Gavin searched for his clothes and yanked them on. “You make it sound like things were horrible between us, Thea. They weren’t.”
“Is that the highest standard you aim for? Not horrible? Would you really prefer to go back to the way we were before that night?”
“I’d rather that than this.”
Her face fell. “That’s what scares me, Gavin. There are a lot of ways to fake it. I’m just the only one willing to own up to it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that sometimes I think you wished you never found out that I was faking it.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Dammit, Gavin. Be honest with me!”
Gavin clenched his fists. “You want honesty? Fine. Yes, goddammit. I wish I’d never found out that my wife had treated our entire marriage like one long pity fuck!”
Oh, you coddle-woppled worm fart. That was too far, mate. I can’t save you on that one.
“Pity fuck?” Thea reared back as if he’d slapped her. “I don’t know who that’s more insulting to, Gavin, you or me, but my body is not a charity. I don’t fuck anyone unless I want to. Even my husband.”
Regret was a sour taste in his mouth. “That’s not—that’s not what I meant, Thea.”
Thea shook her head and spoke with a sadness that gutted him. “You broke my heart, Gavin.”
Gavin’s chest caved in on itself. He crossed the room and gripped her shoulders. “Let me fix it.”
“I can’t go back to where we were, Gavin. To who I was. I can’t.”
“I don’t w-w-want that, either. I want to move forward.”
She hugged herself. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
Gavin spun and stormed to the console table by the door. He grabbed his keys and his wallet and then shoved his feet into his shoes.
“Where are you going?” Thea asked breathlessly.
“I need to clear my head.”
“You’re leaving?”
He threw open the door and stomped out.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gavin drove straight to the community rec field. He was going to break into the goddamn park and hit some balls until his hands bled and the pain of the cuts overpowered the bleeding, gaping wound in his chest.
He pointed his car to the batting cage at the front of the diamond and left his headlights on. From his trunk, he pulled out his duffel bag with his bat and the dozen or so baseballs that were always rattling around in there.
With a strong toss, he heaved the duffel bag over the top of the fence. Then, with a running start, he made easy work of climbing the fence until he dropped to the other side. If he got caught, fuck it. What were they going to do? Write him a ticket? Arrest him? Jail would be a blessing.
Gavin dug out the first ball and his bat. He tossed the ball in the air and swung. The bat connected with a satisfying whack and sent the ball flying into the net at the other end.
Another followed. And then a third. Gavin shoved up his sleeves. You broke my heart, Gavin. A fourth ball joined its brothers at the end of the batting cage.
I don’t know if I believe you. He hit the fifth ball so hard that it bounced back immediately and nearly took out his kneecap. Just to get back at it, he hit it again and told it to fuck off.
That felt so good that he did it again with ball number six. By ball seven, he stopped cursing and started talking directly to Thea.
“You broke my heart too,” he grumbled. Then whack. The ball flew into the net. “You’re not the only one.”
Ball eight went flying. “You threw me out!”
Ball nine hit the net. “Do you know how that feels?”
Ball ten nearly broke at the seams. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
A pompous British accent answered in the dark. You were supposed to fight for her.
Ball eleven nearly punched a hole in the cage. “She asked me to leave!”
She was testing you.
“That’s bullshit.” Ball twelve damn near broke his bat.
Why did you move into the guest room?
Gavin stomped to the net and started throwing balls back.
Avoiding the question, I see.
“I don’t answer to you, Lord Chest Hair.” He picked up his bat again.
You wanted to punish her.
“She lied to me for three years,” Gavin growled, whacking another ball.
But that’s not what you were punishing her for.
Whack. Another ball.
You blamed her for ripping the rosy veil off your marriage.
“Bullshit.”
For forcing you to deal with something you didn’t want to deal with.
“Fuck off.”
Because you were afraid of the truth.
“Fuck. YOU.”
Gavin abandoned the bat and began whipping balls to the other end of the cage until there were none left to throw, nothing left to hit. Panting, sweating, he bent and braced his hands on his knees.
Thea was right. Lord Tight Pants was right. The entire fucking book club was right.
He was faking it. He’d been faking it for months before that night. Pretending everything was okay between them when it clearly wasn’t because it was easier than facing the truth—that they were growing apart, that he was losing her. And he was still pretending, thinking he could win her back with a book and a romantic kiss and date nights, that he could fix things without actually addressing what was broken, because that was easy.
Because that required nothing of him.
No soul searching. No examinations of his own behavior. No bloody inconvenient epiphanies like the one that was making his stomach churn right now.
She’s starting school again, and she doesn’t need you. Not unless you give her a reason to trust . . .
Gavin grabbed the balls and stuffed them back in his bag. He was covered in dirt and sweat, and there was a rip in one elbow of his shirt. His tires spun in the gravel parking lot as he peeled out. The house was dark when he pulled back into the driveway. No porch light. No blue glow from the TV. No yellow warmth illuminating the bedroom curtain. Gavin leapt over the stairs onto the porch with a loud thud and threw open the door.
