Christy McKellen - Mills & Boon Showcase

It took another ten minutes before she was ready to leave the room, holding her breath as she opened the door. Folded up in the doorway were her clothes. Her eyes darted around the room. She saw the bed and the tangled sheets, but there was no sign of Matt. She took the clothes back into the bathroom, closed the door and dressed quickly, pulling her hair back with the extra hair tie she found in her jeans pocket. She took a final steadying breath, trying to summon the strength she was going to need to face him.

She found him in the living room, sitting on the couch, his attention fixed on the gas fireplace in the center of one of the walls. He looked up as soon as she came in. He too was fully dressed, not that it mattered as she could still see every contour of his naked body in her mind. It was a battle in her mind between the need to be with him, feel him against her, and the memories that told her to run as fast as she could and never look back. Before she could say anything he was walking towards her, reaching out with her coat and bag in his hand. He passed them over carefully so as not to touch her and gave the impression of not even wanting to be near her.

“I’ll drive you home.” He didn’t sound like himself, but she couldn’t figure out much beyond that. This was not the reaction she had expected, and while she was grateful not to have to replay the details of their encounter aloud, she was also hurt by his dismissal and couldn’t control the accusation in her eyes when she looked at him again.

He misunderstood the look. “I did drive you home earlier, but when we got to your apartment I couldn’t wake you up and couldn’t find your keys to carry you inside. So I brought you home so you could sleep here. That’s it; that’s all.” He sounded defensive and angry. Well, so was she.

“Thank you.” The words were terse. She put on her coat and snatched her bag from his outheld hand. He grabbed his own jacket and unlocked the apartment door.

They traveled in silence down the elevator, into the parking garage and during the entire car ride back to her apartment. At three in the morning traffic was minimal, so the drive was mercifully short. Normally silence like this would be uncomfortable, but she knew talking about what had just happened between them would take discomfort to a whole new level.

Her hand was on the door handle as he pulled up in front of her building and she had the car door open before the vehicle had even come to a full stop. She needed to get away from Matt, she needed time to figure out what tonight meant, if anything. Her foot was on the curb, half-out of the car, when she heard his voice.

“He’s not going to change his mind.” She would have missed the words if it had not been for the dead silence of the night.

It made her pause, settling her body back into the seat. She looked back at Matt, whose hands were still gripping the steering wheel, his gaze focused straight ahead, not looking at Kate. What was he talking about? She slumped further back into the passenger seat, too thrown by his statement not to voice the thought in her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Tate Reed.” By now he had turned to look at her, and she still didn’t understand. The mention of Tate, though, brought a comparison to mind. She hadn’t ever felt with Tate the way she had tonight with Matt. Never so out of control, never so desperate for release, so passionate.

“He doesn’t love you,” Matt stated, almost apologetically, like he was breaking bad news to a client.

It felt like a slap in the face, a reminder of another time long ago. Okay to have sex with but not worthy of love. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about what had almost happened between them tonight. It was no big deal for Matt, just as it hadn’t been the last time. She could feel a lump start to form in the back of her throat and focused her eyes into a hard glare in effort to control the tears of humiliation that were forming at the edges.

“No, he doesn’t love me any more. But he did love me and he still respects me and would never hurt me, which makes him a better man than you.” She had meant to hurt him, to wound him, to have him feel some of her pain, and when she looked over and saw that she had succeeded, it didn’t make her feel any better. What was she doing here with Matt? Wasn’t the definition of craziness repeating the same actions again and again and expecting a different result?

“I’m a complete fool,” she muttered to herself, and completed her departure by slamming the car door and not turning back to look at Matt, who remained parked outside as she entered her building. She was locked safely inside her apartment and lying in bed before she heard his car start up again and leave.

He sped through Boston’s underground tunnels too angry to return to the memories that now awaited him at home. He looked at his now-empty passenger seat, remembering her in it curled up, sleeping, looking no different than she had almost a decade ago. When he had lifted her out of the car and carried her to the apartment, she had curled her arms around him and he had remembered what it had felt like when she’d been his.

When she had woken up he had seen the same trusting eyes of the past and he had been unable to resist kissing her. He didn’t know what he’d meant by the kiss, he’d just felt a need to be closer to her, to regain the intimacy they had lost. The instant he had felt her lips, tasted her, he had lost all control. He shifted uncomfortably in the sports car seat, his erection returning painfully with the thought of Kate and her passionate response. The Kate he had been with tonight was not the same Katie he had known. The new Kate was no longer tentative. She had grabbed at him, moaned beneath him, had eagerly lain back and opened herself to him. Or so he had thought.

It had been a complete and sudden change, a moment of recognition. The moment she had heard his voice she had pushed him away and run. It had felt like a cold knife had stabbed him in the chest as he had felt the full impact of her rejection. He had wanted to go after her, to make her face him, but pride had held him back. He hadn’t wanted or needed to hear that the reason she had stopped was because he was not the man she wanted or loved. He hadn’t wanted to hear her reject him aloud, to tell him that she only wanted and loved Tate. That in her sleep-deprived state she had fantasized that he was Tate, right up until his voice had broken the illusion.

Her rejection tortured him. He never expected Kate to live a life of celibacy, but he had also deliberately chosen not to think about the alternative. Now he was faced with a reminder of the facts, what she looked like, what she felt like, how she would react and respond to the most intimate of touches, in essence how she would make love with the man she loved. And in acquiring that knowledge he was also faced with the fact that he was no longer that man.

THE LOUD KNOCK brought Kate out of the darkness and forced her to open her eyes. She had been awake until six a.m., thinking about Matt, being torn between painful memories of the past and her body’s frustration at its lack of fulfillment. The knock came again and Kate grabbed her bathrobe and made her way to the door.

Chloe was standing on the other side, smiling, her hair down and straightened, her casual yoga pants and V-neck shirt nicely outlining her figure. She looked perfect, and Kate shuddered at the contrast to her own disheveled appearance. Chloe must also have recognized the difference because her smile quickly vanished and her green eyes began to evaluate Kate as she would a patient. “Oh, my God, I woke you up. Are you okay? Are you sick?”

It would be so easy just to agree and send her friend away, but Kate felt like she had lied, even if by omission, more in the past few days than she had in years, and she was tired of it. That wasn’t her; it wasn’t who she was. “No, Chloe, I am post-call and had a late night. Come in so I can stop standing in the doorway half-naked.”