I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,265

I keep my composure.

He looks back at me with an intensity that shocks me.

“This is fucked up,” he tells me in a lowered voice, his eyes lightening as he says, “What I want to do to you is even worse.”

I have to break his gaze and I stare at my fingers as I pull my hand away from his and grip the sheet on the mattress. I take a chance and peek at him. “What do you want to do to me?” I ask him.

“I want to take you away and keep you,” he says, and a warmth flows through my body. He leans forward and I think he’s going to kiss me, but he doesn’t. Instead he puts his lips close to my ear and whispers, “I want to fuck you until you forget. Until you’re only mine.”

I close my eyes at his admission.

He backs away, and the chill from the basement air breaks the moment we had.

“But you’re in love with Jay, and there’s something between you two. I don’t have a place interfering.”

He’s so wrong. So, fucking wrong. I part my lips to tell him just that, but as he sits back on the bed, straightening his shoulders, I see the blinking light.

Always watching.

I have to be careful. I have to tell John, but it would be so much easier if he could just remember.

Chapter 20

John

Days pass easily, each one bleeding into the next. She’s addictive. The sound of her soft voice and the even cadence when she tells me stories charm me.

But they’re about her and Jay. What her life was like before and after.

About missing him and how she could never forget what they went through.

What shreds me is her guilt, the way she describes moving on with her life as though it’s a confession. It shouldn’t be that way, but it doesn’t matter how many times I tell her. That pained look in her eyes only gets worse.

The fluorescent light above my head flickers, and I look up to watch it. These sessions aren’t moving things forward, and doing them in the basement is only aggravating me more and more.

“Is everything okay?” Robin’s soft voice calls to me from across the room. She’s on the bed as usual, her heels propped up as she hugs her legs, leaning back against a pillow with her head against the wall.

I clear my throat and glance at the camera, the red light blinking and wonder if Jay even watches. He doesn’t ask about them in the least.

“What do you want to gain from this, Robin?” I ask her, my heart rate climbing. It’s obvious she has no intention of leaving. What’s happened between her and Jay has touched them both deeply, but I’m a conflicting factor. Every day it gets harder to leave. Every day I grow jealous. I get angrier.

This isn’t the man I am. I need to get the fuck out of here.

“I want to know more about you, John,” she answers me after taking a moment. She seems nervous as she watches for my reaction.

She wants me. I can fucking feel it, and I want her too. It only makes the situation that much more fucked up.

“What do you want to know?” I ask her, crossing my ankle over my knee and rubbing the rough stubble on my jaw with my thumb.

“Tell me about growing up?” she asks. It’s an innocent question, but the look on her face is so serious. As if the answer will affect her deeply.

“There’s not much to me,” I tell her and sit back. “My story isn’t like yours or Jay’s.” A sigh leaves me as I rub the back of my neck and look at the door.

“Tell me about your parents,” Robin offers and my eyes flick to hers. I watch how she picks at the comforter as if her idle hands need to be taking notes. It makes me smile and reminds me there’s so much more to her than the past she has with Jay. It also reminds me that she’s probably used to this. Being the questioner and not the questionee.

“I was adopted when I was younger. And I was visiting the orphanage when I met Jay.” The hint of a smile on my face vanishes at the memory. “My parents were young and they did what they thought was best when they gave me up, but Jay…” I can’t finish the thought. He needed someone so badly. I saw how everyone looked at him.