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10:42 – That Evening

“Hey.”

My eyes moved from their contemplation of Nick’s super-cool reddish-pink glow light to his face.

He was curled up, head and shoulders to a pile of pillows in his bed at his headboard, his chest on display, his lower body partially tangled in sheets.

Somehow, between orgasm and post-orgasm cuddling-esque maneuvers (as we did them, Nick didn’t cuddle, I didn’t either—we both still did) to now, I’d shifted position.

I had some of his sheets tangled around my legs, partially around my ass, but my back was exposed, including my scar, and I had my arm on his gut, my chin to my arm, and my attention to the doom I sensed hovering in my world.

When he got that attention, I decided first things first and shifted the sheet so it covered my ass and the scars.

I watched his eyes shaft that way briefly, his mouth tightening in what appeared to be mild frustration. This was something he did whenever I showed any indication of embarrassment about my scar. Though, I had to admit, me doing that was happening on a rarer occasion. It was just that I felt vulnerable right then for some reason.

It was also something he wiped clean from his expression when he looked back to me.

“You’re a million miles away,” he noted.

“I want you to be someone else,” I blurted.

He blinked before he smiled, his body faintly shaking, his smiling lips muttering, “And she knows just how to gut a guy.”

“Someone I can trust,” I explained.

His humor instantly fled.

“In fact,” I went on ridiculously and definitely stupidly, “it’d be good if there was a single fucking person on this godforsaken planet I could trust.”

Knowing that was ridiculous and stupid, but it feeling good to get out anyway, I decided that was enough and it was time to go home.

So I pushed up and twisted around to exit the bed.

As I was learning with Nick, I shouldn’t have wasted the effort. If I dropped a bomb like that, he’d not let it go and make it so I couldn’t either.

So it was not a surprise I found myself on my back, more tangled in the sheets, now hopelessly so, and if that wasn’t enough, a good deal of his weight was bearing down on me.

“You okay?” he asked.

I looked up at him and I did it hard, searching, trying to find anything, absolutely anything that would tell me where he was at, really at, with me.

But all I could see was marginal concern, the rest he held hidden.

Which told me where he was at with me.

Which was precisely where I was at with him.

And lastly, it was exactly where we’d always be.

I was never okay but that wasn’t for then or ever, for him or anyone. It was just what it was and it was all for me.

So I weighed my words and gave him what I thought was safe.

“It’s just that I learned some interesting things today which could lead to good or it could…” I shrugged, “not.”

“Let me guess, Olivia Shade is not an optimist,” he remarked.

I almost smiled.

Instead I confirmed, “My glass has always been half empty. That is, when there was anything in the damned thing at all.”

I watched his features at war again, definite concern and also curiosity, those along with what appeared to be a hint of unease.

But he settled into the concern.

“Wanna make a deal?” he asked quietly.

I felt my neck muscles tense as I felt us shift to dangerous ground.

“Sebring,” was all I said.

“Half an hour, you let it all hang out, you give me what you got, lay it all on me. You’re worried, you let it out. You want advice, I’ll give it to you honestly. Cone of silence. It goes no further than this bed. It’s just you and me. And after that half an hour, it’s forgotten. We’ll never speak of it again and you can trust it’s buried with me. And you can trust that, Olivia. Swear to fuck. You got half an hour where you are not you and I am not me. We’re other people, something else to each other and you can know down to your soul during that time that you’ve got what you need from me and you got it safely.”

I stared into his beautiful blue eyes set in his handsome face before my gaze drifted. To his spiky dark hair. His corded neck. Even his well-formed ears. Taking him all in, wanting that. Wanting it, and really having it, even if only for half an hour. Wanting it like you wouldn’t believe.

I could taste that want in my mouth.

I even fancied I could live forever feeding on just those thirty short minutes with him being everything I needed him to be, naked, his weight warming me, his cum still inside me, tangled up in his sheets, safe in his bed, safe, safe, safe to unload on somebody even a hint of the shit that buried me.

And the tingling in my throat hurt so bad, it felt like it would strangle me, knowing how bad I wanted that, and using his words—knowing how down deep in my soul I could never risk it.

Which meant I could never have it.

Not with him.

Not with anybody.

But that pain wasn’t about anybody.

That pain was about not ever having it with Nick.

“Olivia,” he whispered and the way he said my name I knew at least some of what I was feeling was leaking out of me.

“I have to go,” I whispered back.

“Spend the night,” he urged gently.

God, I wanted that too. To again sleep beside Nick. To wake up next to him. I fought that want every night. Every single night, I fought a want I wanted badly.

To have it just one more time.

One more.

I shook my head and swallowed against the pain.

He dropped closer, his hand coming up to stroke the side my neck.