by Ines Johnson
It was why I’d spent so much time with my grandparents when I was younger. Holly had said walking away was so easy. She was right. Staying was hard. Coming home after weekends with my grandparents was always hard. Sitting still at family dinners while I was starving for food and positive attention was hard.
Getting up and walking out of my parents’ house was the easiest thing I’d ever done. I may not have been an expert on real love, but I knew it shouldn’t hurt or shame the receiver.
Each member of my family had taken vows; thick and thin, better or worse, rich and poor. Each member of my family had let go of their end of those bargains.
I left my family’s home with thick tears in my eyes, feeling worse for the wear, and poor in spirit. No one came after me. I didn’t expect them to.
“You'll have to rework this ending, Mary Katherine.”
The next morning was the start of the workweek. After leaving my parents’ house, I’d spent all Sunday night writing and finishing my manuscript. I shuffled the phone to the other ear as I listened to Moira.
“The HEA is completely glossed over,” she said. “There’s barely any emotion there. I don’t believe these two will make it.”
I sighed, running my fingers through my tangled hair. I hadn’t brushed it since yesterday.
“Let me guess,” said Moira. “You broke up with your boyfriend?”
Christopher hadn’t called or texted or stopped over since leaving me Saturday night. I felt the loss acutely. I couldn’t sleep. Instead, I’d finished the manuscript and sent it over to Moira early this morning. It was late afternoon now.
“See, this is why I don’t do relationships. When I need my urges met, I go to a bar, have a one-night stand, and never see the guy again. Men are bastards. Who wants to keep one around all the time?”
And this was the person in charge of feeding women’s romance addictions. But maybe she had a point. I’d written all my previous books without a relationship, lost in the fantasy of what an HEA could be. I was in the after now and it sucked.
My doorbell rang. I got off the phone with Moira, making promises to flesh out the ending with more emotion. I opened the door and Ellie and Kira poured in. Ellie enveloped me in a hug. Kira went for my fridge.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.
“Crow said you had a fight. He wouldn’t give any details.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here. You’re his friends,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be with him?”
“We’re family,” Ellie said.
“Plus, he didn’t come home last night,” said Kira.
My heart cracked wide open. Of course he didn’t come home. He was laid up with another woman, or two, or more.
“And we’re on your side -obviously.” Kira took a tub of ice cream out of my freezer.
“There are no sides in a family,” Ellie insisted.
Kira rolled her eyes. She came over with three spoons and passed them around. “Whatever he did, he was wrong.”
“He was an ass,” I agreed. “But I didn’t disclose something and I should have. I don’t think he trusts me any more. So, it’s over.”
They both frowned.
“You’re giving up too easily, MK,” said Ellie.
“She’s right,” agreed Kira. “If you love him, you need to fight for him.”
My own family had practically disowned me. Now, here were these women I’d known for less than a month taking time out of their day to console me. I didn’t know what would happen with me and Christopher, but I wanted to keep these women in my life. I hoped I got to keep Hawk and Owl too, and maybe even Eagle, if Christopher and I couldn’t work things out.
Did I even want to work things out? I wasn’t sure? I wondered what he wanted? Was he even thinking about me? Or was he on top some other woman consoling himself right now?
I dug into the tub of ice cream with my friends. They let me man bash for a while. Once I’d exhausted myself, Ellie shone the light of reason.
“You both put too much into this relationship to just let it go,” she said. “You can keep being pissed for awhile, but eventually, you’ll need to talk to each other. And I mean really talk. Don’t just say what you think he wants to hear. Tell him your whole truth. The good, bad, and ugly of it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I stared at my manuscript. There were words on the page, but I knew the words would satisfy neither my editor nor my readers. This story simply didn’t have a happy ending. The hero was a jerk and the heroine… she was a push over. She was nothing like my other female leads. Those women were strong and assertive. They didn’t put up with any funny business from their men. And the men all swooned at their feet and then swept the women off theirs. But not this heroine.
She didn’t stand up for herself. She didn’t put up a fight when the hero did things she didn’t like. She was a total push over. She was me.
