“Try me. I might understand more than you think.”
I have all of his attention. “I wanted to be new. I wanted to start over. I wanted to be someone else. But when I woke up in the hospital, I was still me. My parents were still gone. But Melio and Marta were there, and my sisters were there too. And they were angry at me. Melio swore at me. He swore at us all the time, because he’s Emilio, but he never actually swore at me in anger. And he was very angry. And scared. And Marta…she was hurt. And at that moment, I realized that even though my parents were gone, I had been given a wonderful gift and I was squandering it. So I went to therapy. I took the meds. The world became a brighter place.” I toss up my hands. “That’s it. That’s all of it.”
“Why the gloves?” he asks. “Why didn’t you just wear long-sleeve shirts to cover the burns?”
I laugh. “It wasn’t the burns I needed to cover. It was the suicide scars. They hurt my sisters and my parents every time they saw them. So I blamed it on the burns and wore the gloves. I didn’t want them to have to see. I didn’t want them to remember. And I guess I didn’t want to remember it either.”
“Have you ever felt like doing that again?” he asks.
“No. I’ve never felt like that again.” Is he worried that I’ll try to hurt myself again?
He stares at me until I start squirming.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you feel differently about me than you did before?” My heart thuds.
“I like you more than I did five seconds ago,” he says, his cheeks coloring.
“Are you blushing?”
“Maybe.”
“Because you like me,” I tease. “You want to kiss me,” I sing out, like the old kids’ song. But then I realize he can’t hear the tune and might not get it.
“I do want to kiss you,” he says. “But we went too far too fast, right?”
I shake my head. “I was just emotional. It was a big thing for me.”
“Why did you get up and leave?”
“Because you were getting all freaked out by my crying.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“No, the only thing that freaked me out was when you got up. I wanted to hold you through it.”
“Don’t most men get freaked out by crying?”
He laughs. “No, because I wanted to cry too. It has never been like that for me.” He wraps his palm around two fingers and makes a fist. “Being inside you felt like where I was supposed to be.” He leans over and kisses me, his lips soft and tender. “All the time I spend with you is the best I ever had. Naked. With clothes on. It doesn’t matter. I want it all.”
“So, what do we do now?” I wiggle my toes.
“You want to play strip poker?” he asks. He waggles his brows at me.
“All I’m wearing is a t-shirt.”
He lifts the edge of the shirt. “No panties?”
I laugh and tug the shirt lower. “No.”
He brushes my hands away. “Let me see,” he says.
“No!” I cry out, but I’m laughing and he knows it.
“Telling me you’re on my couch with no panties is like giving a little kid a Christmas present and then only letting him play with the wrapping paper.”
He lifts me so that I’m straddling his thighs, my legs spread wide. I brace myself with my hands on his shoulders.
He goes still and I let my weight sink down on him.
“So, the crying earlier, you weren’t regretting what we did?” he asks.
“No. I don’t regret it.”
“And you didn’t really think we went too fast?”
“I thought we went too fast for an emotional connection, maybe? I don’t know.”
“My emotions are connected.”
“Mine are too. But I’m not in love with you.” I grin. Isn’t that what every man wants to hear?
“Yet.”
My heart skips a beat.
“Give me a chance.”
“Okay,” I whisper, and then I kiss him.
Ryan palms my naked ass, squeezing it roughly, rubbing his palms over my cheeks as I kiss him, and then he jerks me forward so that the ridge of him is pressed against my naked skin.