by Maisey Yates
Creating secrets and time alone with his best friend’s wife. Something had been changing inside him, but not her. Thank God.
Because Caleb Dalton was not the best man in the world, not even close. So much so that the beast in him was sharpening its teeth and getting ready to take a bite out of her.
But thankfully, the man who’d sworn to do right by her, the man who’d sworn to honor his friend, had enough control to pause for a moment.
“Why?” He managed to grind the word out through his tightened throat.
She blinked, her blue eyes unreadable. Her throat worked. She hesitated. And the moment seemed to stretch on for an eternity.
“Clint is the only man I’ve ever been with,” she said. “And I...waited a long time before I was with him. I don’t know how to be with a stranger. I don’t know how to be with someone I don’t trust. Not the first time. Not when it feels significant. Like I’m...basically losing my virginity all over again. Because that’s how long it’s been. And that’s how foreign it feels to think about figuring out how to do this with someone else. When I was writing the list I thought it might be exciting. And then I realized it was a little bit terrifying. But I still thought...maybe it was exciting to be with someone new. But I didn’t want him. And the very idea of trying to figure out how to kiss someone that I don’t even like... I don’t think I can be with someone I don’t trust. And I trust you. Look at you. Giving me your coat. Opening your truck door for me. Showing up when I was going out dancing, being a backup in case no guy wanted to dance with me.”
He was not here to be a fucking backup.
But he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have any words. She was looking at him with utter sincerity and telling him that she wanted him because he was safe.
And he felt anything but safe right now. He felt close to tearing this entire street apart. Brick by brick. Bending the streetlamps in half, just to make the point that he was nobody’s lapdog. He wasn’t some easily tamed gentleman, or a boy that she could make demands of.
But that wasn’t even what she meant. The sincerity in her eyes was absolute, and she had no idea that what she was saying was about the most offensive thing she could have possibly chosen to say.
He had held all this down for years. And now she was playing with it. Taunting him. Treating him like he was toothless.
She wasn’t overcome by desire for him.
She was afraid of her other options.
And he made her feel safe.
And he... He couldn’t breathe around how much he wanted her right now. Years of holding it back and now she had unleashed it with a dress and four simple words.
Now he was standing there being honest, he didn’t think he had breathed right since the day he’d seen her in a wedding gown walking toward another man. Just thinking about it now made his bones ache. Made his body physically hurt. He had stood there beside the groom, so close to where he wanted to be, and so impossibly far.
That was the thing about a wedding.
If you wanted to be the groom and you weren’t, proximity didn’t exactly help.
She wanted him because he was safe.
And he wanted her... It wasn’t because she was safe. His heart hadn’t been safe from the moment that Ellie Bell had walked into his life.
He’d never experienced more pain. More fear. More guilt.
He’d never denied himself half as much as he had these past years.
She wasn’t a safe space for him, and she never had been, and he was here anyway.
“Oh...” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Have I horrified you? I thought... You’re a man, Caleb, and you like the way that I looked in the dress, so I thought that...”
“Do you think I don’t want you?” he asked, the voice sounding like a stranger’s. So gritty and flat and pained.
“You look like I just stabbed you in the stomach.”
He felt like she had. He felt it down to his bones.
“I don’t want to ruin things between us,” she said. “You’re my best friend. You’re my best friend in the entire world. But don’t you see? That’s what makes it perfect. I... You take care of me. And I know that it would be... It would be nice between us. Don’t you think?”
For the first time, he fully understood why being damned with faint praise was actually worse than being maligned.
He would rather she be filled with the disgust at the idea of being with him, because at least then it was picking a position. This muddy, milky description of how she thought it might be when their bodies came together...
He couldn’t handle that. This obliviousness.
“You want me to help reintroduce you to sex.”
“I mean, we can start with kissing,” she said. “That is on my list.”
“No, cut through the bullshit.” Because he had to. Because it was all he could see. “You want to have sex. With me. Because you think it will be easy.”
“Well,” she said, her voice small. “Yes.”
“Buy a vibrator, Ellie,” he said, the words so rough they scraped his throat raw. “Because I’m not a damn sex toy.”
He turned and started walking back toward the saloon.
“Caleb,” she said. His name spoken, so soft and small, hit him between the shoulder blades like a bullet. He stopped. But he didn’t turn. “I didn’t... That’s not what I meant. I...I want to be with someone. I miss being close with someone. I miss sex. And skin-to-skin stuff, not just orgasms. And I thought that maybe I could go out and have it with a stranger, but I can’t. I don’t think I can. How can I relax and... I wouldn’t be able to have any fun. And I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want anything like that. But wouldn’t it...? Doesn’t it make sense?”
