The checking took longer than the actual collecting. She filled two bags. They were almost overfull, but she didn’t want to have to come back in after she’d taken these to her car. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to step through the door more than once. He came into the hallway as she reached the door. He’d been true to is word and had stayed in the kitchen. If she hadn’t known he was there, she might have been able to make believe that she’d had the house to herself. He hadn’t made a sound.
Her hands were full, fists gripping the necks of the bags. He moved quickly, almost startling her, as he went to open the door for her. But his hand paused on the handle.
“Please. Isn’t there a way, some way that you and me can be right? You know I’m stayin’. I’m payin’ my debt to the club tonight. Isn’t there somethin’ I can do to make us right?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t lift her eyes from the spot on the floor just in front of the door. “No. I can’t trust you.” She whispered. She just wanted to leave. She had some major rebuilding to do.
He wasn’t giving in easily. “Please, beauty. I’d do anythin’ to get back what I had with you, what we were buildin’, what we could have had. A home, family.”
Her heart cramped. She’d wanted that too, and now... She looked at him then and let anger fill her eyes.
“No. You were goin’ to kill my father. I can’t forgive that.”
He shook his head adamantly. “No I wasn’t. Yes, I don’t deny I came with that intention; but from that first day, the day I moved in here, I knew I couldn’t do it, that I wasn’t goin’ to do it. Everythin’ about that day changed me. Everything. No one has ever taken care of me the way your family did, the way your mama and your father did. I still see you in every corner of this house. I wanted to find a way out. I looked so hard for a way out. But I knew I couldn’t carry on livin’ a lie with you. I went to your father ready to accept the judgment of the table, and that’s what I’ll receive tonight. Your family, the club has forgiven me, can’t you?”
The tears that had been building steadily, making her eyes burn, finally spilled over. “No. I saw everythin’ you saw. You showed me everythin’ I wanted, everythin’ I could have had. It was wonderful and it was beautiful and it was all a lie. Nothin’ was true. You used me.”
His face twisted into a grimace. “No. It wasn’t like that. It was never about that.”
She was struggling to draw air past the lump of pain that her heart had become. “No, it was all false...”
He interrupted her with a kiss, although ‘kiss’ was too tame a word to describe the way his mouth came crashing down on hers. She wanted to resist, but she couldn’t. The truth of it was that she missed him. She missed his scent surrounding her, missed the million casual touches that made up their day, missed the way he’d made her laugh and smile, and she’d missed the way he’d made her moan. She’d missed the weight of his body on hers, the way his muscles moved like steel covered in silk under her touch. She’d missed the way he made her feel safe, cherished, loved.
Her head was a cacophony of noise, her mind shouting, screaming that she should back away and get the hell out of her before the last pieces of her soul were shattered. But her limbs weren’t listening. Without thought or command her hands were letting go of the bags and were clutching at his shoulders. His arms were around her, those massive limbs that had made her feel so secure and cared for were crushing her to his chest.
He didn’t let up his assault on her mouth, as if he knew that if he gave her just an inch of space that sense would return and she’d bolt out the door. As if to further prevent that, he turned her and backed her up, trapping her between his body and the closed door.
She knew the tears were still falling as her hands, having been without the touch of him too long, tried to fill themselves. They were moving greedily over the curves and planes of his body as his were moving over her. Conscious thought fled in the onslaught of the physical sensations, his scent, his taste, his touch. When he lifted her she wrapped her legs around his hips as a reflex, instinct.
She wasn’t sure how it happened, how her dress had ended up bunched around her waist, how her underwear had been pushed to one side, but suddenly he was there, his steel shaft hot and hard against skin that wept from the loss of him, and then he was filling her. It was urgent and frantic and the sob broke free as she felt again what it was that she had lost; what it was that she was losing.