River broke free from her frozen state, if only to shake her head slowly. Inside, she felt the slow, churning death Vaughn must have experienced that night so far away and wanted to weep for him—for the young man he’d been forced to leave behind—but tears would have to come later, when he’d been reassured. “You did do the right thing,” River breathed. “Better than right, Vaughn. All that closure you provided…it was invaluable.” She searched around the table, as if the proper words would appear on the floor. “I’m so proud of you.”
A sound left him, a gruff heave of weight leaving his chest. The muscles in his throat moved up and down. “Proud of me? Look what you’ve done with our child. She’s incredible thanks to you, Riv. I’m proud of you.” The intensity in his gaze hit her like a ton of bricks. “You know what, though? If you have pride in me, I’m not going to question it. I don’t care about anything else in this life. Nothing but that. Is that wrong?”
Confusion banded together with the tumult of emotions she was experiencing. Had she been a support system for him so long he’d stopped loving her somewhere along the way, becoming dependent instead?
“There.” He pointed at River from across the table, dark brows drawn close. “Where did you just go on me?”
Selfish. Stop being so selfish. He’d just told her something traumatic, something more important than a young girl’s heartbreak, and she was thinking of herself. River forced steel into her spine. “Nowhere. I’m right here.” Taking a chance, she reached across the table and twined their fingers together. “Right here.”
Vaughn’s skepticism still showed on his handsome face, even as he leaned in, his voice turning gruff. “I’d love us to be somewhere I could make sure of that.”
River’s heartbeat tripled, the restaurant’s temperature seeming to increase to an inferno state. Comfort him, a voice urged in the back of her mind. Was Vaughn distracting her from an important conversation with sex? Yes. He always did. Would she give in anyway, if that were the case? Relaying the story had obviously taken its toll on Vaughn, leaving his eyes haunted, his mouth set in a grim line. However that long ago night had turned out, he’d needed her, whether he’d loved her or not. And he needed her again tonight, with the wound having reopened. “Let’s get the food to go.”
His hand clenched into a fist inside hers. “Go where?”
Her thighs tightened just thinking about it. All those stolen, forbidden hours, being taken roughly on a cheap comforter, traffic whirring past outside. Closure. That’s what the motel represented. If Vaughn didn’t love her, maybe she could at least get closure. A way to move on with Vaughn in her life, without the bone-deep longing that came along with being near him. “You know where.”
Horror registered, darkening his expression. “I’m not taking you back there.”
River could see he meant it, that he wouldn’t change his mind unless she convinced him. Beneath the table, she placed her hand on Vaughn’s knee and slid it up, up until she reached mid-thigh. “Let’s replace a bad memory with a good one.” She pressed her thumb into the meat of his inner thigh, circling it in a sensual massage, making Vaughn close his eyes on a low groan. “Take me to our place.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Don’t go. Don’t go.”
River lunged from where she lay in a sobbing heap on the bed, latching onto Vaughn’s arm before he could reach the door. Leaving? Just…leaving? This couldn’t possibly be real. Yes, it was a horrible nightmare. He hadn’t meant anything he’d said. How could he have stopped loving her when she had enough love inside her for them both?
“Let me go, River.” Dull eyes stared clear over her head. “I said what I came to say. Should have said it a long time ago.”
“No, you’re lying.” She screamed at him, smacking her palms against his immovable chest. “I can prove it.”
A spark of the old Vaughn made her breath catch. Maybe it was her feverish denial, projecting what she needed to see to survive, but she swore he’d glanced down at her with a flash of unsuppressed hunger. Without time to reevaluate, River tore the dress over her head, leaving herself standing before Vaughn in nothing but the special, lacy white thong she’d bought in anticipation of his return. The air conditioning teamed up with Vaughn’s blistering stare to pebble her nipples into aching little points.
And then it was Vaughn’s turn to lunge. With a ragged sound he tackled River onto the bed, shredding her panties in desperate hands. “Fuck, doll. Why are you doing this to me? I left my condoms in the car,” he growled. “I knew I’d want this.”
She could feel Vaughn reining himself in, knew by his deep drags of breath, he was attempting to gain control and stop. Stop touching her. No. God, no. If she let him walk out the door, she wouldn’t have another chance to get through to him. This—touching—was how they’d always broken down barriers. If he left now, she would never see him again. The panic rose in her throat until near hysteria trickled in, bleeding past the edges of her mind.
I’m losing him. I’m losing him.
“I’m on the pill,” she said on a shudder, grasping at the only lifeline available to her. Because surely if he left, she wouldn’t be able to open her eyes and see the next morning. “I went on it for us.”