“So that’s it? You want to be my lawyer? You want to figure out every problem you have on your own and handle anyone that tries to hurt you by yourself, even though I’m right here? I know I have a lot to lose if I get myself in trouble, Sayer. I understand that there is a lot at stake; what I don’t get is how you can ignore that you’re one of those things I’m trying my damnedest to be better for.” His eyebrows shot up. “You’ve seen me, just me, from the very beginning, Sayer. Why is it so hard for you to believe that I’ve seen you, all of you, as well?”
He was going to make me cry. I bit down on my lower lip and reached for the door, but before I could push it open he was there. He was always there, in that spot right in front of me that seemed to belong only to him.
He put his hands on either side of my face and I felt him rub his thumbs over my cheeks. I was surprised at the moisture that followed the trail he left.
“I don’t know what else to do here, Say. I built you a house. I made love to you. I gave you all the colors and helped you celebrate them. I melted you over and over again. I want to tell you how much I care about you . . . you tell me what else I can do?”
The world.
This big, tough man had given me the world and I couldn’t do anything with it. For once, it was my hands that were too cold, while my heart felt like it was burning up inside my chest. So many feelings. So much fear. It was all too much to grasp as I flailed around inside the torrent. I reached out for the only thing that seemed stable, that seemed rooted to the ground. I reached for him.
I curled my hands into his shirt, I pulled his mouth down to mine. I whispered to him that I wanted him to come inside with me one last time, and I did it all knowing Zebulon Fuller would be the first and last boy whom I ever kissed because I was changing, slipping and sliding into a person who wasn’t before or after but who was a confused and jumbled mess of both. He should have something better than that. I was half a woman lost in the horrors of the past and half a woman just now figuring out what she wanted and needed in a life that was her own. He deserved someone whole and so did his son.
He destroyed me with openness and stark honesty. I destroyed us by not having any space inside of myself. Even with the emotions I was purging and choking on leaving a hollow and empty space, I still couldn’t find room to hold all of those wonderful things he was trying to give me.
CHAPTER 14
Zeb
She kissed me good-bye and I followed her inside. This was one of those prime opportunities for me to practice thinking long and hard about the consequences of my actions before I dove recklessly into the deep end. Too bad I wasn’t going to stop and do anything other than fall even harder for her.
It was stupid. Probably even stupider than spending a night with Hyde’s mother when I was off balance and unhinged after two-plus years without an ounce of freedom. Both experiences would end up leaving forever marks on who I was and how I loved. I knew Sayer was going to break my heart and I was willingly letting her do it. She was as cold as she had ever been on the outside, her skin like ice everywhere we touched. On the inside she was an inferno, a raging storm of too many emotions, making her typically clear eyes cloudy and wild. Again I thought she was a tempest, a gale that was going to wreck me and ruin me, and I wanted her to lay me to waste.
Everything I had ever felt for her, good, bad, uncertain, clean, and dirty, flared up into burning-hot points that wanted to pierce through my skin in order to get at her. She was going to completely melt for me now because there were no more icy walls holding me back from the very center of her. I’d done the hard work, made room for myself and my boy in her life, rearranged a space that was just mine; now it was up to her to figure out how to get rid of all that other junk so I could rightfully claim the rest of what was mine.
I undid the buttons on my flannel as soon as her bedroom door was shut behind me. I would leave her in this house I had built just for her and I would leave as much of myself behind with her as I could, so even if she wanted to, she couldn’t forget me and couldn’t ignore what I knew we meant to one another.
I watched with heavy-lidded eyes as she pulled her blazer off and turned toward me as she peeled off the rest of her clothing. She was beautiful and this was all so tragic. I told myself to turn around and walk out before things got even more complicated and fucked up between the two of us. But then her shirt cleared her head, and her bra hit the floor, and her hands were suddenly under the T-shirt I had worn under the flannel in defense against the diving fall temperatures. Her touch was firm and far more direct than it typically was when she put her hands on me.
She liked to run her fingers over me, liked to explore and caress with a light touch. This felt more like she wanted to take something. Like she wanted to hold on to me even though she was the one pushing me away with both hands. Before I knew it, she had my pants undone and was shoving the denim and my boxers out of her way. Even if my head and my heart knew this was good-bye, my dick didn’t seem to care about the impending heartbreak. It eagerly fell into her waiting hands as she looked up at me with those tumultuous eyes. It wasn’t a pretty squall trapped in there. It was ugly and crashing. Beating against the inside of her in endless waves, and it almost killed me that this wasn’t something I had the skills or know-how to fix. There was no repairing Sayer Cole. She had to tear it all down and rebuild from scratch.
I was already as bare as I could be for this woman. There wasn’t anything else I could offer her or create for her, so I stepped out of her grasp, which made her whimper a little and my dick really pissed off at me, and put my hands on her shoulders so I could turn her around so that she was facing away from me. I wasn’t sure I could get through this alive with those tumultuous eyes pleading up at me to make it all better. I had done all I could. Now it was all on her.