Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,20
hookups. But all she said was, “Me too.” She couldn’t believe she’d been so careless today—but Abe had once been her husband, and in the midst of the painful need that held her captive, she’d forgotten he wasn’t any longer.
Her body had known only that when she and Abe were naked, it was bare, his cock sliding against her desire-slick flesh.
“You should go,” she whispered, knowing she couldn’t let this advance any further. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Abe she wanted to be with him, had spoken the pure truth when she told him she wanted him, but she also knew she was still emotionally fragile.
If Abe kept being so nice to her, she’d start to imagine things that didn’t exist, had never existed. Sober, Abe was an amazing man, but that man had never loved Sarah. She couldn’t afford to forget that—he’d almost broken her the last time they’d danced. Now, with her heart already in pieces after losing Aaron, she didn’t think she could survive another round with this man who was her Achilles’ heel.
Abe stirred. “I can stay on the couch.” His voice rumbled against her, his frown apparent in his tone. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
Swallowing past the tears thick in her throat, Sarah shook her head, then forced herself to push away. He released her with obvious reluctance, watched her rise to her feet in silence. Those dark eyes, so beautiful and evocative, she’d dreamed of them so many times since the day their marriage shattered. “I’ll be all right.” She touched her fingers to his jaw in a quiet good-bye before dropping her hand. “Thank you for staying with me today, but I need to be alone now.”
It was such a horrible lie. Sarah hated being alone, had had too much of it in her life. But she’d learned to bear aloneness even when it hurt… and she had to protect herself from Abe. High, he’d brutally hurt her. Sober, he could destroy her.
Because love? The kind of love she’d had for Abe? It never really died.
Getting up, Abe tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear. “You call me if you need anything.”
Sarah nodded, knowing she wouldn’t call. This was it. The farewell they’d never really had. “Good-bye, Abe.”
ABE COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT SARAH. A week after they’d come together in that primal and passionate coupling that had left him happily wrecked and truly satisfied for the first time since she’d left him, and he couldn’t get her out of his head. He hadn’t so much as looked at another woman in the interim. And despite the fact Sarah had made it clear he’d receive no return invitation, Abe hadn’t stayed totally away.
He’d sent her flowers the next day.
He knew how much his wife—ex-wife—loved flowers, and he couldn’t simply have sex with her, hold her, then let it go without acknowledgment. He hadn’t known what to put on the card, what words she’d accept from him, so he’d just written: For you – Abe
She’d replied by text message: Thank you.
That was it. Not even the most hopeful man could read any kind of an invitation in those stark words. Abe wanted to anyway. He’d been so fucking stupid to let her go; she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She’d loved him. Not Abe the rocker who was one quarter of a multiplatinum band, or Abe Bellamy the heir to a large family fortune. Just Abe. He’d been too drugged up, too obsessed with drowning his grief to see the value of what he was destroying.
“Yo, Abe, you with us?”
Abe looked up from his keyboard at Fox’s gritty voice. The lead singer’s dark green eyes were intent, as if he’d see right through Abe’s skin. Breaking the eye contact, Abe played his fingers across the keys. “Just thinking about that last line.” He, Fox, Noah, and David were jamming together in the music room at his place, playing with ideas for their new album.
He hadn’t thought about the ramification of having the session here, but now he realized he’d been an idiot. Because every time he looked around, he saw Sarah running from him that night, saw the tears streaking down her face, relived the hurt he’d inflicted. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
His fingers wanted to pound down on the keys.
“Uh-huh.”
Abe glared at Noah. “You have something to say?”
“Nope.” The blond guitarist—so handsome as to come perilously close to pretty—strummed a few chords.