The Regret Series Complete Collection Box Set: Lost to You, Take This Regret, and if Forever Comes (11 page)

I didn’t want it to end, so I pushed it further, and slid my palm around her slim waist. A tiny shudder escaped Elizabeth and she flexed her stomach as she sucked in a shocked breath.

But she never let go.

The soft ridges of her flat belly enticed me further. My hand jerked as I inched it up. The hand in her hair tightened as the force of my kiss bowed her back. Her weight rested on my forearm as I supported her head, my body nearly hovering over hers.

How many times had I imagined this, what it’d be like to touch her?

I skimmed over her small, round breast, my thumb flicking across her nipple.

Elizabeth whimpered and pushed herself further into my hand, emitted this sound that tickled my ears and spurred me forward.

“Shit…Elizabeth,” I mumbled as I edged her back and pushed her up against the small counter and ground myself into her. Maybe I’d have thought to Elizabeth it’d be the most obscene gesture. Instead, it evoked the most seductive sound to roll from her tongue.

I pulled away for a breath and Elizabeth searched for air as she lifted her face toward the ceiling. She held onto my shoulders as her chest heaved and her heart thundered. “Christian…I don’t…please.” It was all throaty and warm, discordant, her thoughts as jumbled as mine.

I buried my face in her neck, kissed her down to her collar bone, then up to the hollow behind her ear. Her skin was so sweet and her pants were so thin, and I was consumed by this feeling, too much confusion and disorder and need. Fuck. I wanted her, and I felt like I was going crazy because there was no possible way I could get enough of Elizabeth.

A haze surrounded us, desire and lust. Would she let me? My mouth was at her ear as I bit at her skin, whispered, “Please, Elizabeth, I want to fuck you so bad…do you have any idea how badly I want you?”

My hands traveled to her hips, my fingers burrowing into her flesh as I shamelessly pressed myself into her again so she’d make no mistake of what she did to me. She had to know she was the only one who’d ever done
this
to me, this void she’d created that somehow only she could fill.

Beneath me, Elizabeth froze. Every muscle in her body stiffened before her hands slid from my shoulders to my chest, and she shoved me off her. I was caught off guard, and I floundered back.

Her expression doused me in cold, extinguished the fire. Lines of hurt and disgust twisted her face. Silent tears streamed
down her cheeks, and she blinked for the longest moment, before stunned eyes turned up to stare at me.

Shit
.

Had that really just come out of my mouth?

My heart pounded too fast, and I tried to catch my breath, to calm my screaming body. I tugged a frustrated hand through my hair. A storm of emotions tore through my consciousness.

“Do you know nothing about me, Christian?” I could see her struggling to hold it in, but more tears fell. “Do you really think that’s what I want? To be fucked?”

Just like I knew I would, I hurt her, without even knowing it.

“Is that what this was?” she wheezed, wrapping her arms around her stomach. She took a pained step back.

“Elizabeth…” I lifted my hand, wishing to reach out and touch her, knowing I couldn’t. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” It was an accusation.

I searched for an explanation, how to describe what I felt. I couldn’t find the words because I didn’t know myself.

A wounded cry worked its way free from Elizabeth, and she squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face down and to the side, hugging herself tighter.

My chest constricted with the need to comfort her, to take her in my arms and just hug her, and tell her we’d work it out, but touching her was what had caused all of this to begin with.

“Elizabeth…I—” I didn’t know exactly what to say. Wasn’t it obvious? I was dying to have her. Didn’t she get that? I always had.

But when she looked back up, I understood it all.

The world dropped from beneath me, and I stumbled back the last few steps until my back was plastered against her door.

My best friend
.

Elizabeth’s chin quivered, and one side of her mouth was drawn in as if she were chewing on the inside of her lip. But her eyes…it was there.

What had I done?

I met her gaze, searching for a mistake, for some way to take it all back to the place where it was just me and Elizabeth, where we were friends and we laughed and we dealt with all the rest of this shit on the inside.

But I’d crossed the line, and Elizabeth could no longer hold it back.

“Christian,” she pled, chancing a tortured step forward. “Tell me what that was.”

I shook my head and swallowed, wishing for an easy escape. I had no idea how to handle this. Because Elizabeth wanted a promise, and I couldn’t give her that. “I don’t know…I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but I don’t know.”

