Love Me Not (15 page)

She walked over and sat on the bed next to where I stood.

I looked at her—on my bed.

I sat for the sole purpose of concealing my growing erection. And she leaned closer and kissed me once on the lips. My dick jumped, and my heart pounded.

“So, I’ve decided it’s not fair,” she said.

“Huh?”
Brilliant response, Heath
.

“I told you all about me, and the only things I know about you are where you live and that you’re generous and sweet.”

I looked away, at the door, and pulled my hand through my hair. Son of a bitch. Why did she have to be so fucking lovely?

We shouldn’t have met here, where I couldn’t escape. But I didn’t want to do it any place public, and it was too cold to ask her to go for a walk.

She rested her hand on mine. “Are you all right?”

I forced my expression to be normal and looked at her. “Yeah.” She tilted her head as if she didn’t quite believe me, so I added, “My fight with Penny’s just bothering me.”

“Yeah, um, you seemed really…”

“I’m sorry you heard that,” I said. “You’re probably not used to hearing that kind of language.” I’d never been that embarrassed of my behavior, which was saying a hell of a lot.

“Just because I spent a lot of time in church doesn’t mean I don’t know words other than fudge.”

The corner of my mouth twitched. “I’d have thought Jesus freaks wouldn’t swear.”

“We all do sometimes, but some more than others. My ex frequented every possible curse—and he was a deacon, which is a
really
big deal in that church.”

“We all do…?”

“Mine’s only one word that pops out every once in awhile. Sometimes I just can’t hold it in.”

“No, I meant you used the word
we
, as if you still feel like a part of the church.”

“I chose to walk away from the group of people, but not my faith. I decided the way they live doesn’t match what the Bible says we’re supposed to do.”

The question popped out before I could stop it, before I could remind myself it wasn’t my business. “What happened to make you leave?”

“I just wasn’t happy.”

I knew I shouldn’t continue, but now that I’d asked the question, I kept going—maybe because it would seem odd if I dropped it, or maybe because I was just that damn curious about her. “But something must have happened. You had to let go of your family and everything you knew. You didn’t do that just because you were unhappy.”

She hesitated. “How do you know everything?”

“I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

“No one else ever has.”

“Because you don’t talk to people.” A surge of pride ripped through me. She did talk to me. I waited for her to answer.

“Daniel—my ex—he…He was in a car accident. He hit a teenage girl on her bicycle.”

“Was she okay?”

“Broken arm, several ribs, and a broken femur.”

“He hit her pretty hard then.”

“Yeah. The doctor said she’d be okay, though, nothing permanent.”

I waited for the rest. So he was a bad driver. She wouldn’t have left for that.

“I went to visit her in the hospital,” she said. “She was really sweet, in good spirits even being completely immobilized—until she found out who I was. She yelled at me to leave, and her father pushed me out of the room. He sneered something about Daniel having done it on purpose.”

“You think he did? Why would he—”

“She was black.”

I paused. “Oh.”

“I never understood why it all mattered so much. I used to try to see their point, find what I was missing. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t missing anything. Everyone else was.”

“Do you think he did it on purpose?”

“Not at first. I was the
dutiful
wife. But I paid attention to his conversations, to whom he was talking to so much all of a sudden.”

I lifted my chin in understanding. “People of influence go to the church, where he seems to be somewhat powerful.”

She nodded.

“Did you hear him admit it?”

“He was talking to a couple men in the living room about the accident, and he said, ‘She had it coming for being in my neighborhood.’” She took a breath and exhaled heavily.

“That’s when you decided to leave him.”

Her eyebrows pulled together, in stress, disappointment, shame. “She was maybe eighteen at the most, and she was sweet. I couldn’t understand why he…”

“Because he’s fucked in the head.”

She looked up, meeting my eyes again.

“You did the right thing in leaving,” I said. “You deserve better.”

A small smile broke through the stress in her face, and she squeezed my hand as it rested on my thigh, her fingers brushing along my inseam.

