The image of him with Benet came back to her, of him holding her against the wall. The living-room wall.
He’d said he hadn’t been with any female since Terese died. So . . . he hadn’t had a woman in the bedroom, had he?
“The bedroom reminds you of Terese, doesn’t it?”
Shrugging, he peered into the fridge. “Want a beer?”
A beer? He’d dragged her out of the bedroom like she was contaminating it with her presence, and now he wanted to play polite host?
“No, thank you.” She tapped her foot on the wooden floorboards. “Are you going to answer the question?”
“No.”
“Dammit, Riker. You owe me that, at least.”
“Fine.” He reached for a bottle from a local micro— brewery. “Yeah. That’s the only place we ever had sex.
She was extremely vanilla and conservative. She didn’t let me go down on her or fuck her up against a wall like you did. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Heat infused Nicole’s cheeks at both the memories and the crude reply he’d made sound like an insult, and she had to clear her throat before she spoke.
“Okay, so what are you saying? We can have sex but only on your couch? Or against your wall? Maybe on your kitchen table?”
He fisted the bottle and popped off the cap with a violent twist of his wrist. He still wasn’t facing her.
That fridge must be extremely interesting.
“I’m saying you’ve outdone her in every way possible. Sex, strength, brains. Hell, you’ve even made sure her son cares about you. And now you want to take her bedroom, too?”
“What?” Nicole felt like she’d crossed into the
Twilight Zone. “Where is this coming from?” When he didn’t answer, she laid it out for him, plain as day, because hell if she was going to be his punching bag for whatever had triggered his asshole switch. “Your mate is gone, Riker.”
He rounded on her, his lip curled into a sneer. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Apparently, you don’t,” she shot back. “It’s been twenty years. You need to let her go.”
“Since when did you become the expert on dead mates?”
Maybe she should have taken that beer. “I’m not an expert on that, but I know what it’s like to lose someone you loved.” She stepped closer to him, instinctively wanting to comfort him somehow. “And I promise, life is so much better when you decide it’s time to move on and forgive yourself.”
“I can’t.” He took a swig from the bottle. “I won’t, and you have no right to ask me to forget her. She was a part of my life that I won’t get back.”
Stubborn man. “I’m not asking you to forget her or even to replace her. I’m asking you to move on.” Move on with me.
“You ask too much,” he snapped.
Her chest constricted painfully. Yes, she was human, a human who hadn’t even figured out her own place in the world yet, but the one thing she did know was that she wanted to find that place with Riker. She’d hopedhe’d want to take that journey with her, b ut now doubt hung like a black cloud over her head.
She stared at him, searching for a crack in the hard shell he’d put up around himself for no reason she could discern. But there was nothing to find. Maybe she’d contaminated more than just his bedroom. Maybe she’d fouled his world, too.
“I guess there’s nothing left to say.” Hoping he couldn’t sense how much she was hurting, she turned to leave.
Riker cursed, and in a heartbeat, she found herself pushed up against the door, his hands on her shoulders.
“You aren’t leaving,” he growled. Funny, not long ago she’d have been frightened out of her skull by his fierceness, but now she knew he wouldn’t harm her. At least, not physically.
“Yes, I am,” she said, meeting his hard stare with one of her own. “You can’t have us both, Riker. I won’t be the other woman.”
His hand slipped around to the back of her neck in a gentle yet possessive grip she wished she could believe he meant. “You’re not.”
Anger flared, bright and hot. “Then what am I?
A standin? A consolation prize?” Her eyes started to burn, and she prayed she wouldn’t cry. She needed to be strong. Stronger than she’d ever been, perhaps.
“Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I need to be number one. I won’t take a backseat to a mate who left you.”
His upper lip curled, baring his fangs. “She didn’t leave me. She died.”
“She killed herself!” she shouted, desperate to get her point across. “She made a choice to leave you.”