by Lexi Ryan
He closes his eyes. “I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it, but it’s clear that I’m being tested.”
“Yeah?” I bite my lip and cautiously roll my hips, grinding our bodies together. “Who said this was a test you needed to pass?”
“Hanna…” He brings his mouth down to mine and kisses me hard. His hands squeeze my hips, and I love the way he holds me tight. “Thank you,” he murmurs against my lips. “For trusting me.” Then he’s kissing me again, and one hand moves up to my breast, cupping, squeezing.
I gasp as he pinches. He drops his head to my breast and draws my nipple into his mouth.
Before I realize what he’s doing, he’s holding me and swimming to the shallow end of the pool. I squeak when he lifts me and settles me onto the top stair, my feet dangling into the water.
“You’re kicking me out of your pool?”
He sinks down and gives me a wicked grin. Floating closer, he parts my thighs and the smile leaves his eyes and is replaced by heat as he draws a finger down my center. My hips tuck forward instinctively and my legs part, giving him better access.
“I love knowing mine is the only mouth that’s ever touched you here.” He leans forward and presses his tongue to my clit—not licking, not sucking. Just tasting.
I wriggle my hips, attempting to return to the pool, but he holds me fast with a hand at each hip. My nipples pucker in the cool night air.
“Relax, angel. I want to make you come while you look at the stars.”
Three Weeks Before Hanna’s Accident
SUNDAY MEANS family dinner at Hanna’s mom’s. It also means pretending we’re still together. And that—being so close to her that I can smell her, so close that her hand brushes my arm when she talks—is heaven and hell all wrapped into one.
“Let me get you some potato casserole,” I say to Hanna. “Isn’t it your favorite?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t need it. I ate breakfast at home.”
I don’t believe her, but now is neither the time nor the place.
“Krystal!” Lizzy shrieks. She drops her silverware and hops up from the table to meet her sister at the door. Hanna follows, and her smile is bigger than I’ve seen it in weeks.
“Oh my God, Hanna,” Krystal shrieks. “You’re really dropping weight.”
“Too fast,” Liz grumbles, and I’d have to agree but I know better than to say anything.
“I still have a long way to go,” Hanna says.
“I’m so glad to see you finally paying attention to your health,” Hanna’s mother says, nodding with approval toward her daughter’s plate of raw vegetables and a small pile of fruit salad.
I struggle to bite my tongue. I’ve seen Hanna on the treadmill in my club, and I’ve watched her avoid food like it’s the enemy. I’m an idiot if I thought my little speech in front of the mirror was going to do any good.
Hanna blushes. “I’ve just been so busy getting the bakery up and running.”
“How’s that going?” Krystal asks as the girls settle at the table.
“It’s amazing,” Hanna says. She practically glows when she talks about it. “I really love it.”
“I heard you’ve been taking a bunch of out-of-town clients too,” Krystal says, which makes Hanna’s blush turn from pink to red.
“I have no complaints,” she says.
Later, when I pull up to the bakery, silence pulls between us, stretched thin under the weight of a thousand things unsaid. She stares out the window, lost in her own mind.
I pull the key from the ignition and lean back in my seat. “Is this it for us? Is it over?”
She practically jumps at my words. “What?”
“I don’t want to pretend anymore. Not if you’re only doing it for me. Screw the grant, Hanna. If you don’t want me, if you can’t forgive me, I’ll let you go. But I can’t stand seeing you on edge like you have been. I can’t stand seeing you starve yourself.”
Her face goes angry, defensive. “I’m not starving myself.”
“Are you in love with him?” The question is out of my mouth before I decide I’m going to ask. I don’t know that there is a him, but I suspect.
“What?” Her eyes go hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I close my eyes and take a breath. “All I know is that the only thing that makes you happy is that bakery and…whatever it is you’re doing with your weekends.”
“You want the ring back?” she asks weakly.
“I want you to live your life. You deserve more than to put it on hold for me.”
Her lips part and she studies me.
“I’ll be okay,” I promise. And it’s true. One way or another, I’ll make it work. I can let the maid go and start cleaning the club myself or…something. There’s always a way.
“What if you’re still the only man I’m in love with?”
My heart stumbles, full and clumsy. “I love you too.”
“I’m trying to let you go,” she whispers. “Then I see you with my family or remember the way we used to laugh together. The way you touched me…”
I swallow, afraid to hope. If there’s any chance she’ll take me back, I’ll take it. “Then don’t let go.”
“I love you too much to give up, but I don’t trust you enough to take you back.” She climbs out of my car and I watch her walk away as I try to breathe around the bruises on my battered heart.
SHE’S STILL in love with him.
The words have repeated like an ominous drumbeat in my mind since I saw Hanna walk into Asher’s house on Max’s arm. She and I have been playing at this thing between us for over two months now. Every time I say goodbye to her, I swear to myself that it’s the last time, but inevitably, one or two weeks later, I’m summoning her again.
It’s selfish and unforgivable. She drops everything and rearranges her life to come meet me for a night, two if we’re lucky. But I can’t stop. She’s my breath.
And she’s still in love with him—should be marrying him.
