Don't Let Go(55)

He opened his eyes slowly, fixing me with that unblinking gaze of his. “I’m sorry about the pictures, Jules. And my dad. And—” He gestured behind him to the box and other pictures on the floor. “Your mom. I’m sorry about everything you’ve had to deal with. But I’ll never be sorry for getting to find out a little more about my son today.” He took a deep, shaky breath and threaded his fingers through mine. “Or about this.”
All I could hear was the echo of those warnings that had been yelling at me earlier. The ones I’d ignored while Noah Ryan was feeling me up.
“I know that makes me a dick with Shayna,” he continued. “But having you in my arms again—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. Not wanting to hear more words that I’d just replay again and again later. “It can’t—” I looked away and clenched my jaws tight to hold back the pain that wanted out. The tears that somehow found a way to flow yet again. I pulled myself together before looking at him again. “I can’t do this again, Noah.”
“Do what?” he asked.
“You.”
He blinked and searched my eyes for more, but it really just came down to that.
“You don’t know all the details with me and Shayna, Jules,” he began. “We don’t have what you think—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “What you have is a child. Everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“Not everything,” he said under his breath, his whole body teaming with tension. I could see his muscles twitching in his neck and shoulders, and his still being shirtless wasn’t helping me.
I couldn’t think like that. “I broke—everything today,” I said. “Every promise, every rule, every—”
“Promises to who?” Noah demanded.
“Myself,” I said, bitter laughter bubbling to the surface. “I’ve spent two decades living behind lines I never crossed. Twenty years of holding back, not giving my heart completely, not even to my husband. Not ever wanting to feel crushed like that again. And fifteen minutes with you blew all that away.”
Sharp emotion flashed in his eyes before he pulled it back. “Because you gave me your heart.”
The memory of that embrace and the tears in his eyes stabbed me in the chest. That would have been the moment. “I don’t know how to be with you any other way,” I said.
“I don’t either.”
My chest felt so tight it was hard to pull in air. “You need to go, Noah,” I added, softer. I tried to pull my hand free but he wasn’t letting go. I pleaded with my eyes. “Please.”
“I don’t want to let go,” he said.
He spoke so softly I barely heard him. But those words coupled with the devastation in his eyes nearly buckled me.
“You have to,” I said, wondering where the words were coming from. “Your family’s at home.”
His family. I saw it hit the mark.
He looked down at our hands, and when I pulled mine free he didn’t resist. Taking a deep breath to stem off the stab that sent through me, I got to my feet. It was easier to keep moving, and I tossed the afghan aside and quickly pulled my castaway leggings back right-side out and stepped into them. It was acceptable enough without fumbling with the skirt and sweater; I basically looked ready to go to the gym. I found his shirt and handed it to him as he rose, ignoring the flutter in my stomach at the full-standing, shirtless view.
“Thank you,” he said, not looking at me. He tugged it on in one movement.
“Need me to drive you—”
“No, I’ll walk,” he said. His tone had changed. He’d gone under, shutting it down. That was a move I understood too well. “I probably need the walk,” he added, attempting to soften it some.
I crossed my arms and rubbed them, feeling chilled, and when our eyes locked my heart broke for the eighty-third time that day. It was unreal to think that we’d just been entwined in each other’s arms only moments earlier, and I ached for it.
The second ringing of his cell broke the moment. I vowed then and there to never listen to “Love Shack” again.
“Bye, Noah,” I said, hearing the wobble in my voice.
I lifted my chin to help counteract it and turned to walk into the kitchen, waiting for it. When I heard the front door open and close, I gripped the granite of the island, focusing hard on the cold, wanting the frigid rock to ice down my blood.
It wasn’t enough, however. Short of diving into a lake of ice, nothing would push back the fiery pain that threatened to engulf me. I’d let it in. I’d let him in. In the days since his return, I’d broken every personal rule and boundary I’d ever set for myself.
I gulped for air as the sobs came, and I didn’t fight them. I was tired of fighting them, tired of crying so much. That wasn’t me. But it felt like I’d spent the last week holding it all in.
I grabbed a Coke from the fridge and held it to the back of my neck as I walked back into the living room. I stopped short, staring at the floor by the bookshelf. Books were everywhere, papers and pictures lying askew. And the rug where we’d nearly done the deed. How much worse would that have been? Or would it? Did it really matter that we hadn’t finished?
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d let love into sex. With Hayden, of course, but even in all those years of marriage—not heart-and-soul kind of love.
Noah had pulled that from me with a kiss.
“Shit,” I cried, dropping to my knees on the rug and letting whatever needed to come, come. I curled up in a ball like I’d done so many years ago. All the brokenness seemed to come at once, like moths to light.