by Lexi Ryan
My heart slams as I finally force myself to lift my head and meet his gaze, and I’m shocked by the heat I see there, the desire.
“Is that real?” I whisper. “I want to believe you’re not pretending. I want to believe…”
He closes his eyes for two thuds of my heart, and when he opens them, he steps closer. “I couldn’t fake this if I wanted to.”
“Make love to me, Max. Have sex with me. I want to believe. Make me believe.”
“Hanna,” he breathes. He steps closer, pulls my body against his—my bare flesh against his denim-and-cotton-clad heat—and buries his nose in my hair. He leans in, brushes kisses along my jaw, and lets his mouth hover just above my ear.
“You standing here naked and begging me to fuck you,” he whispers, his hands skimming up my bare sides and sending shivers of pleasure through me. “You have no idea what that does to me. I want it as much as you do. More. But I won’t. Not while you’re drunk and not while you’re pretending my ring doesn’t belong on your finger.”
I stumble back. “Really? Because that just sounds like a convenient excuse.”
“Try me. Come back here sober and test me, Hanna.”
“Well, isn’t this…cozy.”
I spin around to see Meredith standing at the door, baby in her arms, and for a minute, I’m so caught off guard by her appearance, so blown over by my hatred for her, that I forget that I’m standing here completely nude.
Max steps in front of me to block me from her view. “Meredith, give us a minute.”
“Nobody wants to see that anyway,” Meredith sneers as she backs onto the deck.
Max pushes the door closed behind her and turns to me. “I’m sorry. This is terrible timing. I just…”
I scramble to gather my clothes. Tears burn the backs of my eyes. “I was so stupid. So, so stupid.” With shaking hands, I fumble with the clasp on my bra then reach for my shirt.
“The truth is,” Max says, “we need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” I shake my head as I shove my feet into my jeans. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What was I thinking? He’s not mine anymore. I broke it off. So of course he’s with Meredith now. “You want her. You can have her.”
He grabs my hand. “Stop. Please?”
There’s something in his voice that makes me lift my eyes to his. “Don’t lie to me. I can’t handle another lie.”
He drags a hand through his hair. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”
My stomach folds in on itself and I double over. “Tell me what?”
“Meredith and I aren’t together. You’re the only one I want.” He stares at me, as if willing me to believe his words. “She’s here to drop off the baby.”
“So you’re her babysitter now?”
“No. I’m the father.” Maybe the apology that’s all over his face should soften the blow of that news, but it doesn’t.
Max and Meredith had a baby together.
I back toward the door.
“Hanna,” he whispers. “Can we talk about this?”
I shake my head and grasp for the knob. Rushing out onto the deck, I come face to face with Meredith, her pink-painted lips pursed in a self-satisfied smirk.
“Desperate much?” she asks.
“Fuck you,” I breathe.
She cuts her eyes to the door then back to me before she smiles. When she speaks, it’s for my ears only. “Thanks, but I’ll leave that to Max.”
I don’t believe her. Not really. But her words still make me feel small and ugly, and when I make it back to my apartment, I do the only thing I know to soothe the hurt. I text Nate.
Five Days Before Hanna’s Accident
HERE I am again. Another night with her in my bed. Another weekend with her at my house. Another morning waking with Hanna in my arms when I know damn well she belongs somewhere else.
I don’t want her to leave. The realization hit me hard when she walked in my door last night, and I haven’t been able to shake it. She’s amazing. I’ve watched her win over Janelle, and now they talk like old friends. Then there’s the way I feel when she’s around—like I’ve been breathing with collapsed lungs and suddenly they’re expanding again.
Here we are, suspended in time. Both of us escaping from the real world waiting on the other side of the door. Right now, I just want to watch her sleep and indulge in the fantasy of this being my life. What would that be like? Every morning waking up to her smell, my hand between her full breasts, her ass nestled against my cock. What would it be like to walk in the door and hear her laughter carrying through my house?
She saw the pictures of Vivian kissing me. They were all over the freaking magazines, but when I asked her about it, she shrugged it off. Didn’t say a word. Part of me wanted her to be pissed. To see her throw things and tell me I’m an unworthy asshole. I wanted to be worth that kind of reaction, which is completely unfair when I’m the one who keeps insisting that we can’t be more.
Vivian wants more, but I told her that she needs to take some time and finalize her divorce. She’s a good woman—one of the best—and an amazing mom, and part of me will always love her, but we can’t rush into a relationship that could confuse Collin. We both need to be sure that’s what we want.
“Something’s holding you back,” she said after I ended the kiss that was splashed all over the internet.
I shrugged. “This isn’t a decision we can make on an impulse.”
“You’re in love with her,” she said.
“Who?”
She gave me a sad smile. “I don’t know. I just know you love her. I can see it in your eyes.”
“It’s not serious. She’s hung up on somebody else, and…”
“Tell her how you feel,” Vivian said, squeezing my arm. “She needs to know.”
“How do you know I haven’t already?”
“Because I know you.”
I nodded. “I won’t do that to Collin. He’s my family. I don’t need anyone else.”
