Epoch (Transcend Duet #2)(23)

The concern on his face hardens into something not so soft, not so nice. “We’re in our house, our bed, sharing something pretty fucking personal and you’re a million miles away. Dare I say a lifetime away?”

The thin material of my panties is the only thing between his naked body and mine. He’s right. I should be here and only here. And if he didn’t look so angry right now, I think I’d feel more shame.

“Did you fuck Apple?” Fight or flight. I couldn’t keep those words in if I tried.

His jaw slides side to side several times, eyes black as night in this dark room. “You weren’t thinking about me fucking anyone. You weren’t thinking about me at all.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Right back at ya, Swayz.” He lifts me off his lap and gets out of bed, tugging on sweats and a tee.

I stand on my knees, pulling my nightshirt back over my head as rage knocks on my chest, sending fire up my neck until my ears burn. “I don’t care if she was some … fuck buddy of yours. I care that she asked you to go to California with her sometime and you didn’t say no. I care that you’ve been blowing me off for days over something I can’t control.”

He grabs his pillow and storms out of the bedroom without a word. I chase him into the living room.

“Control? Really? You want to use that excuse? Try this …” He whips the pillow down on the sofa and rests his hands on his hips. “Quit your fucking job. Plan a wedding. Get out and make new friends. Clean up after yourself. Take a cooking class. Send out your resume to every school in the area. Take on more design clients. Hell …” His shoulders shoot up into an exaggerated shrug. “Spend more time worrying about who’s sitting on your bucket. Do absofuckinglutely anything to keep your mind away from this self-destructive obsession of yours.”

I take an uneasy step backwards. The truth hurts more than a thousand lies. Lies can be forgiven, but the truth holds no debts.

My truth—I’m losing Griffin to a past I can’t change and a future I can’t control.

He scrubs a hand over his face on a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I—”

“If I quit …” I start to say with nothing left but defeat in my voice and a dull ache in my chest.

He meets my gaze with regret eating up his face, sinking deep into his eyes.

“If I quit my job, if I find a teaching position, if I make friends in a cooking class, if I take on as many extra design jobs as I can fit into my day … if I do all of that and still have these memories…” I swallow the pain in my throat and draw in a breath to chase away the sting in my eyes “…will there be a wedding?”

“Swayz—”

“Just answer me.”

“I asked you to marry me. I’m not taking it back. Set a date. I’ll be at the altar. Will Swayze be there?”

“Swayze is just a name.” I hold my arms out to the side. “This is just a body. I will be at the altar.”

“And who are you?”

After a few long seconds of silence, I stare at my feet and shrug before turning back to the bedroom. “I thought I was the woman you love,” I murmur, retreating with my tattered white flag dragging behind me.

The bed creaks as I crawl into my spot, so does the floor at the end of the bed. Griffin removes his clothes, slides under the covers, and pulls them up over our heads.

No words.

No smiles.

Just two tortured souls scared of losing everything.

“But at the end of the good days and the bad days, let’s promise to meet back here, under the covers, in the dark, to lick each other’s battle wounds. Deal?”

He slides off my panties as I shrug off my nightshirt. His mouth covers mine, slow but demanding—eyes wide open as if so much as a blink will pop this temporary bubble.

He kisses me until my lungs burn for a breath.

My neck.

My breasts.

The curve of one hip and then the other.

My hands guide his head between my legs, but I don’t close my eyes. Not for one second. I love him. I don’t want to share this moment with anyone else. Even if I can’t see his eyes, the moment his tongue slides inside of me, I know that soulful gaze is looking up at me with lust and adoration.

I know, as he slides two fingers into me and I moan, that those same eyes start to leaden with pleasure. The bed shifts slightly from his pelvis grinding into the mattress as he lets all these emotions fade away.

We pause life.

We mute the voices.

We drown the pain.

I arch my back and twist as my orgasm hits hard. Griffin crawls up my body and sinks into me before I can see straight. With one hand on the bed next to my head and his other hand gripping the headboard, he drives into me like he wants to exorcise the demons from my mind.

But he can’t. And after he finds his own release, he collapses on the bed beside me. I wait for him to speak.

He doesn’t.

I wait for his arms to pull me into his body.

They don’t.

When his breath evens out, I slip out of bed to use the bathroom.

“What is happening?” I whisper to myself in the mirror before returning to our bed and a sleeping Griffin.





CHAPTER ELEVEN