Since I Fell For You(72)

The last thing he expected her to do after he laid out the awful truth was smile. Or to say, “You weren’t friends with any of your previous lovers, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“So that’s already something different, because you said it yourself. You and I are friends.” She didn’t give his brain time to catch up before adding, “And if you don’t want to hurt me, that means you already care about me.” She looked triumphant as she concluded, “Which means your reasons to keep your distance no longer apply.”

He should have known this conversation wouldn’t go the way he’d planned. He should have expected Suzanne’s superpowered brain to leapfrog his. But that didn’t mean he could give up on convincing her to find someone better.

“I’m trying to protect you.” And he’d never forgive himself if he let something happen tonight and ended up breaking her heart. “You need to listen to me.”

“No, you need to listen to me.” He’d never known anyone so strong, so powerful—and yet so gentle and good—all in one devastatingly beautiful package. “I see the way your eyes soften when you look at me. And when you kiss me, it’s magic. Sweet, sinful magic.” He watched her skin flush at the memory of the sparks that had exploded between them, and felt his heat up too. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t hide what you’re feeling. Not from me.” She took his hands in hers, the flour from the pasta he’d been making coating her skin as she ran her fingers along his with shocking sensuality. “It took me a long time to understand that the mistakes my father and mother made were theirs, not mine. I’ve only just realized that I don’t have to repeat their broken love story.” She interlaced her fingers with his, then took a step closer. “And neither do you.”

All he wanted was to believe that what she was saying could be true. He was beyond desperate to drag her into his arms and crush her mouth beneath his. Every last need, every ounce of his passion, was wrapped up in having Suzanne naked and pliant and gasping with pleasure in his arms.

At this point, there was only one last-ditch way to save her from the relentless, unquenched desire that had turned them both inside out. He’d tried blunt. But he hadn’t been crude. Hadn’t fully shocked her into seeing exactly what being with him would be like when he wasn’t capable of being the man she seemed to think he was.

“I want you. We both know how much I want you.” He let her see the unguarded truth of his intense need for her. “But I damn well won’t let myself touch you tonight unless you can honestly tell me that after we sleep together, and I don’t call, your feelings won’t be crushed.” He hated himself a thousand times over for painting such a bleak and brutal picture for her, regardless of its honesty. “No matter how hard you try,” he said in an echo of her words from moments before, “you can’t hide how much you long for a love like your brother Drake has found with Rosa, like what Smith and Valentina have. I’m not going to deny that I want to touch you, kiss you in a thousand different ways. I’m not going to claim that I don’t want to tear off your clothes and take you right here on the counter, and then again in my bed, my shower, up against the wall, any and every possible way I can have you. But just because I can’t control my desire for you, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be the happily-ever-after you’ve been looking for. I’ll never be that man.”

This was where she would finally break away from him. This was where she would tell him to go to hell for daring to speak to her this way. This was where she would look deep into his eyes and see the emptiness, the darkness inside his heart from all the past misdeeds he could never undo.

She slid her hands from his, cupped his jaw, and said, “I promise I won’t be crushed.”

“Suzanne.” Her name was a plea. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Neither am I.” His voice was tight with emotion…and unquenched need. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if we do this tonight, I know I will.”

“You won’t.” She feathered her fingertips over his face and went up on her tippy toes so that they were face-to-face. “You might not have wanted this to happen, but you’re falling in love with me. Just like I’m falling in love with the bodyguard I swore I didn’t even want”—she slid her arms around his neck and pressed the length of her body against his—“but now don’t think I can live without.”