Thoughtful (Thoughtless, #1.5)(198)
“Anyway…what no one seems to consider is the fact that they use me too. They don’t care about me.” We started walking again and I looked over the water as I ruminated over all the women I’d been with. None of them held a candle to Kiera. None of them knew me, and accepted me, like she did.
Kiera’s voice broke my pondering silence. “You’ve never been in love?” Her question was tentative, like she wasn’t sure if she really wanted an answer.
Looking back at her, I smiled. “Until you…no. And no one has loved me either.”
Frowning like she didn’t believe me, she said, “Surely, some girl—”
I cut her off with a smile. “No. Just sex…never love.”
“A high school sweetheart?” she tried.
Remembering some of the women I’d been with at the time—a few of them teachers—I shook my head. “No. I tended to…associate…with older women. They weren’t really looking for…love.” Especially the married ones. They’d just wanted a release, and I’d been more than willing to give it to them.
“Some…na?ve waitress?”
I smiled at her subtle summation of herself. “Again, before you…no, no one who cared for me.”
A strange look crossed her face, almost resignation. “Oh…well, one of your fans then.”
She actually looked worried about my history with fans, like somehow I’d fallen for one of my brief encounters. Considering how meaningless those encounters were, the idea of me truly connecting during one of them was laughable. I was an idiot looking for love that way. What the hell had I been thinking? Truth was, I hadn’t been thinking. I’d taken the easy road being offered to me, because I was too scared to attempt anything deeper.
“Definitely no.” I laughed. “That is the fakest sex of them all. They could care less who I actually am. They’re not even with me, when they’re…with me. They’re with this rock-star image that they have of me, but that’s not…that’s not who I am. Well, it’s not all I am.”
Kiera gave me a look that scanned my soul, it was so deep. I could almost hear her thoughts—No, you’re so much more. Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking. Regardless, the idea of her believing that there was more to me than meets the eye gave me peace.
After kissing my jaw, Kiera pulled back and asked, “Roommates?”
I could tell by her voice that she was reluctant to ask this too. I doubted she really wanted to hear about Joey, but she had to be curious about what went down between us. There was really nothing much to tell there. We’d decided one night that sex would be a good idea, then Joey wigged out when she hadn’t tamed me. That was it. It sounded really bad though, and I wished Kiera hadn’t asked. I wished even more my jackass bassist had kept his mouth shut. “I really wish Griffin hadn’t mentioned that one. You must have thought I was horrible. Sometimes I don’t know why you ever touched me at all.”
She frowned, not liking the way I was talking. I quickly redirected the conversation before she could. “No, there was never anything between Joey and me but sex.” I looked up, trying to think of a way to put it that didn’t make both of us sound shallow and hedonistic. There really wasn’t a way to put a pretty light on it though. “Joey…liked being worshipped. When it was clear to her that her body wasn’t my only…temple…well, she was also overly dramatic. She ran off in a huff, with boy-toy number…three, I think.”
Stopping, I turned to her and grabbed her hands. I couldn’t let her think that I was still that person. I wasn’t. “I know I’ve overdone it with women, but I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. And I’ve never felt from anyone what I am feeling from you now.”
For long seconds Kiera stared at me with misty eyes. I could have stared into her eyes forever. Then she gave me a soft kiss, and I knew I was wrong. I couldn’t stare at her forever. Eventually, I would need to feel her lips on mine.
When we pulled apart, Kiera asked me, “So, Denny and me…our relationship?”
“Right…that.” While we continued our walk around the Needle, I told her about how their relationship had struck a chord in me from the beginning. It was so much easier to open up to her now, since I had already told her the hardest parts of my life story. She knew the darkest corners of me, but she still looked at me in adoration. It was almost unfathomable that anyone could look at me that way, especially knowing everything that she now knew. “Well, I guess at first I was just intrigued by it. I’d never seen anything like that. So warm and tender and…real. And the fact that you moved across the country to be with this guy…I can’t think of anyone who would do that for me. The people that I know don’t have relationships like that, and my parents certainly never…”
“Right…” she said, instantly understanding.
The way Denny and Kiera had acted toward each other…it had moved me, inspired me. They had seemed so damn idyllic. In a way, I think a part of me had started coveting what they had on that very first day. I’d been so lonely for so long, and all of my empty relationships hadn’t been filling me anymore. I’d wanted more. And eventually, I’d wanted Kiera. “Living with you, watching you with Denny, day after day…I started to want what the two of you had. I stopped, as you put it, whoring.” She smiled at hearing me say her term, and a laugh escaped me, but then I frowned. “But unfortunately, I started to care for you. I didn’t understand it at first. I just knew it was wrong to think about you like that. You were clearly Denny’s. People’s relationships haven’t always…mattered to me, but Denny means a lot to me. That year he stayed with us…that was the best year of my life.” With a smile, I whispered, “Well, maybe until this year.”