“Hey, you doing okay, bud?”
I yank my gaze up from where I was studying my beer to see Asher frowning at me. “Fine. Just…” Just what? Heartbroken that the woman to whom I’ll promise nothing looks really damn happy with a guy who’d be one hundred times better for her than I am? Surprised that the woman who made me keep our relationship secret is still in love with the other guy? Fuck. Did this really come as a shock?
“Hey, Nate.” Maggie is all smiles and happiness as she heads toward the bar. People are chatting, music is playing, but it’s clear as day that the source of her happiness is being this close to Asher.
Asher wraps his arm around her waist and draws her in for a quick kiss. They’re absolutely, nauseatingly, deliriously happy together. Normally I’m glad for that. Asher deserves happiness. But tonight, I hate them both a little for having something I could only pretend at having.
When their quick kiss turns into something longer and steamier, I clear my throat.
Maggie pulls back, her cheeks burning red. “Sorry,” she murmurs.
“I’m not.” Asher grunts and pulls her back to him so her back is to his front. “You’re always welcome here, but I’m not going to stop touching my girl just because you need to hide from whatever Hollywood diva is giving you trouble this week.”
Hollywood diva. If only.
Maggie narrows her eyes at me. “Who is it this time? I heard rumors about Cyrus, but…”
Not my type. My type is curvier with dark hair and darker eyes, like black coffee but sweeter. Like dark chocolate but warmer. “Who says I’m running from a woman?”
Maggie and Asher exchange a look, and I’m pretty sure they’re laughing at me in their own secret couple code. Assholes.
“It’s so good to see Hanna here tonight,” Maggie says. “I’ve been worried about her.”
Asher nods. “She’s under a lot of stress. All you can do is make sure she knows you’re here if she needs you.”
&nb
sp; I want to ask what kind of stress. Do they know about her breakup? Do they know Max proposed and his ring waits for Hanna in her jewelry box? It feels so important that I know, but there’s no way I can ask that without tipping off Asher and Maggie to my relationship with Hanna.
Relationship? She’d probably call it an affair. Fuck, I should be calling it an affair.
Across the room, Lizzy, Hanna’s twin, says something that makes Max laugh, but he can’t keep his eyes off Hanna. Like he’s afraid she might disappear if he looks away too long. I don’t know what happened between them, but I convinced myself that he wasn’t attracted to her—or at least that he made her think he wasn’t. That was the only explanation I could come up with for her insecurities and relative lack of experience. Now that I see them together, I know it’s not true.
“See if she and Max want to stay after and use the pool,” Asher says, completely oblivious to the knife he’s digging into my back. “We’ll be on our way out of town, and Nate won’t mind.”
Maggie nods, worry creasing her brow as she studies her sister. “That’s a good idea. She’s been so busy with the bakery. They could probably use the extra alone time.”
Well, fuck this. “I think I’m going to crash.” I dump my beer in the sink. When I told Hanna I’d be in New Hope this week, she warned me that I might see her with Max and that they were trying to look like a happy couple around her family. I promised that I wouldn’t say a word. That promise is starting to feel like a deal with the devil.
What am I even doing? Vivian called me yesterday and told me that they’re not moving to Tennessee. She’s getting a divorce.
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
“He can’t handle the fact that I’m still in love with you.”
Before I could even process her words, her whispered apologies, I was accepting flying to Indiana, pushing Vivian’s words from my mind to make room for thoughts of Hanna.
“We were good together. Why didn’t we try harder?”
Vivian is offering me something I’ve wanted for years. The chance to make a real family with my son. And the only thing I could think was that I didn’t want to let Hanna go.
I have to end this. I’ve told myself that a thousand times, but it’s never been so obvious as it is tonight. I pull my phone from my pocket.
Nate: Can’t meet up tonight. Something came up.
Across the room, Hanna looks at her phone and blinks at the screen. Her eyes meet mine, her expression full of hurt and resignation. That’s the look of a woman who expects men to hurt her, who expects to be left alone. And I feel like fucking shit for being the one who put it there.
One Week Before Hanna’s Accident
“ARE YOU sure you should be drinking another?”
Maggie, of all effing people, is looking at me like some concerned mother hen. Maggie, of all people, is hinting that maybe I’m drinking too much.
I glare at her and throw back the tequila. The white kind. Like Nate introduced me to.
Fucking asshole.
As soon as I think the words, I’m swamped with guilt. He made the score clear from the beginning, didn’t he? He showed his cards, and I still insisted on playing the game. But damn did it hurt when I saw that magazine cover. I was at the drugstore buying some of those diet pills that help keep my appetite in check and there it was, right by the checkout.
I did a double take.
No. Not Nate. Someone who looks like Nate…
That’s an old picture…
It’s been digitally altered. It didn’t really happen…
Eventually, I was out of excuses. While I stood there staring at the newsstand, the diet pills and the contents of my purse scattered across the floor.
That was definitely Nate. I know that jaw. That hair. Those biceps.
It was definitely not an old picture. Vivian’s latest haircut made headlines, so I’m well aware that the picture couldn’t be more than two weeks old.
