Alpha Male Romance(80)

I couldn't lie, not about this, but I needed to be careful. “I've missed you too. You're one of my closest friends.”

“And that's why I think we worked so well together,” he said. “We had a relationship built on friendship first, and I think things just...got away from us.”

I looked down at my hands. What he was saying made sense.

“I tried looking at other girls,” he continued. “To see if I was even interested, but I wasn't. Every woman I saw, I compared to you.”

A stab of guilt went through me. I hadn't done that. Since the moment I arrived here, I’d spent a great deal of my time thinking about X. But I hadn't compared him to Tanner. The only thing I'd done was berate myself about what a bad idea it was to get involved.

“When you called me and asked about teaching X...” Tanner ran a hand through his dark hair. “I won't lie to you, Nori, I wanted to tell you what a horrible idea it was, how you shouldn't do it.”

I stared at him. If Tanner had told me those thing, I wondered if I would've changed my mind and not gone through with it. Would he have been able to convince me that I should leave X to professionals and medication, that traditional therapy was the way to go?

“The thing was,” Tanner continued. “After we talked, I had to admit that the reason I didn't want you teaching X was because I was jealous.”

I looked up then. Tanner wasn't the jealous type. Some Doms were. They were the kind of person who had to control every part of their Subs' lives. Some Subs couldn't even talk to other people without asking their Dom first, and it wasn't always because of control. There were Doms who saw their Subs as theirs. Not in a creepy stalker way, but jealousy was a part of who they were. And some Subs needed their Doms to be jealous. I never had and neither had Tanner. I'd often talked to other men and it'd never been an issue between us.

“I know, crazy, right?” Tanner said with a self-deprecating smile. “The whole time we were together, I never worried about you cheating, so I didn't have to be jealous. I knew you'd never let any man touch you while we were together. But then we weren't together anymore. And you were free to date and touch whoever you wanted.”

He had no idea who I wanted to touch, and I knew he wouldn't approve if he did.

“I knew it wasn't like that with X,” Tanner said. “That it was just a different form of therapy, but I still couldn't stop myself from thinking about how intimate things would get between the two of you.”

A knot formed in my stomach, twisting my breakfast until I felt like I might throw up. That was how things were supposed to have been between us, but I wasn't so sure that was what I wanted anymore.

“I hated the thought of him getting to see you like that, even if it wasn't sexual.” Tanner moved closer to me but didn't try to touch me. His eyes darkened in a way I knew quite well. “I don't want anyone to see you that way but me. I don't want another man touching you. The thought of you moving on and falling in love with someone else...it kills me, Nori.”

These were all the things I was supposed to want to hear, the things that most women would've given anything to have a man say to them. Especially a man like Tanner. Kind. Generous. Loyal. Not to mention smoking hot and insanely rich.

But his words didn't do anything but make me feel guilty for not feeling the same way. Sure, there was a bit of wistfulness at the memory of our relationship. It'd been solid and good. But I didn't have any of that intensity. I couldn't say that it would break my heart to see him with another woman.

“I want us to try again,” Tanner said. “I want you to give us, give me, a second chance. We can work through whatever it was that had us stuck before. I'll try harder, and we can move forward. Together.”

This felt like some sort of strange, bad dream. Just when I felt like I was getting closer to X, Tanner appeared in my life again. Now that I had to face the fact that in a few weeks, I'd have a decision to make, here was Tanner, presenting me with yet another choice.

“Please, Nori.” Tanner did reach out this time and put his hand over mine. “What do you say?”

Part of me wanted to tell him yes, that, of course, I wanted to get back together with him. I'd move back to San Antonio as soon as X's injuries finished healing up. Maybe I'd even move in with Tanner like we'd discussed on and off for the past year. He could help me stay strong when it came to my parents, and he'd support whatever I decided to do with my job. Just because it was me going back to the same man, the same city, didn't mean I had to have the same life.

Except I knew better. I knew that if I said yes right now, I'd fall back into old patterns and habits. Maybe Tanner and I would move forward as a couple, but the rest of my life would probably go back to the way it'd always been.