“Fear. Adrenaline. Shock,” he told her. “They take a toll on the body.”
“I need a martini and my bed.” She blew out a breath that fluttered one looping strand of hair. “And then I think I’ll rinse and repeat for the next two or three days. Maybe after that, I’ll feel human again.”
Ozzie set aside what remained of his coffee so he could brush Samantha’s hair back over her shoulder. When he gave her a squeeze, her muscles were like stone. He knew of one surefire way to help her lose that tension. “Keeping you in bed for the next two or three days, even if I have to share you with the occasional martini, sounds good to me.”
She looked away from him, her throat working over a hard swallow.
All his instincts went on red alert. “Hey. What’s up?”
“I’m not going home with you tonight, Ozzie.” When she turned back, her eyes looked funny. There was determination there, but also sadness.
Now his instincts weren’t on red alert. They were running around, screaming like their hair was on fire. His voice was harsher than he would have liked when he cocked a brow and said, “No?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I need to go home. I have things to take care of. Plants to water. Trash to take out. That article I was working on today… Charlie texted to say he’ll give me an extension.”
“Was I hearing things?” Ozzie cocked his head. “Or were you talking about martinis and taking to your bed not two minutes ago.”
“That’s a fantasy. This is reality.”
And why did he get the feeling those two sentences meant more than she was letting on? An itchy sort of desperation tightened his shoulders. “I could go with you. I’ve never seen the inside of your place, and I’m dying to get a gander at your sanctum.” He hoped to smooth the strain in the air with a little humor. “You know, get to know the real Samantha, warts and all. Tell me, do you leave your wet towels on the floor and your half-empty Diet Coke cans sitting around?”
“You can’t come over. I already told Donny he could.”
“Right.” Ozzie nodded, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “So how about I swing by tomorrow and—”
“Like I said,” she quickly interrupted. “I have that article to finish. And…other stuff to catch up on.”
“Right,” he said again. Now it wasn’t just the muscle in his jaw twitching. Those in his neck and back had joined in on the action.
If he wasn’t mistaken, and given his experience, he didn’t think he was, this was a brush-off. She was fucking brushing him off. Of course, he’d been expecting her to do exactly this eventually. But he had thought he’d have more time. Time to shore up his defenses so the blow wouldn’t hurt as bad.
“Ozzie.” She grabbed his forearm. Even through the leather of his biker jacket, he could feel the delicate pressure of her fingers. Fingers that’d given him so much pleasure. Fingers that belonged to the one woman on the planet who could inflict the ultimate pain. “I…” She swallowed. Her throat made a sticky sound. “I’ll never be able to thank you for everything you’ve done for me these last couple of days.” He could think of a way. It involved her not leaving him. “You’ve gone above and beyond in every way. Putting your life on the line time and again. Getting shot, for fuck’s sake. Losing your bike.”
“Screw the bike,” he snarled.
She blinked at his outburst but seemed determined to press on. “I think you are…” She drifted off, as if searching for the right word.
When she looked at him, he saw compassion in her eyes. It reminded him of the look on Cindy Rutherford’s face the day she packed up her things and left. Cindy had stuck with his father far longer than any woman before her, eighteen glorious months spanning most of Ozzie’s fifth-and sixth-grade years. And he had loved her. Loved that she made chocolate chip cookies on Sunday and walked around the house in a ratty old robe and big, fluffy slippers. But his love had not been enough to make her stay. His love had never been…was never enough.
“I think you’re wonderful,” she finally said.
“And there you go again, making that sound like a bad thing,” he gritted through his teeth. His whole body was rigid, his hands curled into fists around the seat of his chair.
“It’s not a bad thing.” Her eyes pleaded for him to understand.
Oh, I understand all right. No matter what words she used, it was the same old refrain. The one he had first heard from the women his father brought home, and then from the women he’d brought home. It’s not you, it’s me. The five cruelest words on the planet.
He’d ruined it when he used the line from The Princess Bride. He’d revealed too much of what he felt. He’d scared her. And now she was running away.
“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing three wonderful men in my life,” she went on, each word shattering his heart a little more. The broken pieces acted as fertilizer for the hurt growing inside him, turning it into a venomous kind of anger. “My father, Donny, and now you. Your friendship these past few months”—the word friendship stuck in his brain like a blade—“has meant so much to me. You have meant so much to me.”
“Why do I get the feeling this is good-bye, Samantha?” His voice sounded like he’d put it through a garbage disposal.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want it to be. But—”
He didn’t want to hear what followed that but. He shoved to a stand so quickly his plastic chair banged against the wall. She blinked up at him, her dark eyes huge.
What’s wrong with me? he wanted to shout down at her. Why doesn’t anyone ever want me? Instead, all his hurt and anger spewed forth in a deluge of vitriol. “No, I get it,” he snarled. “It was fun for a while, when you needed something from me, but not forever. Good. Great. Since when have you ever known me to do forever?”
“That’s not…” She glanced around at the police officers who had turned in their direction.
Ozzie didn’t give a flying fuck if they had an audience. When she reached for him, he stepped away. He felt like that lock on the back door to the Basilisks’ clubhouse after he’d hit it with a full can of Freon gas. Cold, hard, and brittle. If she touched him, he might break.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she swore, her eyes beseeching. “I just—”