Hard Beat(89)

And then I waited – just to make sure he didn’t forget anything, didn’t come back for one last kiss from his lovely wife – before getting out of my car. As I walk down the quaint, tree-lined street, everything I’ve felt over the past few weeks comes back with a vengeance, and for some reason it’s anger right now that I hold on to the most. Now that I’m seconds from seeing Beaux face-to-face, the hurt of her deception hits me the hardest.

I knock on the front door with my heart in my throat and venomous words ready on my tongue, each second I wait making them even more poisonous.

And then she opens the door.

The startled gasp she lets out does nothing to rival the freight train of emotion that bears down and slams into me. Every single word I had ready to say dies on my lips now that I’m face-to-face with her. Her perfume, her hair pulled up with pieces hanging down, the startled O of her lips, all of it hits me like a battering ram, but more than anything it’s her eyes. That flash of utter surprise quickly followed by pleasure before it’s smothered out by what looks like anger. Or fear. I can’t tell which she’s feeling, because the sucker punch of seeing her after all of this time clouds my ability to reason.

But it sure as f*ck doesn’t cloud my ability to feel.

“Tanner… what? What are…” She leans her head out of the door and looks back and forth quickly before grabbing my arm and pulling me into her house. In complete contrast to her actions, she says, “You can’t be here. You have to leave!”

And my God, the feel of her touch on my skin is like connecting jumper cables while standing in a puddle of water. That connection between us is still there, stronger than ever, and I know she feels it too, because she jumps back the minute I’m inside her house.

Inside another man’s house.

Eyes locked, we stare at each other, leaving words unspoken as we let the invisible current between us die down some.

“You can’t be here, Tanner,” she says again, and for the first time I notice the cast on her left forearm before looking back to her eyes full of concern. And the question I ask myself is whether the apprehension is because she hurt me or because she’s more concerned about hurting her husband.

“I think you lost the ability to tell me what to do the minute you forgot to tell me you were married.”

“We can’t do this right now. It’s not safe, Tanner. It’s just not safe,” she says, backing up until she hits the wall behind her, almost as if she forgot where the walls in her own house are. And her words, the look in her eyes, eat at my anger.

“Why is it not safe, Beaux? Does he hit you? Does he hurt you? Tell me the word and I’ll have the cops here in a second and I’ll take you away so that —”

“No! No. It’s nothing like that. I can’t explain. I can’t,” she says, her voice rising with each word, and I stare at her, shaking my head back and forth because I don’t understand. And I don’t know if I believe her. Why would she be telling me to leave when our connection is still so irrefutable?

“Help me understand!” I shout, shoving a hand through my hair because if it’s there, then it’s not on her, and God, how I want to be touching her. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married? Why did you tell me you loved me? Why did you lie to me?” I could ask about a hundred more questions, and yet no more come because all I can feel is anger when all I want to feel is her.

“It’s complicated,” she says softly, her voice even for the first time and her body stilled.

“Fuck complicated because I’m worth complicated. Jesus Christ!” I grit out as I take a step away from her and try to hold on to the sanity that she is stealing from me with each and every word. How frustrating is it to have the one thing you want so desperately right at your fingertips? Beyond that her behavior is making me feel like she is a million f*cking miles away. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen once I showed up. That maybe she was going to open the door, see me, and then profess that she chooses me over John. And clearly that’s not happening. So the only thing I allow myself to feel is anger; the acrid taste of rejection is already churning in my gut, and I have a feeling that I’m going to have a long time to taste that because the reaction I’d hoped for from her definitely isn’t happening.

“You are worth it, Tanner. Worth every bit of it, but not from me. I can’t give you what you need.”

“That’s bullshit!” I yell as I get in her face, needing to do something to expel the ache in my chest. “Then why not leave well enough alone, huh? Why send me the f*cking text? Why give me false hope?”

“Because… because…” Then she stops with her eyes welling with tears I don’t want to see. I fell for them once. Believed them once. I won’t be as quick to fall again. Our faces are inches apart, and it takes everything I have to keep from pulling her to me or pushing her farther away. “I wanted you to know that how I felt for you was real.”

“Goddamn it, Beaux!” When I slam my hand on the console beside me, the sound resonates through the empty house just like her words do through my heart. “Tell me what he does to you! Tell me so that I can try to make it better. Tell me so that I’ll stop going f*cking insane trying to figure out why you told me you loved me when you were married to another man!”