She slowly shook her head. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”

“Don’t let this mess up our friendship… I can’t lose that, Elizabeth.”

Disbelief drew her brows together, wove with the sadness in her eyes.

“You don’t want to mess up our friendship?” She shook her head. “Just go, Christian.”

“Elizabeth…”

“Please. It’s really late.” Deliberating, she twisted her fingers together. “I think I need some time.”

Swallowing, I stepped away from the door so I could pull it open. I hesitated, but could find nothing to say that would make this any better. All I could think was how much I hated myself for ruining the one truly good thing I had in my life.

With my back to her, I paused, whispered, “I really am sorry, Elizabeth,” before I walked out and quietly clicked it shut behind me.

Chapter Seven

Elizabeth

The sharp click of the door behind me nearly brought me to my knees. I clutched my stomach, struggling to hold in the pain. But it was too intense.

“Oh, God,” I whimpered, holding my palm over my mouth. But I couldn’t stop the sob from breaking free. It came as an offensive echo around the room.

I wanted to stop it, but it was too late. The damage was already done.

I’d stumbled. Fallen.

Considering how I felt, I should have known better than to let Christian through my door. At the party, I’d been hit with the magnitude of how deep my affections ran. Wrapped up in how bad that realization stung, it’d left me vulnerable. The knock on my door had jarred my hopes, flamed the fear, and stoked my need.

I’d hesitated, quieted my breaths, self-preservation kicking in. I silently willed him to walk away while my heart begged him to stay.

My rational side had little chance. The second knock beckoned me forward, and I peered through the peephole at the man who held me in the palm of his hand. Fingers shaking, I unlocked the door. Insecurity slowed my movements as I cracked the door to stare out at Christian.

Lines of anger twisted his face, and I’d stopped short, confused and sad and relieved. It left me unable to comprehend the conflict he incited in me.

He pushed through, and the room filled with his presence, the air so heavy that I should have seen it as a warning and not as the comfort that came plundering through my senses.

When his warm lips had caressed my neck, it’d almost been too much, and I’d been seconds from surrendering. A panicked voice inside me cried out to stop, to defend my heart, because I was already in far too deep, and I managed to rip myself from the grip I was falling victim to.

I spun around with an accusation perched on my lips and stopped dead. And I knew there was no surfacing from the flood that was Christian, because he was looking at me as if he felt the same.

Now my body shook and tingled with his residual. Desire coursed and mingled with misery.

And I would have given myself to him, offered what I guarded and protected, because to me, it was never a game. It was devotion—an act of adoration—something I’d been so foolish to waste before.

It wouldn’t have been wasted on Christian. Yet it still would have destroyed me.

I shook my head as I made my way back to the stove, my movements jerky as I flipped off the burner. I shoved the burning pot back to an empty burner, feeling so angry. So angry.

His words slashed me straight to the core, crushed and cut. They were all the confirmation I needed to know how easily he could devastate me.

Low, mocking laughter tumbled from my mouth.

He already had…because I’d let him.

And I had no idea what I was supposed to do now.

~

Sleep came in sporadic bouts. I tossed through the daze that tormented the night. Never had I felt so alone. New York had once been my fairy tale. Now it felt like a place to escape. Lazy light seeped through the small window, and I rolled to my stomach, trying to press the memories of the night before from my mind.

I didn’t want to remember.

I didn’t want to feel.

I’d been ignoring my phone all morning. It’d rung at least five times. When it rang again, I gave up and stretched out to retrieve it from the floor. It wasn’t the number I was expecting, not another apology I knew was sincere, but could do nothing to make up for the fact that Christian didn’t feel what I wanted him to.

No. Instead, it was my older sister.

Still lying in bed, I accepted the call. I tried to clear the roughness from my voice. “Hey, Sarah.”

“Are you okay?” she immediately asked.

Apparently, I hadn’t done a very good job.

“Yeah, I just woke up.”

“Oh…sorry for waking you…but…” Excitement bled through her concern for me. I pictured her bouncing as she stood next to the phone in the small kitchen of the home she’d
purchased with her new husband just the year before. “I have some really good news.”

