His eyes fell shut in a pained grimace, and then he rolled onto his back, letting his arms and legs go limp. “It’s my fault,” he said softly to the sky. “I shouldn’t have taken it so far. Too far.”
Regret and pain seeped into the cracks between his words, but I was swimming to the other end of the pool. I climbed out in a deluge of water and gathered my tuxedo. A small pool house stood off the right side of the yard. I hurried toward it, holding the bundle of clothes over my erection. Inside, I struggled to get dressed, the clothes sticking to my wet skin.
“Fucking pathetic.”
My dick softened with humiliation as the feeling of freedom fled, revealing the stark, suffocating responsibilities I’d been trying to escape.
I emerged from the pool house to find Holden sitting on the lounger, smoking a clove cigarette.
“Look, man. I’m sorry.”
“Forget it,” he said stiffly. “Things got a little intense. I blame Prince.”
“It was a mistake.” I cringed at the word and Holden flinched when I said it. “I just… I’ve never…”
“I know you haven’t. It’s my fault. I should’ve been more…not me.” Holden stood up from the lounger, moving like an old man, arms tucked and his back hunched. He used his thumb and middle finger to flick the cigarette into the pool. “Let’s go.”
We moved through the huge silent house to the street, where amber cones of light stood at intervals. Unspent need hovered thickly between us, while the intimacy we’d shared all night was on the verge of disintegrating.
“I’ll call James,” Holden said, reaching for his cell.
“No, I’ll walk. I need to clear my head. I’ll get my truck tomorrow.” I glanced up and down the street. “Which is yours?”
He pointed to a huge Craftsman a few doors down. “That one.”
“No bullshitting?”
“No bullshitting.”
I stood with my hands in the pockets of my rumpled, damp tux, the tie slung loosely around my neck. “Okay, so…”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Holden said, sounding and looking more deflated than I’d ever seen him. “Just go home. Go back to your life.” He smiled faintly, his green eyes heavy. Sad. “They need you.”
“Yeah, they do.” My gaze danced around from the ground, to the house, then to him. “Okay, so…goodnight, Holden.”
“Goodnight, River.”
I hated how my name sounded in his mouth. Like goodbye. Because it had to be. I was ruining something that could never happen in the first place.
When I didn’t move, annoyance flashed over Holden’s features.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I’m waiting for you to go home.”
“Why?”
“To make sure you get in safe.”
Holden gaped, then he scowled. “Don’t do that. I’m not asking you for anything,” he said, defiant. “I never have, and I never will.”
“Okay. Fine.”
“Fine.”
The silence thickened, waiting for one of us to do or say something that we couldn’t take back.
Finally, with a muttered curse, Holden trudged back down the street, shoulders hunched. The part of me that had been brave and tasted real life wanted him to turn around. A smaller, weaker part was glad he didn’t.
I waited until he was safely inside and went home.
Chapter Nine
I strode through the house, through the yard and past the pool, to my guesthouse. Everything River and I had said and done that night chased me home. My cracked brain ripped through every memory, replaying every one of his concerned expressions as I told my story.
You don’t feel like a stranger anymore.
“Shit.”
I banged into the guesthouse, flopped on my bed, and flung my arm over my eyes. I’d spent the better part of the night attempting to reduce River to the sum of his perfect parts. To keep my attraction to him physical, but he was a damn iceberg. There was more to him than he revealed on the surface. He was smarter than probably anyone knew. Humble and kind. My stupid, shriveled little heart felt like it was reaching for everything he was…and that I was not.
“It was a mistake,” I said, echoing River’s words. They stabbed me in the chest, but he was right. It’d been a mistake to tell him about Alaska. A mistake to let him put his hand on my face and promise pain to anyone who hurt me…
That was a joke, whispered an insidious voice. He doesn’t care about you. Why would he? Why would anyone?
“Why would anyone?” I whispered, nodding.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I angrily blinked them away. My hand slipped under the waistband of my pants and I gripped myself, ready to mentally fuck River Whitmore out of my system.
I muted our intimate conversation and concentrated on the vision of him stripping out of that black tux. I recalled every hard muscle, every sleek line of his body contoured by moonlight. I redrew him in my memory—his chiseled jaw, the smooth planes of his chest, his torso packed with abs, and a V that directed my gaze to the impressive bulge in his underwear.
I stroked myself, hard and fast, but the spark never caught fire, and a terrible fear told me that I’d already let him in too deep.
I hate that they did that to you. I’d kill anyone who tried to do it again…
“Goddamn you, River.”
The tears threatened again, and I kept my eyes buried tight in the crook of my elbow. Nothing could happen between us or ever would. I’d been born a wreck; the conversion therapy had finished the job.
There was nothing more to know.
Monday morning, I dragged my hungover ass to school.
I still reeked of booze and popped an Altoid or ten for Ms. Watkins’s English Lit class. She watched me take my seat with narrowed eyes, but she
