Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(36)

I opened my mouth to speak.

He just covered it with his hand. “Let me finish. He was right in that, every time you get upset about something, you can’t only turn to each other. You can depend on other people. Letting someone other Stephan past your guard won’t diminish what you have with him, or what you are to each other. Your love for each other is a beautiful thing, but it shouldn’t be such a selfish thing. You’ve turned that love into a wall that keeps everyone else out, and that’s unfortunate, because you have so much more to give than that.”

“As we’re finding out together, relationships can be rocky. This thing that we have can be hard. But if you turn away from me, if you run to Stephan every time it gets hard, where will that leave us? Where will that leave Javier and Stephan? You need to make room in your heart for more than Stephan.”

I didn’t respond, didn’t know what to say, because he was so right and so wrong. Stephan and I did depend on each other to the exclusion of the rest of the world. It had served us so well for so long that it was hard to make myself want to break the habit. Impossible, really. But he was wrong about the rest of it. I had so clearly let more than just Stephan into my heart.

He lowered his head very slowly to my chest, placing one light kiss right over my heart. He looked up at me through the dark golden strands of his hair, keeping his head lowered. “You need to make room here for me,” he said quietly, placing another soft kiss there.

I gripped his hair in my fists, searching desperately for the words to say to him.

He pulled himself gently out of my grasp. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.





[page]CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stephan





STEPHAN





I took a long shower and slipped into some black running shorts, not bothering with a shirt. I thought about going for a nice, mind-clearing run. I could be in Central Park in minutes. I loved running there. It was dark out, and I knew that it wasn’t the safest thing to do, but hell, I’d almost welcome some trouble. I’d have enjoyed a good fight just then, even knowing that I’d hate myself after the violence. Even when the violence was self-defense, I hated myself for it.

I was standing in the doorway to the closet, my running shoes clutched in my hand, when Javier walked into the bedroom.

I had been planning to go to him, knew that we had to talk, but I’d been putting it off. A conversation that would most likely end in a break-up was not something I had any wish to rush into.

He stared at me, something raw and fierce moving behind his dark eyes. I could tell he’d been crying, but it didn’t take away from his lovely features.

“I know that you’re going to break up with me,” he said quietly, his voice shaky. “I know you well enough to see that you’re just working up the nerve. I only ask one thing before you do it.”

I looked down at my feet, my still wet hair trailing into my face. “What is it?” I asked.

“I just want you to sit down and hear me out. And look at me while I do it. If you care about me, you’ll give me at least that much before you write me off.”

I moved to the low couch across the room. I sat and finally looked at him steadily. “Go ahead,” I told him calmly.

He moved to me. His chin had a proud tilt to it, as it always did. Bianca thought he was a little cold, but I’d never seen him that way. In fact, he reminded me a lot of Bianca, so composed, so controlled, so hidden away to the casual observer. But nothing between Javier and I had ever been casual, so I hadn’t bought it for a second. He was reserved, yes, but never cold.

He knelt at my feet.

“Can I touch you?” he asked. His eyes on mine were more open, and more raw than I’d ever seen them.

It was hard to tell him no when he was looking at me like that, but I refused to be that self-destructive, so I shook my head at him. “No.”

His lip quivered, and it almost broke my resolve. It was an effort not to look away.

He was on his knees and he moved as close to me as he could possibly be without actually touching me. He was wearing a very fitted black shirt, and his taut stomach was just a breath away from my knees. I tried not to let that distract me.

“I know what you think,” Javier said. “You think I like drama. You think I got jealous of that bartender and tried to make you jealous. I can admit that I have been that guy before. I’ve been in that kind of high drama relationship before, but I am not like that anymore. That’s what I had with Vance, in fact.”

My jaw clenched hard, but I let him continue without a word, just staring at him.

“That drama-seeking bullshit is the sort of thing you do when you aren’t in love, when you don’t really care where your relationship is going, and that is not what we have, Stephan. We’re the real deal. I wouldn’t do that to you, not ever. I admit that I was jealous of Melvin, and that I was being a child about it, but I would not retaliate by cheating on you. I wouldn’t throw this away for anything.”

His chin lowered as he spoke, but he never looked away from me. He gazed up at me with those lovely dark eyes through the thickest set of lashes I’d ever seen.

I wanted to buy his words, would have loved nothing more, but again I refused to be self-destructive. I’d worked too hard to value myself to stop now.