Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,68
really likes you.”
With my eyes burning with tears I wouldn’t let fall and my face stinging at the slightest touch, I nodded. Like I understood. Like Miss Ramona was right.
He probably liked me, so he hurt me. Badly.
Made total sense.
And that right there was pretty much my entire introduction to men. It was my map for relationships with the opposite sex. Somehow, Miss Ramona, with that one fucked-up sentence, got into my head and pushed all my newly forming buttons so that from that moment on, I thought men hurting me meant they liked me.
Yes. I know. Fucked-up. But there you have it.
It took me years to see it as bullshit. To try and rewire myself. To unpress those buttons.
And I knew part of my attraction to Max had its roots in the raw, bloody beds of those scabs. And I told myself that wanting him like I did wasn’t healthy. Or wise.
But part of me wanted me to be wrong. Part of me wanted to believe that Max was an asshole but he wasn’t a dick.
That he was different—or could be different.
Part of me, the small and scared part, wanted to trust him. Trust him not to hurt me.
And that part of me was the really dangerous part. That was the part of me with the compass and the road map to hell and all the empathy that got me nowhere.
I lay on my side of that queen-size bed, listening to the hum of the air conditioner, and I tried to make myself fall asleep so I wouldn’t be waiting for him.
But mostly—I was waiting for him.
Because I was a little bit drunk and a little bit sad. And a whole lot horny from a day spent by his side at the pool.
A fun day. Like…laugh-out-loud fun.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had fun.
And even that was kind of messing me up. I wasn’t supposed to be having fun. Not when I didn’t know what was happening with Jennifer.
You don’t deserve fun, an old familiar voice was telling me.
I heard the front door open and my heart kicked up faster. I’d worn a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeve T-shirt to bed. It was as close to a chastity belt as I could find. But underneath the cotton, worn soft and smooth from a thousand washes, my body was waiting.
It was primed and ready and restless with want. With an edgy anger at myself and at the world.
The fridge door opened with a muffled pop, and I heard him fixing himself a sandwich.
“Gross,” he muttered and I smiled, imagining him trying the tuna salad.
There was no chance of sleep now; I was so attuned to him. My heart was in my throat, my ears straining to pick up every sound he made.
I heard the shuffle of his feet across the carpet to the bedroom and wished that I’d just gone to sleep on the damn love seat.
He stepped inside the room and I heard his trunks slide down his body, the rasp of fabric over skin that meant he was naked. He was naked and here. Warm and big and I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Joan?” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
He got into bed, the mattress dipping with his weight, and I rolled into him, registering the hot brush of his skin. The solid strength of his body. Muscle and bone and tendon.
Quickly as we touched, I rolled away from him.
I wanted him, but I didn’t want to. Because this want felt like need…like weakness…and I really didn’t want that.
I hugged the side as best I could, my back to him, but I felt him there in the darkness. I could feel the glowing hot heat of his sunburned skin all along my back and side. I felt like butter left out of the fridge, my edges were melting. I shifted farther away from him, balancing on the very edge of the mattress.
Ridiculous, I told myself. But somehow I couldn’t find a way to stop.
“It’s freezing in here,” he whispered. “Did you crank up the air-conditioning?”
“It’s because you’re a chump and you got a sunburn,” I whispered into the dark of the room. I was making a study of the lamp on the small bedside table. The pink beaded fringe. Three beads on each little bit of string. One big, two small.
He grunted in response.
“And why do you smell like a cigar?” I asked, turning away from my lamp study.