Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,61
approve of what I have to offer.”
My eyes met his and I flinched at the coldness in them. The cruelty.
“No, I’m not staying.”
I swallowed roughly, knowing what was coming.
“This isn’t good for you,” he said, still standing stiff, hostile almost. “I’m not good for you.”
I frowned, seeing exactly what he was doing. I should’ve seen it coming. Hiding underneath that gruff, dangerous, deadly biker was a halfway decent man. “I’m not good for me, Zeke. Newsflash, nothing has been good for me in over a year.” I stepped forward, and Zeke stiffened. I pretended that didn’t hurt despite the bravado in my voice. “You’re really giving yourself a lot of credit saying that you and you entirely have the power to ruin my life even more. Furthermore, it’s rather cliché, isn’t it? The bad boy seduces the privileged widow, gives her the best sex of her life, serves her wine, gets her used to the company, his presence, and then boom, he decides to be a fucking martyr because he’s a bad influence. Newsflash, I’m too smart and jaded for that crap. So if you don’t want to be with me, be a man and say it. Don’t try to be fucking noble.”
There was a pause. A short one, but it was a definite pause, and I took it as a triumph. I’d caught him off guard. For a hot second anyway.
“I’m many things,” he rasped, stepping forward, getting in my bubble, assaulting me with his scent. “Noble is not on the list.”
His eyes devoured me like a starving man at a buffet. I feared there might be nothing left when he stopped.
“The problem is not whether I want to be with you,” he said when his eyes finally met mine. “The problem is that I want all of you. That I want you, but not just at midnight. Not just in the darkness. I want you in my bed. Every fucking night. Worse, I want to be in your bed. In your house. I want to wake up with you. I want our kids in the same fucking house. I want shit that you’re not ready for and that I don’t deserve. Those boys sure as fuck don’t deserve me sleeping in their father’s bed. And I don’t know how to keep coming over here pretending I want less. Midnights with you are more than I deserve in a thousand lifetimes, but I’m greedy and cruel, and I’ll forget this with wine and you on my lips. When I’m inside you, I’ll forget. I’ll stop caring. And I’ll force myself into your life. I’ll steal it. And I won’t be able to live with myself.”
I blinked. A tear trailed down my cheek.
Zeke was not a man of few words. Not after you got to know him. The brooding biker who spoke in monosyllables was nothing more than a front for a man who spoke about wine, who talked in poetry and profanities. And who was currently breaking my heart.
“You can’t steal what’s already yours,” I choked out, unable to stop another tear from following the trail of the first.
His eyes moved then. Not across my body with hunger. But across my face with reverence. His hand lightly cupped my cheek. “No, baby. You’re not mine. Not yet.”
And then he walked away.
I didn’t get out of bed.
Not for two days.
When David died, I hadn’t overslept. Not by a minute. I was up doing laundry, watching my boys sleep, making coffee. Staring at David’s office, at the book he’d left open on his leather armchair. He’d expected to come back and pick it up. Finish the fight we were having. Finish raising our boys.
I’d stared at the future ahead of me, then I’d put on a mask when my shell-shocked sons stumbled down the stairs. I’d put on my armor for my mother-in-law arriving. For the mourners and the voyeurs looking to witness my grief and sorrow.
I didn’t handle anything like funeral arrangements because my monster-in-law had very specific ideas on how tasteful her son’s wake should be.
Then, at some point, I snapped. Started to drink more, stopped giving a shit about what I said to people. I’d gone off the rails, but I’d still gotten out of bed.
Now, with the loss of the man I’d known for six months, and only at midnight, between the sheets, with empty bottles of wine, I’d taken to bed like some nineteenth-century love-struck fool.
I was ashamed, disgusted, and furious with myself, but still not