contact with him since the moment we’d left Chase in the parking lot. Apart from that one brief moment when he’d stepped out of the shower, I'd been looking past him. Like a coward.
"Dare," he growled in warning. "Really look at me. Drop those walls and look."
My breath escaped from behind my clenched teeth, but he knew I couldn't deny him anything. Not when he asked like that, with such raw desperation underscoring his words.
"What?" I whispered when it started to feel like the walls were closing in around us. "What do you want to see?"
He gave a sad shake of his head. "It's what I want you to see, you stubborn bitch." A teasing smile touched his lips, making that an endearment rather than an insult. "I want you to see that no matter what happened in the past, I'm in this with you one hundred percent. I wasn't there when you needed me then, but I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere, and I'll do whatever it takes to fix what he broke inside you."
He released my hand, cupping the back of my neck instead. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes locked on mine.
"I won't push you, Dare. But I love you so fucking much it physically hurts some days. All I want to do is erase all the hurt, wipe away the nightmares. But I don't have any fucking clue how to do that when it's me reminding you of those dark things."
My hands went to his waist and slid tentatively around his bare skin as I leaned into his touch. "I don't know either," I admitted in a small voice. "Every time we start... anything... it's like I'm instantly back in my eighteen-year-old body listening to Chase rant and scream about how I'm an unfaithful whore for kissing his best friend." I swallowed the lump of emotion clogging my throat and pushed on, laying it all out there. "And I'm so, so fucking scared this will be a passing thing for you. That you'll move on to some new waitress or dancer next week, and I'll be left with a hole in my heart and no best friend."
Zed didn't respond immediately. He pulled his forehead away from mine just enough to look at me properly, his eyes searching my face. Then he gave a thoughtful frown.
"Okay. So, those are the two biggest problems?"
Confused, I jerked a short nod.
His hand still gripped the back of my neck, his fingers rubbing my sore muscles in tiny circles. "Dare..." He paused to heave a sigh. "I don't know what else I can do to show you how much you mean to me. You're not some girl to me. You're the girl. The only one. But me telling you this only goes so far because at some stage you just have to fucking trust me. Take a leap of faith and trust that I'll catch you. Every. Fucking. Time."
I blinked at him, speechless. He was right. He'd been telling me over and fucking over how much he loved me. Not that he wanted to fuck me or even that he was attracted to me. What he felt for me, what I felt for him was so much deeper, heavier, and more dangerous than sex. But how the fuck did I expect him to prove that to me if I never let him?
He brushed his thumb over my cheek, his eyes soft. "As for the other thing, I wish I knew how to change the past, Dare. You have no idea how badly I want to go back to that time and drastically alter how it all played out."
A small, sad smile touched my lips. "Me too."
Zed leaned in again, but his soft kiss landed on my cheek. "Do you want to get changed and watch some TV or something? Just... hang out?"
I blinked at him a couple of times, processing the way he'd just shifted himself back into the friendzone so firmly. Then I gave a tight nod and stepped back to let him down off the counter.
"Yeah, sure. Sounds good." But disappointment and regret filled me up so much I was practically choking on it. "I'll go... change."
Despite how everything had turned out with Chase and my damage and the knife wound in Zed's side, I'd still thought the night might end a little less platonically and a whole lot more naked. So I just stood there for a hot second, mentally berating myself for