I closed my laptop and stood. It was dark now. Kira and Ellie had left hours ago after offering a sleep over. I’d declined knowing I had to put some more work into this book. But they’d promised to come by tomorrow for a girl’s night out.
Last night, sleeping without Christopher, I hadn’t gotten ounce of rest. I was sure I’d have the same issues tonight. He’d become ingrained in my life after such a short time, so much that I craved having his arms around me. I ached to hear his voice, his laugh. I wanted him to look at me with those soft blue eyes. I didn’t need the sex. I just wanted him.
I wondered where he was right now. Was he with another girl? Was he trying to replace me in his heart? I knew I would never replace him in mine.
I walked over to the window. I looked down at the street and saw a familiar car. It was his. He sat in it with his head in his hands. He leaned his head back, looking up at the sky. There was pain on his face. My every instinct told me to go to him, to comfort him.
He reached for the door handle. He paused. But then he got out. He made his way to the apartment building.
I raced to the bathroom to brush my hair. I’d been in the same underwear since yesterday. I ripped it off and splashed water between my legs. Then I froze.
What the hell was I doing? Was I about to allow myself to be pushed over again? I didn’t put my underwear back on, but did I pull a new attitude over me.
I wondered if he’d use his key and barge in. But this was Christopher. He knocked. My feet rooted.
He knocked again. The knock wasn’t demanding. Christopher had never demanded anything of me. He’d always asked, with a smile.
He knocked a third time.
I opened the door.
His eyes raked over me, taking their time. I held still. His gaze came to my breasts. I wasn’t wearing a bra.
Finally, he reached my eyes. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I mimicked.
“Can I come in?”
I hesitated.
He held up his hands. “I just want to talk.”
I stepped aside and let him in. It looked like he was in the same clothes as he’d been wearing the last time I saw him. He hadn’t even been home. He’d been out all night with another woman, or more. My heart plummeted to the floor.
I still had my hand on the door. “Christopher, I’ve changed my mind.”
He turned, eyebrow raised.
“I can’t let you in. I can’t do this again. It hurts too much.”
He came to me. His arms on my shoulders. His eyes full of concern. “What hurts?”
“You going out and sleeping with anything with a skirt when you get mad at me. You broke up with me because I was out with another guy, but you’ve been out sleeping around since yesterday.”
“Wait a minute, MK.” He shut the door and leaned against it. “You just said a lot of things. I’m going to address the most important one first.” He took a deep breath. “Who the hell said we broke up?”
My mouth slackened. I had to rotate my jaw before the words could form. “You left me Satur
day night.”
“Yes. I left. Because I was jealous. I’d never felt that, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I’ve never felt possessive of something before. I’ve never been in love.”
He raised his arms as though he wanted to bring me into them. Then he let them fall back down to his sides.
“You hurt my feelings,” he said.
“Your feelings?”
He shook his head and sighed. “My mother was right about us.”
I’d felt relief when I’d left my mother’s house the other day, but the thought of Holly dismissing me was more than I could bear.
“We need better communication,” he continued. “We both keep assuming the other knows how we feel, what we want, what we don’t want. Neither one of us are mind readers like in those romance novels where the hero and heroine just know what the other is feeling.”
I tried to focus on his words, but they jumbled in my head. The next words out of his mouth rang true and clear.
“I love you,” he said. “For me, those words, that feeling, means I’ve made a commitment to you. I’m not going to break it, or break up with you, just because I’m mad.”
He walked into the living room and took a seat on the couch. He looked back up at me and shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m all in. And we’re going to sit and talk this through.”
I wanted to go to him, to curl up in his lap. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t go through this again the next time we had an argument. “And then the next time you get mad, you’ll just leave for a night and soothe yourself with anything with two breasts.”
He stood and came to me. “I spent the night at my mom’s.”
“Oh.”
“You should know that I’m a bit of a mama’s boy. Apparently, I have attachment disorder, which means that once I find something I like, I don’t let go.”
He wrapped his hand around mine.
“My mom told me I was wrong for not talking this through with you. She said you were wrong too, by the way.”
“Me?”
“We both need to define the parameters of our relationship. The fact that we love each other isn’t enough. We need to quantify it, as Ellie would say, so we get better quality. It’s become clear to me that you’re not comfortable with me playing with other women.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not. It makes me feel insecure. It makes me jealous.”
