Private Pleasures

mind. 'You…you want to live together?'

He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. 'Yes.'

She couldn't live with empty promises. Not again. No matter how much she loved him. 'No.'

He looked taken aback by her reply. 'No?'

'No!' Her strength returned on a wave of determination. 'I can't live with you, Grey.'

'Why not? You know all my bad habits,' he said, then added a shrug. 'Not that I have many.'

She lifted a brow at his arrogant assumption.

'Okay, I have a few habits that are less than desirable,' he admitted, 'but I'd hardly call squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube a crime. And I know you hate it when I leave my underwear on the floor, but I eventually pick it up.'

If they were having this discussion under different circumstances she'd be laughing by now. But that was difficult to do when she felt like crying instead. 'This isn't about toothpaste or your underwear, Grey. It's about commitment.'

He jammed his hands on his hips, looking offended. 'I'm committed to you.'

She swallowed the knot in her throat and tasted the awful bitterness of despair. 'Not in the way that matters.'

'I haven't dated anyone since you.' She recognized the tight clenching of his jaw. An involuntary action that happened whenever he was losing control of a situation. 'Eight months is longer than I've ever lasted in a relationship. Doesn't any of that matter?'

She smoothed her hand over the cool sheets, unable to lie to him. 'Yes, it matters.' But she wanted, and needed, more.

He sat on the edge of the bed next to her, searching her gaze for answers. 'If it matters, then why can't you move in with me?'

Her one experience living with a man had given her a clearer perspective of what she wanted. This time she wasn't going to settle for less than full measure. 'Because the day I move in with someone is the day I'm wearing a wedding ring. That's the kind of commitment I'm talking about. A forever kind of commitment. A total commitment shared by two people in love.'

He rubbed his forehead with his fingers, his expression reflecting his misery. 'You knew I wasn't looking for marriage when we got involved, that I don't intend to get married. Ever.'

'Yes, you did say that, but I kept hoping your feelings would change.'

'My feelings have changed,' he stated emphatically. 'I care for you more than I've cared for anyone in my entire life.'

'I'm touched. Truly I am,' she said, aching deep inside for something she knew would never be. 'But it's not enough. Not anymore.'

'It was enough a month ago, a week ago, a day ago,' he pointed out, his voice rising in frustration.

'I love you, Grey.' It wasn't the first time she'd said those words to him, yet the sudden terror in his eyes was as fresh and raw as the first time she'd declared her emotions to him.

He blinked away the panic and forcibly regained his composure. Grasping her hand, he brought it to his lap and held it gently. 'I know you do, sweetheart-'

'Do you love me?'

His face paled, and the fingers stroking her palm stilled. 'I've never asked another woman to live with me.'

She managed to laugh. 'I guess I should consider it an honor, but that's not what I asked you.'

Dropping her hand, he stood and prowled around the room, his body tense. She watched him, trying to understand the perimeters of their relationship. Grey had never been one to express his emotions verbally; she'd learned that over their months together. He'd never told her he loved her, but she knew what they had together was special-special enough to base a future on. And sometimes, when he looked at her a certain way, she was positive he loved her, whether he verbally expressed the emotion or not.

'I don't know if what I feel for you constitutes as 'love,'' he said, shooting major holes in her theory. 'Hell, Mariah, I don't even believe in love.'

She hadn't known that. The knowledge hurt and saddened her. All her life she'd been surrounded by people who loved her, family who openly expressed their feelings and emotions. She wondered how she could have been so blind to this cynical side to Grey, how she could have believed he just needed time to fall in love with her.

'People grow to care for one another, and I care for you deeply,' he went on. 'Love is an illusion, a pretty word for something that doesn't really exist.'

'That's not true,' she argued. 'My parents are in love, and they've been happily married thirty-nine years.'

He shot her a skeptical look. 'Your parents are in the minority. My mother claims to have been in 'love' four, no five times, and has been divorced just as many times.' He shook his head in disgust. 'If that's what love and marriage is all about, I don't want any part of it.'

Mariah digested that. She didn't have to scratch much deeper than the surface of that speech to realize he'd had a crummy childhood. He'd never told her much about his family, just that he'd been an only child, and that his father had died when he was thirteen. Every time she'd ask, he'd brushed off the subject and gone on to another. Now she knew why. She wanted to know more about his parents, his childhood. But she really didn't think now was the time to discuss family relations.

Grey picked up his briefs lying on the floor and dropped them into the dark green hamper just inside the bathroom. 'Why is marriage suddenly so important to you, Mariah?'

'It's always been important.' Heavyhearted, she slid off the bed, instinctively knowing that after tonight they would never be the same. How could they be when they both had different visions for their futures?

He blocked her way to her clothes, his five-inch advantage and his dark scowl making him appear imposing. 'Marriage wasn't important when you moved in with Dale Simmons.'

She cringed at the reminder of her previous catastrophic relationship. 'That's why I won't make that mistake again. It's too convenient living with someone. All the luxuries of a marriage without the emotional obligations. I want total commitment, Grey. All or nothing. And we've been together long enough, without living together, to know whether or not a marriage would work.' He obviously didn't think one would, but then again, she'd just recently discovered that he didn't have much faith in the institution of marriage.

She attempted to step around him, but he blocked her path again. His intense gaze captured hers. 'Did you love him?' he asked abruptly.

She didn't need to ask who he meant. 'Yes.'

'Did he love you?'

'Yes.' At least for a while she'd known Dale loved her.

'The guy fooled around with other women behind your back!' he said, shaking his head incredulously. He grabbed her arms, his grip gentle but firm. 'Doesn't that make you think, even for a moment, that love isn't all that it's cracked up to be?'

It had been poor judgment on her part. That, and Dale had strung her along with empty promises she'd been too naive to see through. At thirty-two she'd like to think she was wiser than she'd been at twenty-six.

'That experience has made me cautious about the men I date, but not totally against a lifelong commitment. I want that, Grey, and I want that with you, not the convenience of living with someone then deciding you want something better.'

Grey dropped his hands back to his sides, feeling more defeated than he had in his entire life. She was asking for something he didn't have in him to give. He could tell her exactly what she wanted to hear, but if anything, their relationship had always been based on trust and honesty, and he refused to taint it with lies. And there was no way he'd let her believe he had any intentions of getting married. To anyone. Ever.

'I…I can't, Mariah,' he whispered.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she held her chin high. 'Then I think we need to start seeing other people.' She skirted past him.