled floor, and Rebecca knew that she had left the room. It was
the last comment that Marcus made that cut her deepest. Repeating it to Chris
embarrassed her, but was also somehow cathartic.

“He said that he bet it was all a farce. That I
might act like I wouldn’t know what to do with…with … a, uh, certain part of
the male anatomy if I held it in my hand, but that I had probably slept with
every guy dumb enough to give me a second look. ”

The muscles in Chris’s jaw tensed and then relaxed.
He leaned forward on the table with his hands folded in front of him and kept
his voice low.

“You’re innocent. I love that about you, Rebecca.”

She leaned back in her seat, not wanting the
intimacy he was trying to create. She didn’t want his pity.
Poor little
Rebecca. We mustn’t corrupt her delicate sensibilities.

“I’m either a prude or a slut depending on whom you
ask. But you know what I really am? I’m a freak. Abby even said so.”