He nodded, but then he frowned. “Even when you know that you’re the only woman I love? The one I want to spend my life with?”
“But don’t you know that about me, and my feelings for you? You still got jealous.”
“Because I didn’t know about that guy. If you want to date him, I can be open to that. But I need to get to know him, too, if he’s going to be with my girl.”
My jaw hit the floor. “Why doesn’t that bother you?”
“I told you.” He wrapped his arms around me. “I’m not going anywhere. This is my spot. This is where I belong.”
“I don’t want to date anyone else.”
“Okay. I won’t play with anyone else either. Not until you’re comfortable with it.”
“And if I never get comfortable?”
He inhaled and sighed. It wasn’t an annoyed sigh. It was contemplative. “I love you more than I need to go out and play with other women.”
I melted into his body. I wrapped myself around him, secure that I would never let go, for better or worse, rich or poor, through thick and thin.
“Maybe someday we won’t want a physical relationship,” he said. “Maybe you’ll choose to have children with someone else, or live with someone else. That won’t ever stop you from being a part of my family, a part of me.”
“I want to make it official,” I said. “I want you to marry me. Not because I don’t have faith in your word. Because I want the right to sue you if you ever tried to walk away from me.”
“If it’ll make you happy.” He grinned with the devilish glint in his eyes. “Your happiness is as important as my own. On most days, it’s more important.”
He pressed his lips to mine, softly, then firmly. He drank from my lips like a man who hadn’t taken a drink in days. He lifted me off my feet and carried me the bedroom.
“Can we do the talking thing in the morning?” he asked.
“Sure. We’ve got a lifetime.”
Epilogue
The house was alive with celebration. As always, people were peeling off clothes after crossing the threshold of the front door. It was a joint celebration. Christopher had won his race earlier this afternoon. And earlier this morning, my steamy new release had hit number one in New Adult Erotic Romance on Amazon.
I was already hard at work on a new title. The sex scenes were getting easier and easier to write. I drew a lot of inspiration from the bopsy twins, Chrissy and Fiona. My newest heroine was very confident in her sexuality and curvy. The hero was more like me; still coming to terms with his sexual desires.
Chrissy and Fiona cornered a newcomer to the house. The guy walked into the house with a cocksure grin. Now that he was surrounded by two beautiful, naked women writhing their bodies against his, he looked like a lamb that had stumbled into a lion’s den.
They gyrated their bodies in time to the music while slowly undressing the poor boy. He offered no resistance. When he tried to give them a hand, one of the girls took his hands and occupied them with a part of her body.
A pair of hands came up behind me. I didn’t startle. Everyone present knew that my body was off limits. I sank back into the warm spot that belonged to me and me alone.
Christopher wrapped his arms around my waist and then found my hands. He ran his fingers over the diamond on my left hand. “Having a good time, princess?”
“Hmmm,” I nodded as he pressed a kiss into my temple.
“Hey, Crow,” called a redhead dressed in pink lingerie that somehow worked for her.
“Hey, Priscilla. Long time, no see.”
“You wanna play?” She peeled the top of her lingerie down to reveal freckled breasts.
Christopher grinned at her bare boobs apologetically. “Not tonight, Cilla.”
That was always his response. Not tonight. Not, no. Not, not ever. I knew he hadn’t closed the door on playing with other women some day, but neither did he seem to be in a rush to make that day happen anytime soon.
“Have you met my fiancé?” he asked.
Priscilla and I made polite small talk while she stood with her breasts exposed. When she and Christopher began talking motors, I excused myself. Christopher pulled me back for a kiss and a whispered ‘Love you’ before letting me out of his hold.
I walked into the kitchen where Eagle pulled a tray of brownies from the oven. They were snatched up as soon as he set the hot tray down on the breakfast bar.
“Oh, look at that,” said Eagle. “There’s only one treat left. Who really wants it?”
A group of girls ponied up to the bar with eager grins on their faces. Eagle looked over at me.
“MK? You want in?”
“I’m good.” I grabbed a seat at the dining room table. “I’ll just watch.”
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