He shoots from the bed, his movements graceful yet lightning fast. Prowling toward me, he rests his hands in his pockets.
My shoulders hunch as he circles me, his hulking frame edging close enough to brush against me. But he doesn’t reach out, doesn’t try to soothe me. Why would he? I’m spineless and selfish, and I don’t deserve either one of them.
“You fucked him tonight.” He steps into my space, towering over me, his eyes aglow with unfathomable self-control. “In the bathroom.”
My face crumples, my tears thick and ugly as they roll down my face.
“You chose him.” His voice breaks, forming a crack in his coldness.
“No.” Tears strangle my whisper. “Trace, I didn’t! Please, believe me.” I sob and rub the heels of my hands against my temples, curling my fingers and fighting the need to cling to him, to hold him. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m trying…I’m trying to do the right thing, but I’m stuck. I can’t let go of him, and I can’t…” Wracking cries garble my voice, and I grip the lapels of his suit jacket. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’re a fucking mess.” He pries off my hands and sets me away, glaring at me with disgust.
“Don’t quit me.” I wrap my arms around my waist, tormented and shaking violently. “Please.”
“Is this regret?” He touches a thumb to my cheekbone and catches a tear, staring at it with unblinking eyes. “Do you regret fucking him?”
If I slept with any other man—any man at all—I’d regret it till my dying breath. But I was with the one I never stopped loving, the man I never moved on from. As complicated and painful as that is, there’s nothing confusing about my feelings for Cole.
The song ends, and deafening silence moves in, slithering and strangling and ticking down the seconds. Every breath carries me closer to the end—a finality I’m not ready for.
Trace studies my eyes, his scowl lined with a sadness I’ve never seen there before. His heartache is palpable in the stiff line of his shoulders, in the way he holds himself rigidly still, and in the very air coiled around him, keeping me at an agonizing distance.
I hate myself for hurting him. Doesn’t matter how much he lied or deceived me, I’m the one who delivered the most painful blow.
“I regret…” I feel cold, defeated, worthless, as I stare up at him. “I regret hurting you.”
He closes his eyes and tips his head back, his expression…lost. Then something crosses over his features, tightening the muscles in his face.
“Prove it.” He lowers his head and tunnels his gaze into mine.
My breath stammers, and my mind races to understand. Does he want me to choose between them? Right this minute? I grasp the sides of my neck, swaying and dizzy with bubbling panic.
His eyes dip to my borrowed shirt, and realization stops my heart.
“You want me to…?” I touch the placket of buttons on my chest.
“Take it off.”
He turns toward the couch in front of the fireplace, slides off his suit jacket with meticulous movements, and folds it over the arm rest.
He’s going to fuck me. He’s going to take my body while he’s hurting and probably far more pissed than he’s letting on. I’m willing to do almost anything to make this right, but I’m not sure sex is what he needs.
Or maybe that’s exactly what he needs. Reassurance.
When he shifts back to me, his eyes narrow at my still-clothed body.
“Your no-sex rule is fucked to hell.” He stalks toward me, loosening his tie. “Remove. The shirt.”
The cut of his voice makes me jump, but the heated promise beneath his gruff tone sends my fingers to the buttons. Maybe he just wants to pound all his loathing and bitterness into me, make me feel how badly I hurt him, and purge it from his system.
I can give him that. And more.
“I’m committed to this.” Clutching the shirt, I push a button through the hole. “I’m not giving up.” I release another one. “I love you, Trace.”
His eyes don’t stray from mine as I free each button and whisper determined words. When the shirt slips to the floor, it leaves me completely nude and trembling. Neither of us move.
The hush in the room presses against me, straining the few feet of space between us. He makes me suffer through it, taking his time scanning every exposed line and shadowed crease of my body.
“Bend over the bed.” He adjusts the cuff of his sleeve. “Feet on the floor. Ass in the air.”
I shiver and push myself into motion. He’s going to fuck me face down in the least intimate position possible. And I’ll let him. I’ll let him use my body however he wants as long as he doesn’t let go.
Sliding my hands over the mattress, I bend at the waist, legs straight and ass up, with my chest and cheek against the bedding.
His sharp breath sounds behind me, followed by his approaching footfalls. I tense in anticipation of his masculine heat, his expert touch, his satin lips…
“I don’t resent you or think any less of you for fucking him.” His palm ghosts across my backside, prickling my skin. “The rage burning inside me will never be directed at you.” He kicks my legs apart, belying his words. “You are the only reason that son of a bitch is still alive.”
My spine chills. “Trace, you can’t—”
“Shut up.” He caresses my bottom and softens his tone. “I’m punishing you for waiting ten days to tell me.”
Ten days?
I started sleeping with Cole the night before I took the pregnancy test. Then I was sick for four days. Then six days of bed-hopping…
Ten days.
How does Trace know that?
“You were puking and sick as hell that morning.” He bends over my back and speaks against the pounding din in my ear. “But I saw the guilt in your eyes the moment you looked at me.”
My lashes flutter against my cheeks, my guilt unbearable. He knew all this time and never said anything, never so much as looked at me differently.
“Do you know what it’s like to watch your dreams come true?” He curves a hand around my waist. “To hold the end of your story tight in your grip, only to have it unravel from your fingers and slip away?”
An icy jolt spikes through me, quaking my body with memories of Cole’s death.
“Yeah.” I crane my neck and meet his flinty eyes. “I know exactly what that’s like.”
“Then you know…” He leans in, bracing a hand beside my head. “What I’ve been feeling for the last ten days.”
I swallow thickly, choking on my tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was waiting for you to come to me, to say something, to choose me.”
The hand on the bed moves in, wrapping around my throat. His fingers press against my windpipe, not hard enough to cut my air, but it’s a vulnerable position. With his other hand stroking my bare backside, my legs spread, body naked, and butt perched in the air, I know what’s coming before he rears back his arm.