“I told him, yeah.” I fiddle with the drawstring at the waist of my lounge pants.
He doesn’t respond and I glance up to see his attention fixed on the wall, dented, decorated with fake snowflakes, a pool of glass on the floor.
“He was upset,” I offer by way of explanation.
Jared frowns, his brows jerking together.
“He didn’t . . . touch you, hurt you?”
“Of course not,” I answer immediately. “He took his anger out on the wall, not on me.”
“I imagine he’d like to take it out on me, too,” Jared says, a rueful tilt to his mouth.
“I, uh . . . didn’t tell him who.”
A heartbeat of silence in which he continues to look at me, and I studiously avoid his stare.
“Why not?” he asks.
“You move in the same circles.” I shrug. “I didn’t think it was necessary, though he did want to know.”
“You should have told him. He’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Why do you say that?” I lift puzzled eyes and find him still fixed on me.
“Because it’s going to happen again,” he says huskily, casually like it should be self-evident. “And I want everyone to know.”
Breath rises from my chest in a slow push. I’m not sure if it’s anger, frustration.
Or worse, relief.
“I wasn’t sure if . . .” My fingers find their way back to the drawstring. “You didn’t call so I thought maybe . . .”
“Jesus, Ban,” he says softly but with intensity. “I call and text every day and you ignore me, so I give you space. I lie back as long as I can stand it so you can sort this shit out with Zo, and you assume I don’t want you? What the hell?”
Welcome to the female mind. Hope you enjoy your stay.
He crosses over to the recliner where I’m seated and takes my hand.
“Do you know why I came here tonight?” he asks, stroking the lifeline of my palm with the pad of his thumb.
“No,” I whisper and look up to find an emotion so naked on Jared’s face I almost don’t recognize him. “Why’d you come?”
“To make sure he didn’t forgive you.”
25
Jared
It’s a shitty thing to say. I know that, but I’m being honest. All day I wrestled with the thought that maybe Zo would find it in that famously magnanimous heart to forgive Banner, and then she would feel compelled to stay with him. And I’d just have to break it up all over again.
Messy.
“What?” Banner touches her chest like my words wound her. They probably did. “How could you say that, Jared? If you knew what this is doing to me, that I’ve hurt him and ruined our friendship, you wouldn’t say that.”
She attributes more empathy to me than she should.
“If the shoe were on the other foot,” she says, blinking her puffy eyes at me. “How would you feel? How would you respond?”
She should be glad this is purely hypothetical. I’m not as civilized and kind as Zo, but I think we’ve established that.
“I would deal with him first.” I tug on her hands until she’s standing in front of me, close enough to feel each other’s heat. “I would beat him to just short of dying because we both know I’m much too pretty for prison.”
She cracks the smallest smile as I hoped she would.
“And then,” I say, my voice dropping to a rough vibration in my chest. “I would deal with you.”
I trace my thumb over her lips, squeeze her chin so her mouth opens the smallest bit and I can see her sweet pink tongue. My thumb fits neatly inside, and I push her jaw closed, watching, waiting for her to suck down. When she does, my dick twitches. I draw a sharp breath through my nose and caress the lining of her jaw and the sharp edges of her teeth.
“You, I would fuck clean.” I bend until our foreheads press together. “I would fuck you until you felt like a virgin. Like I was your first. I’d stay inside you until your body couldn’t remember how he ever felt. How anyone else ever felt.”
She blinks quickly and pants around my thumb in her mouth. I pull out and track a wet trail down her neck and over her collarbone.
“But I plan to do that anyway.”
Her lashes drift closed and sweep over the splintered veins fanning out from her eyes and across her cheeks where she has cried so much.
Over him.
I knew this would happen. That I would have to watch her grieve this way for him, but it still upsets me. Angers and frustrates me. I want her to be able to discard him and move on, focused only on me, on us, and not give him a second thought. Ironically, she wouldn’t be the woman I want if she did that. I can be so heartless in so many ways, and I love that she is good. Not like me at all. It’s sometimes inconvenient and more trouble than it’s probably worth, but it’s what makes her glimmer. I want all that shine for myself and will endure her crying for another man to keep it.
She steps away from my touch and shakes her head as if clearing away the thoughts and feelings my words stirred in her.
“I kind of flaked today,” she says abruptly. “Skipped my workout, didn’t go to the office, missed a meeting. I need an early start tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I say, waiting for her to try to kick me out.
“So . . .” she looks off to the side and bites her lip “. . . so I’m gonna turn in.”
“Great idea.” I toe my shoes off and fake a yawn. “I’m beat myself.”
Her mouth gapes open with shock.
“You aren’t spending the night.” She folds her arms around her midriff, protecting herself. “We can’t . . . Jared, I can’t . . .”
“We won’t.” I tip up her chin and make sure she sees I mean it. “But I am staying. I don’t like the state you’re in right now.”
“Surely you don’t think I’ll hurt myself.”
“I think you’ll condemn yourself,” I correct. “The way you’ve been condemning yourself in this room all alone in the dark all day.”