K. Bromberg - Slow Burn

“Ha. I believe your husband is the one who drives.” I relax for the first time since we started this conversation, knowing that it wasn’t just Rylee’s curiosity that made her change the subject. She’s made her points; she isn’t going to push them any harder now that she knows I actually heard them. Now she’s leaving it up to me to mull them over and figure out what to do with Becks in the meantime.

And the answer is nothing until I get results. I know I’m stubborn, but I just can’t bring myself to cross the imaginary line I’ve drawn in the sand.

I pull myself from my thoughts, returning my attention to my best friend and the grin on her face. “All I’m going to say is it’s a damn good thing he works with his hands for a living,” I confess with a flash of my smile, “because I’m sure as fuck a lot to handle, and this girl is most definitely not complaining when he has those hands full of me.” I raise my eyebrows up at her and leave that as the only explanation she needs for now.

Chapter 17

The smile on my face feels good as I carry the empty platter into the kitchen for Rylee. I set it in the sink half-full of dishes and begin putting some of the condiments on the counter away so that they don’t spoil.

I hum along to the music floating in from the deck outside, where about a dozen or so of Colton’s crew members are milling around, talking or standing in the pool with beers in their hands. It’s the most relaxed I’ve felt in forever, and I hope this is a sign that things are going to be okay. That I’m going to be okay.

I shake my head, hating the sense of battle that’s always a constant in me. I want to feel hopeful, but the fear never quite goes away.

I adjust the top of my suit to make sure it covers the bandage over the incision and check myself in the reflection of the window above the sink. I nearly jump out of my skin when I see Becks’s reflection there. I yelp and spin around to see him standing on the opposite side of the kitchen, in board shorts and a baseball cap, his arms folded across his bare chest. I only have a second to take in the whole, incredible package because when I meet his eyes I can’t look away.

Figures, just as I was starting to feel like myself again—Ry’s talk helped pull bits of myself from the dust, brushing them off to take their place again as hope tried to raise its weary head—the appearance of my biggest weakness and number one complication brings it all back in an instant. My heart falls into my stomach at the sight of him, turning my relaxing afternoon into an obstacle course of pitfalls.

Our gazes lock. Although his eyes are intense, they’re shadowed by the brim of his hat, so I can’t quite see if the anger I deserve is there or not. I exhale the breath I was holding as nerves slowly flicker to life under his quiet scrutiny. I glance toward the patio doorway and then back to him in a move that earns me a low, condescending chuckle from him.

“You gonna run out that door too without saying a word? Seems par for the course. Or are you going to stand here and explain just what the fuck happened?”

The bite in his tone stings but I deserve it. I work a swallow down my throat as I stand before him feeling completely vulnerable. I fiddle with the string on the hip of my bikini bottoms, which causes his eyes to flicker down momentarily before coming back up to my eyes without even stopping to take in the deep V of my cleavage.

And I know that means he’s really pissed.

“Oh right, I forgot.” He shakes his head, contempt in his eyes. “You’d explain, but oops, you’re sorry. You thought you could, but now you can’t …,” he says, repeating my lame excuse back to me.

Yep, I’m seriously fucked here. There’s nothing I can say to explain why I left without telling him the truth, and that’s a line I’m not crossing. “Becks …” His name is a sigh on my lips as I try to figure out how to respond. I obviously didn’t think this whole silent-treatment thing through very well. How stupid was I not to realize I was going to have to face him, talk to him, explain my actions at some point since our best friends are married? Shit!

“Was it something I said?” He pushes off the counter and walks the few feet to stand across the island from me before he continues. “Because I do believe you begging for me to make you feel owned was a request. Did I not do what you asked? Did I not own you enough?” The derision in his tone matches the contempt in his eyes.

I don’t even attempt to respond to that, wouldn’t have an answer to give even if I could, because he not only owned my body that night—he started owning my heart too. My pulse thunders as I watch him, anticipating what his next words will be because I know regardless of what they are, I deserve them.

He twists his lips as his stare bores into me, daring me to answer him so that he can knock my excuse away. “You see, I’m just having a hard time comprehending what the hell happened because after hearing you say we are , I woke up in an empty apartment, which seems like your way of saying we aren’t . Care to fill me in on what the fuck happened?”

His words reach their mark, and I shake my head as his cologne hits me from his nearness and immediately makes me think of that spot beneath his jaw that smells the strongest of it. My body wants to respond—step toward him, reach out to him—but I do neither because making that physical connection is something I can’t allow myself to have.

“No, I just …” My words falter when he braces his hands on the counter in front of him, a slight smirk on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. I can see them clearly now, along with the tension evident in the broad lines of his shoulders.

I bring my eyes back to his. “I thought you couldn’t come today?”

“Oh, I think I demonstrated that I can come just fine, City, so let’s quit your avoidance game, shall we?”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“I don’t think you know much of anything right now.”

He tilts his head to the side, no signs of the laidback guy I’ve come to know. “I didn’t take you for the kind of girl to sneak out without a word, refuse to answer your phone or respond to a text”—he shrugs—“but shit, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve misjudged someone’s character.”

His words sting, and his questioning of my character shifts the temper I have on simmer to boil. Hell yes, I want the man, but if he can’t handle me now at my worst, then he sure as fuck doesn’t deserve me at my best. And I know he has every right to feel how he feels, but I’m in self-preservation mode—my ample ingestion of wine helping fuel my irrationality—and I don’t want to deal with this shit right now.

“We said no strings, right?” I bite out, leaning against the counter behind me, Bitch 101 in session: Don’t question me when you don’t know shit, or I’ll get nasty. “Did something change that I don’t know about? Last I checked, I wasn’t required to give lengthy good-byes before I take my shimmy of shame back to my place after a quick fuck.”

I see the hurt flash in his eyes, and it kills me but tells me so much at the same time. That brief flicker of emotion confirms that he has feelings for me, and that alone has my defenses up and panic beginning to strangle me. I may have told him that night we are , but that was before the lump and the possible results. He can’t have feelings for me.

He just can’t. I can’t allow it. I need to go back to how we were when we started things—casual, simple. Temporary.

My heart races. I grip the counter to prevent him from noticing my trembling hands. But I meet his glare and match it, waiting for the ball of hurt to be hurled at me.