Gavin took the stairs two at a time. Her door was shut. If it was locked, he’d know he was truly fucked. He grasped the handle. Leaned his forehead against the wood.
Please don’t be locked.
The knob turned beneath his fingers.
Thank fucking God.
The room was pitch black, but he could make out two forms on the bed. One had a giant, fluffy tail and was way too comfortable on Gavin’s side of the bed. The other, hidden beneath the thick comforter, rolled over quickly at the intrusion.
“I—I’m home,” he said dumbly.
“Fine,” was her quiet response.
Gavin snapped his fingers at Butter, who moved to the foot of the bed with a put-upon sigh. Yeah, yeah. You at least get to sleep in the same bed with her. Thea sat up straight, a protest ready on her lips.
“I want to tell you something,” he said, cutting her off.
“Gavin, I’m tired of this. I can’t do this.”
He rounded the bed to her side and lowered to his knees. “Wh-when I was in high school, I had a crush on this girl. She w-was pretty and popular. I finally got the courage to ask her out, and she laughed at me. Made fun of my stutter right to my face.”
“Gavin, I’m sorry, but—”
“It gets worse. About a w-w-week later, a list started going around school. Top Ten Guys Most in Need of a . . .” He stopped to swallow against the bile of remembered humiliation. “A pity fuck. I was listed number one. She was the girl behind it.”
Thea rubbed her temples.
“Thea, I’ve never been confident about sex
. I was . . . I was a late bloomer. I didn’t lose my virginity until college. And there’s always been—” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I’ve always had a fear that I was the one who was most in love in this marriage.”
“Gavin,” she breathed, eyes softening.
“I’ve always feared that you wouldn’t have married me, that I wouldn’t have been able to keep you, if you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
Her hands fisted in his shirt. “How can you think that?”
“So, yes, there is a part of me that w-wishes I didn’t know you’d been faking it with me, because then I could keep pretending we were fine. That I wasn’t losing you.”
A tear leaked down her cheek.
“I was pretending that we could just move forward like nothing happened, but that’s not fair to you. Or to me, either, I guess.”
Thea swung her legs off the bed and tugged him closer. Which was as good an encouragement as any. He was officially going for broke. Gavin dropped his forehead to her knees. “I’m at your mercy, Thea. From the moment I first saw you, I have been half a man, because you’ve always held the other half of me.”
“Gavin . . .” His name came out scratchy, as if she was suddenly finding it as difficult to breathe as he was.
Gavin raised his gaze to hers. “End my agony, Thea. I beg you.”
His heart bounced like a grounder at second base as he waited for her to move. Indecision and longing ebbed and flowed between them with each mingled pant of their breaths. Inch by aching inch, she lowered her mouth toward his. Her breathing became erratic as her fingers encircled his straining biceps.
Gavin rose and pushed her gently onto the bed. Thea sank into her pillow, opened her mouth wide, and something released in his chest. A rush of oxygen and elation flooded his veins, a heady cocktail of relief and lust.
He hadn’t kissed his wife like this in so long, and he wasn’t talking about the passionate kisses he planted on her the past couple of weeks. He hadn’t kissed her this way in longer than he could remember. It was lazy and hot, with the comfort of familiarity but the thrill of newness. Her hands were in his hair. Her leg on his hip. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Even their wild kisses earlier tonight hadn’t come close to this simple intimacy. He poured apology and promises into every nudge and dip of his mouth, and he tasted the first hint of acceptance in return.
His body burned to shed their clothes and bury himself deep inside her. But he knew neither of them were ready. Their marriage wasn’t ready. They were on the verge of something new between them. Something better than before. He wasn’t going to risk it just to serve the needs of his body.
Especially since he still wasn’t sure he could serve the needs of hers. And any failure now would set them back to a place he never wanted to return. Not when he knew there were moments like this ahead of them.
And as the oxygen rushed from his lungs, something that felt like gratitude swept in to expand them. Yes, gratitude. For this moment. For this second chance. For this woman.
She’d owned half his heart for so long that the full, frenzied pounding of it was as foreign a sensation as the completeness of life that he only felt with her, had only ever felt with her. Thea made a noise, a soothing murmur as if she understood, as if she were feeling it all too.
She glided her hand along his jaw and parted her lips against his throat, her breath to his pulse. They moved. They touched. They spoke only through feathered lips to fevered skin.
It was, Gavin realized with a shuddered inhale, the most important moment of his life.
Gavin lifted his face enough to look in her eyes. Her chest shuddered with an inhale.
“Talk to me,” he whispered.
She smiled through tears. “Will you stay and read?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thea woke up naked.
They hadn’t made love—or tried to—again, but Gavin spent the night in her bed, and they’d made the unspoken agreement that clothing was optional.
Gavin made a sleepy sound behind her. “I can hear you thinking.” His arm tightened and tugged her closer. “Sleep OK?”
“Mmm.”