Vivian’s sweet face was sad as she studied me. “Don’t use Collin as an excuse to put walls around your heart. Whoever she is, she’s already found her way in. Think about what you’re doing before you push her away.” She stepped back and released my arm. “She’s a lucky girl.”
Hanna smiles in her sleep and settles her hand flat against her belly, her fingertips meeting the hair between her legs. What does a woman like Hanna dream about? The ex-boyfriend she won’t tell her family is an ex? Or have I found my way into her dreams? She moans as her hips lift off the bed and toward some invisible lover. Jealousy flashes through me. I don’t want her dreaming about anyone but me. Not while she’s in my bed.
I sweep my lips across hers and down her neck, licking and nipping at the sensitive skin until she arches under me, and her hands roam over my bare chest.
“Good morning,” I murmur.
“Morning.” She’s got the sexiest flush to her cheeks when she wakes up.
Our eyes lock for a few moments and my heart feels full and torn all at once. “What are you going to do when I let you go?”
She grins at me. “What do you mean?”
“When this is over and we stop meeting each other all over the country, are you going to put on his ring?”
She doesn’t answer, and for the first time, I realize I want her to say no. I want her to ask me for the things I’ve told her I can’t give. It’s foolish and reckless and everything I swore to myself I wouldn’t do, but I’ll be damned if I don’t feel like one of those lovesick idiots who says, “We’ll make it work,” and finds himself months later dealing with the consequences.
Giggling, she rolls to her back and stretches her arms above her head. “I slept so well. Did you?”
Very little. I spent an embarrassing amount of time watching her sleep. “Better than usual.”
“Dream about anything good?”
“The dreams couldn’t compete with the real thing lying next to me.”
She snorts and rolls tow
ard me, sliding an arm around my waist. “I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.”
Not at all. In fact, aside from kissing Vivian, I haven’t touched another woman since my first night with Hanna. No other woman has appealed to me since I touched her.
“Tell me about your dreams, angel. What does your future look like in that amazing brain of yours?” I ask because I want to know and to remind myself why I need to keep my distance from her.
She snuggles closer and traces my tattoos with her fingertips. “Hmm, I don’t know. I feel silly saying it out loud.”
I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “Try. For me?”
“Okay… My bakery is successful. Days that start at four a.m. The smell of bread and pastries. Happy brides and wedding cakes that are so beautiful no one wants to cut into them.” She smiles, lost in the image. “A little house for me in historic New Hope so I’m close to my bakery but still have space for kids, a backyard for a big dog. Evenings walking along the river and Sunday brunch, where I see my sisters and our kids grow up together—cousins who play and fight like brothers and sisters.” She shakes her head, as if to shake away the thought, and releases a breath. “Probably sounds pretty lame to a big-shot celebrity.”
“Not at all. It sounds…amazing.” There’s reverence in my voice. I don’t know what that’s like—the small-town life, the tight-knit family—and I envy the simplicity of it.
But she chuckles softly. “You don’t think less of me because I don’t want to escape the little town where I grew up?”
“I couldn’t think less of you.” I press a kiss to her mouth then move my way down her body, stopping to lick each nipple and suck at the sensitive skin above each hipbone. When I sink between her legs, she parts them easily, and her cries fill my ears as I explore her with my fingers and tongue.
And after she comes, I softly bite the inside of her thigh, suck until she gasps and then moans with pleasure. I’m marking her. Do I want her so-called ex to see I was here? Or do I just want her to remember me when she sees it? I don’t need to understand why I’m doing it to know that I am. Marking her. Because knowing I can’t have her doesn’t change that I want her to be mine.
“Looks like you’re cooking for an army this morning.”
I look up from the fruit covering my cutting board and see Hanna walking into the kitchen. She fell back asleep and I came down here to make breakfast. She’s not eating enough, so I made bacon, hash brown casserole, cinnamon rolls, and fruit salad. She’s wearing a robe—with nothing else if I’m lucky. I wipe my hands on a towel and skirt around the island to pull her into my arms. She has that effect on me. I see her and need to touch her. She melts into me as I kiss her, sweeping my tongue inside to taste her, to drink her in. When I break the kiss, it’s only because I want it to be so much more.
“What are you doing with all this food?” she asks.
“I’m feeding my girl.”
She blushes. “I just need some coffee and maybe a little of that fruit salad.”
“What you need is a keeper. How much weight have you lost since we met three months ago?”
Ignoring my question, she goes to the coffee pot to pours herself a cup.
“Hanna,” I whisper as she turns around. I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “I’m worried about you.”
“I needed to lose some weight. Trust me, I’m not going to waste away.”
“You didn’t need to lose an ounce.” My gut burns with rage at whoever made her feel this way. That rage used to be directed at the ex, but I’m not sure anymore. “Did he do this to you? Did he make you feel this way?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Fuck, Hanna. What did this loser do to you?”
“He’s not a loser!” She snaps her mouth shut and drops her gaze to her coffee.
My gaze floats to her naked ring finger. “So you haven’t given him an answer yet.”
She gasps. “I wouldn’t be here if I had.”
