I moaned shamelessly into his mouth. But as the pleasure started its final climb, reality suddenly hit me. I was going to have a screaming orgasm on top of Greyson Archer. I was going to come my brains out barely ten feet from where my daughter slept at night, with the man who had taken her father away forever.
Guilt slammed into me. I struggled backwards onto my feet and yanked down my tank top, trying to ignore the crushing ache between my thighs. My whole body was crying out for me to get back down on that sofa and finish the job. But there was no way I could. Letting myself go in Grey's arms...it was all wrong.
“I'm sorry,” I blurted before he could say anything. “No, I can't. I just can't.”
Grey blinked up at me, the haze of lust not yet faded from his eyes. “You're throwing me out again?” He looked so bewildered and frustrated, and I couldn't blame him—I felt the exact same way.
“I'm sorry,” I said again, uselessly.
“What is it you're after, Fin?” He stood up with a sigh. “All I want is to be there for you. I thought you wanted this...wanted me.”
I swallowed hard and looked away. There had been no real anger in his tone, only confusion and concern. An honest affection that I suddenly wasn't sure I deserved.
He waited a few moments for my answer. Then, more somberly, he said, “There's nothing I can say to take your pain away, is there?”
I flinched.
“Is there?” he pressed.
Biting my lip hard, I finally replied, “No. There isn't.” I forced myself to meet his gaze; he deserved at least that much. “It's never going to fade. It's never going to be okay. I'm always going to look at you and see...”
I didn't have to finish the sentence. Grey hung his head and cursed, his fists clenching at his sides. He wanted to fight me, to challenge me—but he knew I was right. Which only deepened my resolve.
“No matter our physical attraction, this will never work. It can’t be. We can't.” I choked the words out of my throat like sand, hoping I sounded confident and sure, when what I felt was shaky and weak.
Grey swallowed heavily, his throat working to hold back the argument I knew was on the tip of his tongue. I could read the man like a damn book. And this one didn’t have a happy ending.
“So you need to leave,” I went on. “Right now...and this time, don't come back.”
His head snapped up. “But what about—?”
“I never should have let you see Maple in the first place. It'll only confuse her to have you popping in and out of her life all the time.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I turned my back and opened the front door. The gesture was plain. Get out.
The night air rushed in to cool my face, flushed with shame and grief and the last stubborn traces of lust. For a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears that threatened. Grey walked past me and paused at the threshold. I kept my expression frozen as he looked at me for the last time, searching for a crack in my resolve, silently pleading for another chance.
His fingertips stoked my cheek – so light, so sweet – a soft gesture I didn’t deserve after all the ways I’d probably tortured him. His eyes were so blue, so deep and so haunted, that I almost took back every nasty word I’d said. It was all right there on the tip of my tongue. But I knew I couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did.
So all I said was, “Goodbye, Grey.” And then I closed the door.
Chapter Nine
Greyson
The pain pounded through my head like a jackhammer through concrete.
“Fuck, make it stop,” I groaned into my pillow. I pulled it over my head and squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could block out the noise. That'll teach me to drink nothing but whiskey for three days straight...
The pounding was so intense that, for a second, it transported me back to the war zone. Small-arms fire rattling, artillery shells screaming through the air, bombs detonating in the distance. Deafening and deadly.
I hated the memories that rushed in with that sound. As the team leader that day, I'd had to make a snap decision between several equally risky options. And while my choice did result in a casualty, it was impossible to say whether any of the other options would have fared any better. The scenario had no obvious right answer. And that was what kept me up at night. Replaying every move I'd made? trying to imagine every possible outcome, wondering if I could have saved him.
Cracking one eye open, my brain latched onto the fact it was daylight out. Then the fog began to clear and I realized that wasn’t my head pounding. It was my front door.
“Christ, hang on a second.” I shoved the blankets back and tripped over my boots at the edge of the bed, stumbled my way out to the living room. Not an easy task when the floor was strewn with empty bottles, pizza boxes, and random articles of clothing.. Who the hell was at my door? It sounded like a goddamn elephant trying to charge through.
“What?” I pulled it open and saw a very pissed-off Nolan staring back at me.
“What the hell happened to you?” he barked.