I sat up a bit and drew my knees to my chest. I rested one elbow on a knee and propped my head up in my hand. I forced what I was feeling aside. Sarah was always so direct, a good listener filled with even better advice, but her mood rarely fluctuated from her mild manner.

“What is it?”

“You’re going to be an aunt.”

Her news shifted through me, wound with the sadness, affixed as a plaintive smile on my lips. A dense weight welled up inside, filled with both light and heavy, distinct happiness laced with what Christian had left me with. “Oh my gosh, Sarah, I can’t believe you’re going to be a mom. Are you excited?”

She laughed. “Can’t you tell?”

“Yeah…I think I can. So…” I hesitated to ask. They’d planned on waiting, establishing their lives and their home before they had children.

I think she expected my unvoiced question. “It was totally an accident, but after the shock wore off, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” Her sigh was tangible in the distance. Again, I pictured her in her kitchen, but this time with a tender hand resting on her belly.

“I’m so happy for you.” I was doing my best at hiding my own turmoil. I didn’t want to taint this moment. Compared to this news, my issues were so trivial. Still, I couldn’t let them go.

“What’s going on, Liz?”

“Nothing.” I rushed out the obvious lie.

“Don’t give me that. You think I can’t tell when you’re upset?”

My entire family was close, Sarah and I especially so. Five years older than me, she’d always been my confidant, my
defender. She was the one to softly assert she was concerned I might be making a mistake, encouraging me to slow down and think it through, and my biggest supporter whenever I hesitated to try, afraid I would fail.

A strangled groan rose up from my mouth. I flopped with my back to the bed, rubbing my eye with the heel of my hand.

“This has to be about a boy… Only a man can make that sound come from a woman.” I knew this was Sarah’s attempt at lightening the mood while broaching the subject, but it felt too heavy, too much.

“Is it that Christian guy who always seems to be invading your space every time I talk to you?”

I bit my lip as unwelcomed tears filled my eyes.

“Liz?”

I tried to hold it back, but the choked sob that rumbled up and tore from my throat was uncontainable. It hurt as it scraped through.

Silence stretched across the line before Sarah finally spoke. “Oh, God, Liz…you’re in love with him.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. She had this intuition about her. She’d been the one who’d seen through my feelings for Ryan, that as much as I illusioned myself with being in love with him, I never had been. I wasn’t surprised she could easily tell when I really was.

Hearing those words voiced aloud ripped and tugged, taunted me for being such a fool. I couldn’t blame Christian. This was all on me. From the start, I’d known what he was like, yet I’d pushed it, invited him into my life. As if that smile wouldn’t worm its way into my heart. That the kindness I saw in the depths of those blue eyes wasn’t going to turn me inside out. Change everything—who I was and what I wanted.

And what I wanted was him.

She remained silent for a few minutes and just let me cry.

“Liz.” Sympathy rolled from my sister’s tongue, quiet understanding. “I hate that you’re all the way over there and I can’t hug you right now.”

A small jolt of laughter made its way through my tears. “I wish you were here, too. I miss you so much.”

Sniffling, I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I rolled to my side and hugged my knees to my chest, held the phone closer to my ear.

“So you want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t even know, Sarah. We were just supposed to be friends, and then it was like one day passed, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t live without him. Everything was fine until he asked me to go to this party with him last night. I should have known better than to go.” I sucked in a breath. “I hated it there, Sarah. I mean, I can’t tell you how it felt to stand in that room and know he’s been with half the girls there. I went to the restroom, and when I came out, some girl was rubbing all over him. I couldn’t stand it, so I took off without telling him.”

“Liz.” Disapproval clouded her voice.

“I know, I know. It wasn’t cool, but I just
couldn’t
, Sarah. Then he showed up here at my place. The next thing I knew we were kissing, and then everything escalated out of control so fast.” My head spun as I remembered the fear on Christian’s face when I asked him what it was he wanted, the way he’d stepped back to put distance between us because he no longer wanted to be in my space. Because he didn’t
know
. Who would have thought that word could be sharper than a knife. “I don’t know how I was strong enough to stop, but I was.
Those words
came so close to leaving my mouth.” The pain amplified, squeezing my chest. “I think he knew it…somehow saw it in me.”