I am such a hypocrite, because fuck that hurts. “Yeah, but you see, that assumes you’re going to take him back. If you’d answered and told him no, there’d be nothing wrong with being here with me.”
I return to the fruit salad, and the room is tense with our silence.
I make us each a plate and take them to the sunroom. No sun this morning. Rain has been falling since last night, and I’m not sure when it’s supposed to stop. She settles into the chair across from me and closes her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Hanna,” I say. “I know you love Max. I just…”
“What do you want me to do?” she asks.
I drop my fork and shake my head. Because that’s just it. “Nothing. I’m not asking anything from you. I’m not him.”
Pushing out of her chair, she goes outside. That came out wrong. Shit. I just mean that he’s better than me. He’s the better choice, the choice that makes sense. I follow her to the patio, where she’s watching the rain.
“It’s not you,” I say softly. “You know that, right?” The sky is gray, the rain coming down in a constant melancholy drizzle. Miserable day for a miserable conversation. “I can’t offer you more than this. Even when you deserve more. It’s not because I don’t want it. It’s because I made a promise to myself. To my son.”
When she turns to me, confusion is all over her face as she traces the tattoo with Collin’s birthday. “I never asked you for more, Nate.”
Her touch is killing me. Making me want what I can’t have. I grab her hand and squeeze. “But you deserve it.”
“I’m a big girl. Let me decide what I deserve.”
“You deserve everything. Anything you could want. But I’m not the man to give that to you. I can’t.” I take a breath and study the sky because I can’t look her in the eye when I tell the story—when I explain how easy I am to leave behind. I tell her about my dad leaving, about being the second family, explain that I can’t do that to Collin, and with every word, I hear Vivian talking over me in my head. “Don’t use Collin as an excuse to put walls around your heart. Whoever she is, she’s already found her way in. Think about what you’re doing before you push her away.”
“You’re a great dad, Nate,” she says when I’m finished. And even though she really doesn’t have any evidence for her claim, it still means the world coming from her. “You’d never make him feel like that.”
“It’s hard enough to be a kid to celebrity parents. I won’t pile that on too. Collin is the most important thing in my life. I can’t give you more without taking something from him. I won’t do that.”
“I wish you’d quit making it seem like I’m asking for that.”
I stare at her, long and hard. I know she’s not asking for more from me. Isn’t that why I’m so scared to offer it? “What happens if we don’t end this, Hanna? You can’t be my mistress for the rest of my life. You can’t keep flying out here when I snap my fingers. Every time I say goodbye, I tell myself that’s it. That I’ll end it. Because you deserve that. But I’m weak and selfish as shit and keep calling you back because I can’t get enough of you.”
“What are you trying to say?”
I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sky, letting the rain wash over it. Then I feel her behind me. She kisses my bare shoulder and my heart snags between fear and hope.
“Are you still in love with him?”
I feel her tense behind me as she removes her mouth from my skin. “I am. But I’m in love with you too.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Don’t say that.”
Before I know it, she’s gone—running into the house and away from me. How did I let this get so fucking complicated? I knew I would only hurt her, and I was right.
“Shit,” I breathe, chasing after her.
I find her in bed, curled onto her side, eyes closed. I climb in and wrap my arms around her. “I was in such an ugly, dark place the night we met. I looked into your eyes, and you were right there with me—my angel in the darkness. You saved m
e.” I breathe her in, a man taking his last breaths of pure oxygen before going underground. “You saved me, and I love you.”
She doesn’t reply, so I keep going. Because she needs to know. “I think I’ve been in love with you since the night we met. And I know that sounds crazy and implausible—like one of those things the guy says when he’s trying to win the girl—but for me, it’s just true. I love you and I’m terrified that you’re going to ruin your life because of it. I’m not telling you to take his ring. I honestly believe that if he were worthy of you, you wouldn’t be here with me. But don’t let me be the reason you don’t take the life you want.”
“What if you’re the life I want?”
There it is again. That snag on my heart, a tiny tear at the top as it’s caught in the middle of this internal war. “You’re asking me for something I can’t give.”
I WAIT until he loosens his hold and then I turn in his arms. “Okay. But there is something you can give me.”
His brow furrows and his eyes drop to my lips. “What’s that?”
“Make love to me, Nate. I want you to be my first.”
Holding my breath, I wait for him to respond. His breathing changes, and he threads his fingers through my hair and tucks it behind my ear. “Hanna,” he murmurs, and I know from the way his voice breaks that he’s lost the battle with himself.
I close the inches between our mouths and sweep my lips over his. Before I can pull away, he fists his hand in my hair and holds me tight. The kiss turns hungry and desperate, and I understand. For three months, we’ve been building up to this moment, and as much as I’m sure of my decision, my belly is a bundle of wild nerves.
He rolls us until I’m on my back and he’s hovering over me. He parts my robe with one hand and lowers his mouth to my neck, my breasts, my belly. I shove his pants down, and he kicks them to the side. I’m trembling by the time he tugs my panties from my hips and pushes my thighs apart.
“Once won’t be enough,” he murmurs as his mouth skims my hipbones. He rocks his hand against me, and I raise my hips off the bed.
