“Ugh,” she said, picking up the hand towel on the counter, drying her hands and then tossing it aside. Maybe she should just go to bed and try to get into one of the novels on Reed’s bookshelf in his living room.
She walked to the room across the hall where she perused his shelves, finally choosing what looked like a courtroom thriller. She smiled as she returned to the guest room. Reed enjoyed crime puzzles so much, he even read fictional stories about solving them.
Liza made herself comfortable on the bed, cracking the book open and beginning to read. She was surprised when she heard the door open and the alarm being turned off, and glanced at the clock to see it was already nine p.m. She sat up, considered going into the hall and saying hi, but why? She didn’t want to be right under his feet all the time. He might want space after coming home from the gym. Maybe it was his routine to take his case notes and sit on the couch with a drink while he went over them. Anyway, it was late, and she was getting tired.
Liza set the book down and went to the bathroom where she washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then put on a clean nightshirt. She folded the covers back and got between the sheets, picking the book back up again. The shower down the hall came on a minute later and Liza lowered the book, glancing at the wall, a flush moving through her body as she pictured Reed peeling off his gym clothes and stepping under the spray. A small thrill tingled between her legs and her nipples pebbled beneath the thin material of her nightshirt. Liza frowned at the closed door on the opposite side of the room, surprise and uncertainty sweeping over her. She had managed to relax enough during sex that her body responded to touch, but she couldn’t remember feeling turned on in response to a thought. A small smile curved her lips, a sensation not unlike wonder spilling through her. Yearning.
What would he do if she joined him in the shower?
Another thrill trembled over her nerves.
She wouldn’t do that, of course. She couldn’t. Because Reed had made it clear that a quick round of sex—shower or otherwise—was not on the table. She turned over, picking up the book again, reading three words and then placing it down.
The water shut off and she strained her ears to hear him, but the only sound reverberating inside her was the staccato beat of her own heart. She couldn’t hear him, but God, she could feel him.
The thing was . . . Reed hadn’t said sex was off the table completely; he’d said that he wanted more from her than that. And therein lay the problem. Liza pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed at it for a moment.
She’d worked hard to overcome her distaste at being touched. Then she’d even begun to enjoy sex, as long as it was temporary and anonymous though Reed was the first man who’d given her an orgasm during intercourse. But she could never become overly intimate with someone because that would lead to uncovering all sorts of truths about her past and who she was.
Then came Reed. Reed who knew her past and somehow—miraculously—seemed to accept and want her anyway. Reed who’d encouraged her to use her past for good. Liza sat up.
She didn’t know a time when she hadn’t held secrets. Shame. She’d thought of her past as a particular kind of loneliness, and it was. But it was also a strength. She’d done those things, as ghastly as they were. As unspeakable. Things others might not have been able to do. She’d done them to survive. To live. And she need not put them into descriptive words for anyone else, but inside herself, she must figure out a way to stitch them over her heart, not as an impenetrable shield, but as a badge of courage. A scar of honor, maybe, because so many of them she’d done out of love.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath as she placed a hand over her chest, feeling it move from deep inside her body, out her mouth. She heard the bathroom door open and then Reed’s footsteps move down the hall toward the kitchen.
Are you ready? This would take courage—a different type of journey through the dark.