No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(66)

Her eyes widened, and she licked those kissable, very f*ckable, lips again. She wanted to be taught a lesson. It was written in her dilated eyes, in the visible pulse at her throat.

But we weren’t ready to go there.

Yet.





The twenty-minute ride back to her place buffered us back into reality. Hannah thought we needed a little more time. Which meant we needed a little more time. And I would give her all the space she needed while seducing her slowly.

Over the last couple of months, we’d become great friends, but we’d also become so much more. And although we hadn’t defined what exactly we were yet, classifying it was only a technicality. All of which would rectify itself in time.

But even when she made small unconscious strides, her brain kept interfering, fear pulling her back from where she naturally wanted to be—close to me.

Both of us remained quiet as I helped her off the bike. She said nothing when she unfastened her helmet. After she pulled it off, she set it on the seat and shook her head, ruffling her hair back into sexy disarray. Fuck.

Then she lifted her gaze to mine, and so many things were said that didn’t need words. Want and need flickered in her eyes, along with a dose of doubt and fear.

She was a mess. But she was my mess. And f*cked up as I felt at times, I was hers.

As if sensing I needed body contact, she stepped up against me, sliding her fingers into my belt loops as she tugged me against her.

I swallowed hard, staring down at her, uncertain what to do.

There was no protocol for how to handle a woman walking a tightrope between what she wanted and needed, and what she thought she was capable of handling. Nor was there any instruction manual on how a damaged man should proceed in courting her when her fears were his own, his grip on them only slightly tighter than hers.

We were writing the groundbreaking handbook together as we went.

Her brows furrowed. “I wish this wasn’t so hard.”

“Me too. Hey, I get it, Hannah. More than you realize. But we took two different approaches to recover from our heartache.”

She tilted her head. “How did you do it differently?”

“After destroying everything I touched for days, then wallowing in self-pity for another week or more, I buried all the bullshit and threw myself out there, ready or not. This is the first time you’re putting yourself out there with anyone else. When I did it, I lowered the stakes, took my emotions out of it. But through the difficult process, shallow as it may have been, I learned to trust myself again. That’s your problem now. How can you trust me—trust us—when you don’t even trust yourself?”

She shook her head, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

“When I got hurt, it wasn’t simply a gut punch. My heart was in deep. She didn’t just hurt me; she almost destroyed me. And she didn’t care one f*ck about how I felt. Sound familiar?”

She exhaled. “Yeah.”

“Afterward, for months, I doubted myself. I’m normally the one who’s skilled at reading people. Yet she’d cheated on me multiple times while we’d been together, and I’d had no f*cking idea. If I couldn’t make the right decision about the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—if I chose the wrong kind of person to begin with—how in the world could I trust myself to make any good decisions about people at all?”

She nodded, eyes widening. “That’s how I feel.”

I sighed, my heart clenching in pain for her. “I know…you’re still scared. You don’t trust your decision-making abilities.”

“So, you aren’t scared anymore?”

“Sure I am. It’s natural for us to be afraid. Putting blind trust, our very heart, into someone else’s hands takes an incredible amount of faith. We have to go through a dark tunnel, hoping the light on the other side remains and a cave-in doesn’t happen midway through. We have greater fear because we’ve been there. All the walls already collapsed in on us. Yet for us to ever have a chance at love, we have to walk through it all over again, knowing the worst-case scenario.”

Silence followed as my words sank in. A cramp formed at the base of my throat, and I gulped in a breath. Her hand slid down my forearm to my hand, and I turned it over, locking my fingers together with hers.

“So we shore up our tunnel.” She nodded once, making the decision without an ounce of doubt in her voice.

Brave girl.

I smiled. “And we walk through together, hand in hand, focused only on the light at the end.”

She gave me a half smile. “I can’t promise I might not freak out and look at the walls and ceiling now and then.”

“Fuck, Hannah. I’m claustrophobic. I might stop breathing.”

She laughed. “Really? I’m claustrophobic too. But I promise to give you mouth to mouth.”

Her gaze drifted to my lips, and her smile faded. Her tongue flicked out, wetting her lips before she pressed them together.

It took all my willpower to remain still, waiting. “I’d like that.” I let out a slow breath. “I’d like that a lot.”

A smile played on her lips again, and she looked up into my eyes. “You would, huh?”

“Yeah.” I squeezed her hand, taking a deep breath.

A lock of hair fell into her face as she leaned closer. I lifted my free hand and swiped it away from eyes that glittered with amusement and something more. When I tucked it behind her ear, brushing against her soft skin, she shivered.