And if it was digitally altered? Well, if it was, it was a damn fine job.
But why wouldn’t he kiss the mother of his child in front of that swanky LA restaurant? Why wouldn’t he let her slide her hands into his hair and press her breasts against his chest? Why wouldn’t he do anything he pleased with anyone he pleased?
He hadn’t promised me anything, and in the last two weeks, he hasn’t called or texted, hasn’t invited me to meet up with him. It’s over, and that shouldn’t take me by surprise.
“I’ll take another shot,” I call out to no one in particular.
Brady, the owner of this little drinking hole, wanders toward me on his side of the counter. “No. I don’t think you will.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re cutting me off?”
“Someone needs to,” he grumbles, all fatherly and disappointed.
I wince because I’m not used to disappointing anyone but my mom. And I don’t care for the feeling. Then I shake my head and hop off the stool. Fuck it.
I’m not going to be that girl anymore. I’m not going to be the one who bends over backward to make everyone happy. I’m not going to be the one who lives in the shadows because she’s too afraid that, if she steps into the light, people might see her for who she really is and disapprove.
I’m worth a little disapproval, aren’t I? And I might not be better than some actress, but I’m something. I’m worth something.
“Hanna,” Brady says carefully.
“No. No worries, Brady. I’ll be down the street at The Wire. They’ll let me drink, and they have better service anyway.”
I right myself and find the door. Only instead of going to The Wire, I find myself headed toward Max’s health club and climbing the stairs to his little apartment above it.
Max opens the door as I reach the landing, and I stall, my feet glued to the decking as his eyes travel over me, taking me in inch by inch as if he thinks he’s seeing a ghost. He almost smiles, but then his lips go flat and he just stares at me, hurt in those gorgeous ice-blue eyes.
Why is he the one so hurt? He’s the one who started this relationship under false pretenses. He’s the one who wanted another woman while he was supposed to want me.
He’s the one who broke my heart.
I want to hate him and Nate, to lump them both in the category of asshole men who aren’t worth my time. But I love them.
I stumble back a step as the thought registers. I love them both.
When did I fall in love with Nate? That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was just the rebound guy—there to make me feel good about myself while my heart mended.
Max steps closer and steadies me before I can hit the railing.
I swallow—hard—his words from last month echoing in my head. “Maybe if you could see what I’m picturing when I jack off—if you had any idea how much I fantasize about driving inside of you, sucking those tits, making you come—maybe then you’d believe me.”
“Do you want to come inside?” he asks carefully.
Licking my lips, I nod as he holds the door open for me.
His living room speakers click, and a new song starts. Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up.” Wasn’t this the song that was playing the night he proposed?
My stomach tangles into a mess of knots as he closes the door. He looks so sexy tonight in jeans and a gray button-up shirt, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. My eyes follow the path across his broad shoulders and down to his thick forearms and big hands. I miss those hands. I miss Max.
I miss lying in his arms and talking about our dreams for the future. His plans for his club, my dreams of a bakery, our speculation of what our children might look like if we had them together.
Something catches in my throat, and the could-have-beens are so heavy in my heart that I can’t breathe.
“Did you mean what you said? Was all that…true?”
“What I said when?”
I swallow. “A few weeks ago in the club. When you made me look in the mirror and you said…you thou
ght about me.”
His chest expands with his deep inhalation. “Every word.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper. Because that’s really the problem, isn’t it? The reason I can’t be with him isn’t because he kissed Meredith in December. We weren’t really a couple at that point. We weren’t exclusive. What I don’t believe is that, somewhere in those months between, I became the type of woman he wants. I don’t believe he could really desire a body like mine. “I want to. But I can’t.”
“I know.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, his face resigned. “Aside from ripping off your clothes, I’m not sure how I can prove it to you.”
A giggle slips from my lips. Maybe it’s the tequila or my decision to say “fuck it” to what everyone else thinks. But I grin because I like the idea of Max ripping off my clothes. Or I like it in theory. In reality, it would mean he’d see me and all my imperfections, and that wouldn’t end well.
“You don’t even know what I look like naked,” I protest. “I’m pretty sure if I’d ever let you get me naked, you wouldn’t be saying that now.”
“Tell yourself what you must, Han.” He drags a hand through his dark hair. God. He’s so flipping gorgeous. Why do I have to be attracted to men who are so completely out of my league?
“Lemme prove it to you.”
Stepping toward him, I tug my shirt off over my head and toss it to the floor. His lips part and his breath escapes in a rush. Before my brain can catch up with my hands, I kick off my shoes and unbutton my jeans, shoving them down my hips.
The months we were together—really together, not this pretend we’ve been playing since the texts—I hid myself from him. I was so terrified that if he saw all my dimples and soft spots, cellulite and imperfections, he would lose all interest.
But now what do I have to lose? He needs to see me as I really am.
“Hanna,” he whispers, his eyes running over me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m proving that you aren’t attracted to me. Not the real me, at least.” I unhook my black bra, and I hear the hiss of his inhale as I let it slide from my shoulders. Next, I remove my underwear and kick it to the side.