“No, it makes sense on your end, and you can’t for the life of you understand how it sounds to not consider my feelings on it all.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding close to tears now, and he hated to be the cause of that. He really did. But she had just torn his heart bloody, and he hadn’t thought it was possible for her to shred that any more than it already was.
“I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m attracted to you,” she said.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
“I mean,” she continued. “I...I felt something when we were dancing. Maybe you didn’t.”
“I felt it,” he said, laughing at the way he said it. As if it was no big deal, and as if maybe it was new.
“So... Would it be so bad?”
And he realized that he was caught between a rock and a damned hard space, because there was no real way to explain to her why getting offered this was... Was a slap in the damn face. Not without revealing himself in a way he wasn’t willing to do.
Safe.
He was safe.
But she wants you...
No. She wanted sex, and she thought sex with him would be fine.
That was different than wanting someone.
And he knew it well.
Because he’d had sex with women over the past decade; of course he had.
And he’d done it while he’d wanted Ellie. No matter that he’d told himself he didn’t; he had. The whole damned time. And her standing there staring at him with luminous blue eyes made all his internal claims to the contrary seem laughable.
He’d had good sex, where he’d thought about only the woman he was in bed with, but he still hadn’t wanted them. Not in a specific way. He’d wanted sex, and an attractive woman to have it with.
But it was different. It was different than this. Than this craving that overwhelmed everything you did, that flavored everything.
Does it matter?
He didn’t know. He honest to God didn’t know.
He turned then, saw her standing there looking like every damn fantasy he’d ever had.
And he wondered where the hell he got the strength to say that word. He wondered why the hell he was saying that word even as he did.
He knew how to not have Ellie.
He knew that well.
And so, going on not having her seemed to be the easiest thing.
“Well, will you help me find someone else, then?” she shot back.
And it hit its mark.
“Sure,” he bit out. “I’ll find you a guy you can trust. A guy who matches up to Clint. You think you can do that on short notice? Should I conduct interviews? Do a drawing?”
“Why are you making fun of me?” She drew back, wounded. “This was really hard for me. I...I hate my body right now. I hate it. Putting on this dress makes me feel...horrible. The last time I slept with someone for the first time I was nineteen years old and had not had a baby. Everything was tight, and up where it was supposed to be. And now I’m...I’m sad, and my body is weird, and everything about this makes me want to cry, and you’re just...”
But he couldn’t even feel bad for her. Not now. Not when she was playing a particular kind of torture game with him without even realizing it.
And her ignorance didn’t make it any better.
In some ways, it made it worse.
He breathed in deep through his nose. “Did it ever occur to you it’s not a comfortable subject for me?”
She drew back. “Caleb. I’m sorry. It’s because of Clint, isn’t it? I forget sometimes. I know that sounds really stupid. But I forget that he was your friend. I forget that you weren’t my friend. Because these last few years you’ve been... You’ve been so much of my world. And I didn’t even think what it would mean as... I guess I’m your best friend’s wife to you.”
Dammit, he wanted to turn a car over. That had just occurred to her, that this might be about Clint. Oh, he’d lived with that guilt.
Lived with the guilt in the early days of their relationship and at the end, right before he’d died, when Caleb realized what an utter fool he’d been with those reading lessons. Hanging on to doomed and sinful fantasies that weren’t actually dead.
And he was having to face it again now.
Of course it was about Clint. Everything between them was, and always would be.
“It wouldn’t be betraying him,” she said. “I think... I mean, I think he probably would’ve preferred it to me...finding a stranger. He trusted you and...I’m sure he would’ve trusted you with me.”
That did it. “I’m done with the conversation, Ellie,” he said, walking away.
“Well, then you better help me find someone else,” she shouted after him as he walked straight back toward his car.
“Fine,” he shot back.
“What about your coat?”
He stopped. He didn’t give a damn about his coat.
“I’ll get it from you another time. Maybe when we talk about where to find you a sexual partner.”
And then he got in his truck, and he drove away. And it wasn’t until he was halfway home that he realized he hadn’t taken a breath since she had told him what she wanted from him.
But then, that was just how it was. Ellie made it hard for him to breathe.
And apparently, no matter what she asked of him, it was going to be that way.
Now he just had to figure out how to forget this night had ever happened.
* * *
ELLIE FELT VERY SMALL, very foolish and thoroughly scraped raw as she walked back into the saloon. Vanessa was sitting there waiting, her eyes comically wide, and then she looked down at her phone as if she hadn’t been giving herself whiplash looking at the door.
She blinked furiously and walked back over to the table. “Can we go now?”
Vanessa scrambled to get her things. “What happened?”
“How do you know something happened?”
“Because you look horrible and like you want to die.”
She would have laughed but she was incapable. “Yes, that is accurate.”
“What happened?” Vanessa whispered as soon as they got outside.
“I propositioned him.”
“You what?”