“Tell me wh-wh-what you’re thinking about,” Gavin said, burrowing his face deeper into the crook of her neck and murmuring against her ear.
Oh, you know. Nothing much. Just sex.
Hot sex.
Sloppy sex.
Scrape my fingernails down your back sex.
I can’t believe it’s not an orgasm sex.
Ugh.
He teased her earlobe with his lips. “Know wh-what I’m thinking about?”
“Sex?” she blurted.
His bark of laughter jiggled her boobs. “That goes without saying.” He slid his hand up her body and captured her hand with his. “But I was actually going to say bacon.”
Thea turned her head to look over her shoulder. “Is that a euphemism?”
“You have no idea.” Gavin rose up on an elbow and gazed down at her in that sexy, tired way of his. “Morning.”
Thea rolled onto her back so she could see him better. “Good morning.”
“Want me to make the pancakes?”
Oh, yeah. It was Saturday.
“Sure. Not yet, though. It’s early. The girls aren’t even up yet.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What shall we do with our stolen time in the d-dark?”
She laughed, and it became a shriek when he whipped the comforter over both their heads, hiding them in a dark cocoon. They stilled at the same time. Soaked in the moment. Catalogued all the places where the hard parts of him pressed against the soft parts of her.
Thea captured his bottom lip in both of hers and tugged.
That’s all it took. Gavin made a noise low in his throat and slanted his mouth over hers. He pressed her into the mattress as his lips nibbled and massaged, cherished and explored. He kissed her like they had all the time in the world, but when she slid one of her legs up along his, dragging her toes across his calf, something changed. He changed. He curled his free hand along the curve of her jaw and changed the angle of his kiss, taking it deeper, harder, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth.
Thea wrapped her arms around him. Her fingers explored the finely honed muscles of his torso, every ripple, every ridge, every swell of sinew. Her exploration seemed to fuel his fire, because a groan came from deep in his chest and he shifted his hips to grind into the parts of her that now throbbed with need. She wanted to crawl inside his skin. She wanted to kiss every inch of him.
She just wanted.
Wanted to feel his sweaty weight on top of her. Wanted to pump her hips beneath him. Wanted to moan and writhe and gasp.
She wanted his hands on her skin, his lips on her breasts. She wanted to feel him hard and long and thick thrusting deep inside her. She wanted to find that place again where heat and sparks and tornados lived. And then she wanted to curl against his side, trail her fingers down his damp chest, and place hot, sloppy kisses on his stomach.
She wanted.
She wanted him.
“Gavin,” she rasped. “Can I ask you something?”
He licked a spot beneath her ear. She sucked in a gasp. Oh, she liked that. She fought for air. “How did you know that night?”
“Know what?” He sucked on her earlobe.
“That I had an orgasm.”
“At first, it was the noises you made.” He sucked on the tender place where her pulse pounded in her throat. “I’d never heard you make a noise like that, like a wh-whine or a whimper.”
Thea shifted beneath him. The growing pressure between her legs sought the hard length between his.
“And you started moving against me.” Gavin tilted his hips into her. Thea gripped his shoulders.
“You started saying my name,” he rasped, his breath hot against her neck. “Ove
r and over. Until you couldn’t actually say it.”
Thea moaned and ground into him again.
“You became frantic,” he panted, sliding his erection against her cleft. She gasped and rocked back and forth against his length.
“And then your whole body tensed.” His fingers dug into her hips. “You called my name, and inside you. Christ, Thea, inside you . . .”
His hands slipped between them and found the source of her ache. His fingers began to explore. She groaned and threw her head back.
“I could feel it, Thea. Your orgasm.” He slipped two fingers inside her, and she cried out.
“Your muscles squeezed around me and, God . . .” Gavin dropped his head against her shoulder and pumped his fingers in a steady rhythm. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt, baby. And when I came, I’ve never come like that before.”
Thea covered his mouth with hers. They tongue-kissed like teenagers as she rode his hand. She rocked her hips, seeking that feeling, that pleasure.
He let out a moan. “I’ve been in agony since that night. I w-want to make you feel that way again. I want you, Thea. So bad.”
The bang of a tiny fist on the bedroom door made her eyes fly open. “Shit!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gavin groaned.
“Mommy!” It was Amelia.
“Just a minute, sweetie.” Thea pushed Gavin off her and grabbed the nearest item of clothing—a long T-shirt draped over the foot of the bed. Gavin rolled over with a dramatic flop. As Thea yanked her shirt over her head, Gavin threw an arm over his eyes.
“Just a sec, honey, I’m coming.”
“Not anymore, you’re not,” Gavin grumbled. Thea threw the covers over his lap as she rose to unlock the door.
Amelia shuffled in, dragging her blanket in one hand. Ava followed, clutching her duck.
“Daddy’s in here?” Amelia asked, her steps picking up.
“Yep. Come here and snuggle us.” The girls walked to Gavin’s side of the bed and waited for him to lift them up. They both laid down on top of the covers in the space between their parents.
The Bromance Book Club Page 22
