past concern for his mortal soul. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t, damned all the way down to hell.
Might as well enjoy the trip.
He looked over at his phone. Rebecca’s number was on it. He could call. See what she was doing.
“You’re acting like an ass,” he said into the silence of the room. Acting like a man who had a right to get in touch with her after sex. Acting like a boyfriend, or a friend, and he was neither of those things.
He was hot for her though. And just the thought of her had left him hard and aching. But, he didn’t really think he deserved to have any of that satisfied. It was probably a fitting punishment. To want the last woman he shouldn’t want, to know exactly how good it could be to slide inside her. To know just how erotic it was when she came hard around his cock.
To know all that and never be able to have her again.
Not having her was the honorable thing to do. If there was any honor to be had in this incredibly messed-up situation.
He picked up his phone, and he was already scrolling through the contacts, looking for her name. Because he didn’t have any honor. That was the real issue. He had come back here to play the knight in shining armor. Had come back here to fix things, but he just didn’t know how. He wasn’t good, and acting like a good guy was never going to make him one.
He hated himself. He hated himself as he dialed her number. Hated himself even more when she picked up and answered in a tense, breathless voice that ran across his aching dick like a wet, slick tongue.
“Hi,” he said back.
Heavy silence fell between them, stretching the entire distance between his house and hers.
“You’re the one that called me,” she pointed out when he didn’t say anything else.
“I know.”
“Is everything all right with Sierra and the baby?”
It touched something in him that she thought that’s why he might be calling. It touched something that she had thought of them. She had no reason to. She had no reason to care about any of his family.
“Everything’s fine.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Are you home?”
“Yes,” she said, the word simple and so sweet it made him want to bow down and give thanks. But surely no God in heaven had arranged this for him.
“I’m coming over,” he said.
He hung up, and strode out the front door to his truck, not bothering with a coat. His hat was sitting on the driver seat, and he put it on, starting the engine before he could have any second thoughts.
He wanted her. That thought, that certainty, pounded through him with every mile he drove down the road. He turned off the pavement onto the long, dirt driveway that would lead him to her place, tightening his grip on the steering wheel, clenching his jaw as he drew closer. Restlessness ran through his entire body, a kind of wild heat that burned like a brush fire. Hot and dangerous and just as difficult to contain.
He shouldn’t be doing this. He hadn’t even stopped to listen to her answer. Didn’t even know if she wanted him to come over, but he was coming anyway.
He was a bastard. Such a bastard.
That thought played on repeat as he pulled up to her house, killed the engine and slammed the door shut. As he walked up the front steps of her modest porch.
He was about to knock when the door opened, and Rebecca was standing there, her dark eyes wide. “You came,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, his feet still firmly planted on the deck, making no move to come into the house.
“Why?”
He laughed, but the sound didn’t have any humor to it. “Baby, you know why.”
She shrank back slightly, biting her lower lip. “We said it would just be that one time.”
“Yeah.”
She closed her eyes, the expression on her face one of distress and anguish, and he hated himself for hurting her again. For putting her in this position.
Not enough to leave.
“This is... It doesn’t make any sense.” She opened her eyes again, her emotions blazing there. “Why? Why is it you? Why do I want you? I could want anyone else. I almost hooked up with Finn instead of you. And that made... It made so much more sense. Even if it was only ever sex with him, at least I like him.