“I asked Caleb if he would help me finish my list. I have sex on my list.” She realized perhaps she needed to give Vanessa some context. “There’s a list. It’s why I’m here.”
“So you just...asked him if he wanted to have sex with you.”
“Yes.”
“And he didn’t say yes?”
“No, he didn’t. In fact, I think I ruined our friendship.”
Vanessa sighed. “I doubt you ruined your friendship. You’ve been through a lot worse than a failed proposition.”
“Yeah, I suppose that’s true.” But Vanessa hadn’t seen the way Caleb had reacted. It had been awful, and she felt like she had done something unutterably horrible, and she couldn’t even figure out why it had been so horrible.
But she was so embarrassed. There weren’t words for how embarrassed.
“Do you...? Do you want to sleep with him?” Vanessa asked.
“I mean... When we were dancing I...I suddenly realized... I actually can’t imagine myself with anyone else. Not right now. When I thought about sleeping with Todd, the idea... It didn’t appeal to me at all. And maybe I’m just not attracted to him. But when I think about being with Caleb...”
Suddenly, she really thought about it. Not just in a vague way, but thought about touching him like that. Thought about kissing him.
“He’s always been there for me,” she said. “He’s always been so good to me. And I just think that he would be... I trust him. And I can’t imagine being with a man that I don’t trust.”
“Yeah, but you can imagine how that came a little bit out of the blue for him.”
“Yeah. I know.” They got in the car and she rested her head on the seat. “He got really mad.”
He’d been angry at her once before. At the end of their reading lessons. The ones he’d ended. And she’d had no real idea why he’d been angry. He’d just suddenly gone distant. But of course she hadn’t randomly propositioned him last time. This time... Well, this time she had probably earned it.
“Did you actually say to him that he would take care of you?” Vanessa asked.
“Yes. I said that he’s the one I want to be the first one since Clint. Because I feel safe with him.”
“I don’t really feel like men prize that as a descriptor.”
“No?”
“Not when it comes to their penises, no.”
Oh. Oh. She’d called Caleb’s penis safe. And now she was thinking about his...and she wasn’t even really upset by it. And everything was wrong. “Right. So I messed that up.”
“I think so,” Vanessa said sagely.
“Well, that makes me feel slightly better, because I was a little afraid that he was just that horrified about seeing me naked. And I don’t think my ego can handle that.”
Vanessa looked hesitant.
“What?” Ellie asked.
“I just think this is part of the problem.”
“What?”
“I understand that for you this is a reclamation of some things. And a healing. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But Caleb isn’t a new dress. You can’t just decide to put him on because you’re in the mood to feel something exciting. He’s a person. And there are going to be two sides to this kind of thing. Buying a new dress...that’s just you. Sex?”
Heat lashed Ellie’s cheeks. Because nobody liked to be scolded like they were a child, but when Vanessa repeated all that back to her, she could see that she sounded like one.
“I do know that,” Ellie said. “It’s just that... I guess... I figured for him sex probably isn’t that big of a deal. I remember going out to bars with him all the time wh
en Clint was alive. And he rarely left alone.”
“And since Clint died?” Vanessa pressed gently.
Ellie blinked. “Well, I don’t go out to bars anymore. So... I don’t really know what he does at them.”
“Isn’t he usually with you at night? Helping you with things?”
“I guess so,” Ellie said, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Vanessa said. “I can completely see how you’re thinking about this. I just think that... You have to realize how it may have sounded to him.”
“It’s funny,” she said. “You and I have only gotten to know each other recently. But of course we’ve talked about our sex lives.”
“Mostly because I got pregnant,” Vanessa said. “That made it difficult to ignore mine.”
“Yeah, but still. And Caleb is my closest friend. He has been for years. But I don’t really know anything about his sex life.”
“On the flip side, you also haven’t propositioned me. So. Yet another difference.”
Ellie laughed. “Well, you’re married to Jacob.”
“Yeah. And the thing is, also, he’s a man and I’m not. And that means your friendship is different. Maybe not even because he’s a man, but because apparently he’s a man you wouldn’t mind sleeping with. If that layer exists on your end, it must on his, too.”
“You don’t think that kind of thing is simpler for men?” Clint had been with quite a lot of women before her, and it hadn’t really bothered her. She hadn’t been with anyone, because she hadn’t been able to imagine giving herself over to someone like that when the risks were so high. When she’d watched her mother get destroyed emotionally again and again by the men she dated.
Men who walked away not destroyed at all.
“I think they pretend that it’s different,” Vanessa said slowly. “And maybe for some of them it truly is. But I don’t know—look at their dad. And the way that he behaved. I don’t think he did it because he was the world’s most well-adjusted person. I don’t think he went and had a ton of affairs because everything was all right inside him. And even if for him, it’s nothing more than a handshake, the repercussions are not the same as a handshake.”