My blood rushed.

Then I remembered my purpose. She always got me so lost. I had to focus.

Her forehead uncrinkled. She kept holding my hand. “You did it again,” she said as she narrowed her eyes. “We’re talking about
you
tonight.”

Chapter 27

The Interrogator

She wanted to talk about me. Fucking great.

I tried to think of how to get the conversation to move in the direction I needed, get her to see she shouldn’t be hanging around with me. I needed to find the courage to do what I should.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” she said as she turned to face me, her knee bent on the bed, the bed I screwed women on daily. “Where did you grow up?”

Maybe I should let her ask a few simple questions and use that to find a way to get to my purpose.

“On the Westside mostly,” I said. “Then I went to high school in Orange Park.”

“Your parents still live around here?”

“My mother was schizophrenic. I don’t know who my father was, not for sure. I spent six years in foster homes. Then Penny got custody of me when she turned eighteen.” I said it as bluntly as I could. Maybe she’d be scared away by my white trash past.

“Wow,” she said. “You should write a book.”

Great
. She wasn’t even fazed.

“I wonder if you were a wild one or a book nerd,” she said. “I could see both about you.”

I said nothing, only looking past her at the nightstand.

She leaned to catch my eye.

“Mostly book nerd,” I said.

“The other day, when I came in here on accident, you were writing something, weren’t you?”

“Not really.”

“A book?”

“It’s nothing.”

She huffed like a five-year-old who’d been denied a cookie.

I smiled a little. I couldn’t help it.

“All right, fine.” Then she dropped the fake pouting. “You read a lot?”

“I used to.”

“Like what? Besides Dickens.”

“He’s one of my favorites.”

“Who else?”

I didn’t know how long I could stand all these questions. “Steinbeck. O. Henry, Maugham, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne.”

“Wow.” She paused. “What kind of, um, style do they write in? Are the stories like Dickens?”

“You’ve never read any of them?” She obviously had decent taste if she read Dickens, but she seemed like she hadn’t heard of most of the names I rattled off.

“No. I, um, my education was a little different.”

“Like not public schools, or something?”

“I was homeschooled, and the curriculum…The only things I was allowed to read were approved by the church. It took a long time for me to realize it was all nothing but thinly veiled propaganda.”

“Obey the church or you will burn in hell. Does that sum it up?”

“Pretty much.”

I couldn’t comprehend how amazing she was—how she’d figured everything out on her own. How in the hell had she come to understand the things around her weren’t right? She was either brilliant or magical. Probably both.

“So, um,” she said, “I bet you think I’m…I know my education wasn’t complete. I get really scared people are going to see, that they’re going to think I’m—”

“You’re not dumb.”

“I know.” She smiled a little. I saw through her pride, the doubt in the back of her mind—if she was dumb, she might be too thick to realize she was dumb.

“I’ve watched you,” I said. “I know how smart you are.”

Her small smile turned genuine. “You seem to like talking with me.”

“It’s been years since I’ve talked so much with someone.”

Her smile reached her eyes—and then it turned into a glare. “You moved the subject again.”

“You’re interesting,” I defended.

She smirked. “You just don’t like talking about yourself.”

“Neither do you.”

“But I don’t keep changing the subject.” Her hands on my shoulders, she turned me to face her better.

Her fingers were like hot pokers on my skin, burning through me. I wanted the scald, for her to make me go up in flames. I wondered if she could see the pink tingeing my skin up from my chest.

Her hands lingered on my shoulders, as if she liked the feel.

I murmured seductively. “Was your ex well-built?”

Her hands drifted down my arms a few inches before she pulled them away. “He, um, he was very skinny.”

My gaze still intense, my lips curved a little. She seemed to use the word um a lot around me. She didn’t do that around anyone else.

Then I dropped my gaze and cleared my throat. Her presence was too powerful. It was near impossible to focus around her.

I glanced at the clock. “It’s getting late.”

“Uh-uh. I haven’t gotten to ask all my questions yet. Did you go to college?”

I hesitated. “UF. English Lit.”

“So you are a smarty pants.”

“Hardly.”

She smirked. “That’s an ivy league school, isn’t it?”

I shrugged.

“So…” She sounded like she was gambling for a question to her next answer. “What was that you were working on, the thing you were writing?”

I thought for sure she was going to ask about past relationships, but I wasn’t relieved with this question. No one read anything I wrote, especially my novels. They felt too personal. I’d made a living for Cassie and me, but that was mostly freelance work and ghostwriting.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“Can I read it?”

I only looked at her, not sure what to say, how to reject her. Only this small rejection was difficult. How in the hell was I going to force her out of my life?

Then I decided maybe if I gave her what she wanted with this, it might make my pushing her away a little easier for her. Maybe she’d realize I did care—I was just an asshole who didn’t keep people around. It wasn’t about her.

I kneeled next to the bed and reached underneath. My current book was closest. I resumed my seat next to her and took a breath. “No one reads my work.” I handed her the notebook.

“Not even Penny?”

“No one.”

She looked at the blue cover of the thick notebook and hesitated before opening it.

I figured she’d read the first page, maybe two, say something nice, and hand it back.

But she kept reading, the whole first chapter and then into the second. She occasionally asked me to translate my handwriting but said nothing else. She looked just like when she read Dickens, completely motionless except the shift of her eyes and the turning of pages.

I watched her and waited.

Finally, she looked up at me. “He loves the girl, doesn’t he?”

I nodded.

“Do they end up together?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“They should.” She looked back down at the page, the end of Chapter Three. “It’s really good. I mean, I don’t know much, but I really…I really care about your characters.” She looked up, and her eyes were shiny. “Can I read more, maybe tomorrow?”

I tilted my head a little.

She smiled and wiped her eyes. “I promised I wouldn’t cry this time—but it’s your fault.” She closed the notebook and handed it back.

I set it to the side on the floor. “You…It really affected you that much?”

She shifted closer, and her voice was gentle. “You’re an amazing writer. You should let people read it, get it published.”

My voice barely made sound. “Thank you.”

A pause.

She sounded careful. “Why do you keep people away?”

I stood and walked over to the fireplace. It was dark and cold. It wasn’t even a real fireplace, no chimney or flue. It was fake, pretending.

Her soft steps approached.

“Heath,” she said.

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t deal with her. She was too difficult, too fucking perceptive. I should’ve never invited her here. I should’ve left the first time I saw her. I could have built up clientele somewhere else, someplace far away. It was easier if all I had to do to make women happy was to make them feel good, intense physical pleasure. That was easy. Kimber made things complicated.

She touched my hand and then squeezed it tightly in hers.

“You don’t let people read your work,” she said. “You didn’t want me to know you gave me those books, and you’re mean when people get too close.”

“What of it?”

“I want to help. You can trust me.”

I tried to pull my hand away from her, but I couldn’t make myself do it. She had too much damn control over me. I tried to get angry, tried to hate her, but I yearned too much for her touch, to hear her voice, for her to be with me. I didn’t want to feel like this—not again.

Still holding tightly to my hand, she shifted in front of me. I stared past her into the dark fireplace, trying not to see her.

She filled my entire consciousness.

“I care about you,” she said, “enough to make you talk when you need to.”

I shifted to step away.

She held on to me. “You made me talk to you.” She reached up and touched my cheek. “And I’m thankful. You made me feel better, like I don’t have to hide my past from everyone.” She brushed her fingers across my skin. “You didn’t judge me. I come from a place where I was always judged and never quite measured up.”

She caught my line of sight, and I couldn’t look away.

“You just listened and supported me,” she said. “You have no idea what that meant.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t speak.

“Come here,” she said and guided me back to the bed. She had me sit and then slipped off her shoes and curled up next to me. She tucked one leg under her and draped the other over my thigh. Then she rested her hand on my chest.