Without You Here (7 page)

I nodded. I was beginning to feel I could always be compliant with this man. His wants and needs ran hand-in-hand with my own.

I was naked in the tub when he came back. He stepped in the bathroom and stripped, no hesitation. He climbed in and lounged against the corner opposite me. The heat had already sunk into my bones. My head was back on the rim and my eyelids were heavy. "What did you bring us to eat?" I asked.

"Got KFC. It won't be as good as yours. But I had my heart set on chicken."

I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling. "It will be every bit as good as mine, I'm sure."

He narrowed his eyes at me. And then he leaned forward. "It's KFC in the cooler in your car, isn't it?"

I gasped in mock surprise. "I'm offended! I slaved over that meal."

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him. I stretched my body along his and kissed his neck. He leaned his head back while I kissed and nibbled. I found the hickeys I'd given him. I'd just wanted him to have to remember me for at least a little while whenever he looked in the mirror. I ran my hands over those powerful shoulders and down his chest. I pressed my breasts against him and savored the feeling. "I tried," I said with my cheek pressed to his chest, "to make chicken. I spent two hours frying pieces of chicken and I never could get them done in the middle without turning them black on the outside. So I cried and threw it all away and went to KFC."

His hands were making slow trails up and down my back. "I appreciate your honesty," he said.

Oh, how I loved the slick feeling of his body against mine.

"It was sweet of you to try and cook for me." His voice was low and kind of scratchy.

"I thought it would be romantic. Instead I went out and bought Tupperwear and transferred all the food into it like it was homemade. My whole life is a lie."

He laughed and squeezed me tightly. "Aw, Ettie. You're a hell of a find, you know that?"

I nuzzled my head up beneath his chin. "You too, Wyatt."

He pushed my head back just enough that he could take my lips with his. He kissed me gently. Lovingly. That's what it was. A loving kiss. And I ached in my soul from it. It made me...yearn. And that scared the shit out of me.

Even though these were my thoughts, it still startled me when he said: "This doesn't have to end tomorrow, Ettie."

I looked at him. He was totally open to me in that moment. All the pain he'd lived with bared before me. All the hope and need he fought so hard against, right there in his eyes. I wanted to shout, "Yes! Yes! Let's make this last forever!" But I knew he wasn't really offering me anything more than an extension of our weekend. Another weekend. And another. Until this burned out. It should be enough for me, but it wasn't. Only two nights and I already knew that I wanted everything from him. Too much of him still belonged to his wife and I wanted it. All of it.

I didn't say anything, then, though. We still had tonight. So I smiled and kissed him. And then we got out of the tub, dried off, and went to the living room to eat.

There were hard wood floors all through the cabin. The walls were stained wood as well. The yellow light from the lamp on the side table cast the whole room in a dim glow. I didn't have anything else to wear except a towel. So Wyatt wore a towel, too, and we both laughed at ourselves. We'd come very ill prepared for this little sleepover.

There was a TV mounted above the fireplace. We fell into a deep, soft sofa and Wyatt grabbed the remote and turned it on. I gnawed on a drumstick while he flipped channels. I pointed and made noises for him to stop when he passed Pretty Woman. The all-time perfect date movie! It was just getting started, too. And I could tell he'd seen it before because he looked at me with pleading in his eyes. I just shrugged. What could I say? We had to watch it. So he tossed the remote on the coffee table and went to work eating.

We both ate a lot. Which was no wonder and a good thing too. He needed his energy for what I wanted to do with him that night. There were two lamps on and when we finished eating, he turned one off and snuggled in beside me. By the time Julia Roberts was kissing her way down Richard Gere's chest, I had my hand inside Wyatt's towel and was making him smile and groan.

We had sex all over that cabin. First on the couch. Then in the kitchen. I was sitting on the counter while he fed me ice cream before he lost control of himself and took me right there. Then in the master bedroom where we left the blankets a tangled mess and fell asleep in each other's arms.

I regretted that the most of anything that weekend. Falling asleep. But then, I'm not sure we could have possibly gotten enough of each other, even if we'd stayed awake. A shaft of sunlight pierced through a gap in the drapes and hit me full in the face. It was only six in the morning. So I turned my face into Wyatt's chest and willed myself to go back to sleep. I didn't, though. I couldn't. And soon, Wyatt was stirring. It thrilled me that his first movements in the morning involved pulling me closer against him and caressing my ass. I vaguely wondered if that was what he'd done with his wife all those years.

I rolled on top of him. He was already hard between my thighs. His eyes weren't open yet, but his hands were on my breasts. I took his erection and slid down on him. He gasped and arched into me. Then he groaned. His eyes opened to slits and he smiled. His hand slid up to my neck and held me. "Ride hard, Ettie," he said in his morning voice, which was super sexy.

I obeyed and thrilled at the sound of the headboard banging against the wall. I rode until I thought my legs would give out. Sweat dripped down my back and my hair clung to my damp forehead.

Then he sat up and wrapped his arms around me. The change of angle sent me into an orgasm I hadn't realized was building. The best of my life, up until that point. I thought it would never end and, in the midst of it, I felt him go rigid and pulse inside of me. He cried out and cursed and squeezed me so tightly I couldn't breathe.

At last we collapsed into each other. The way he clung to me I could tell he was sad. I could tell this was our last time. He laid back, pulling me on top of him. He brought the blanket over us and we dozed in and out for a while. Eventually I was getting too hungry to ignore it, and I knew the same was true for him. We had to get up and shower. We needed to clean up the cabin and then go scrounge up some breakfast. Then we had to get back to my car and pray to God it was still there and still in tact.

We ended up going for my car before breakfast. We hadn't spoken hardly at all that morning. We'd tidied up our mess in the cabin and I'd put his old t-shirt back on. The drive was quiet. He held my hand. When we arrived at the covered bridge to find my car still there and looking undamaged, we both sighed relief and smiled at each other.

Wyatt leaned against his truck and watched as I dug around in the overnight bag in my back seat. I pulled out a yellow sundress and changed into it, not looking at him. He had every right to watch. As far as I was concerned, I was all his. He could do anything he wanted with me.

"You sure are pretty, Ettie," he said.

I wadded up his t-shirt and held it to my chest. "Can I keep this?"

He smiled sadly. "Sure."

I lifted it to my face and inhaled. Then I tossed it in the passenger seat of my car. "So...meet you at the diner?"

He nodded and then climbed in his truck. He waited for me to go first. There was a greasy, little diner in Hadley. One of those where the Formica on the tables was all chipped and the chairs were wobbly. The waitresses were about sixty years old and so were their uniforms. And the breakfast food was amazing. I had pancakes. Wyatt had the biggest Western omelet I'd ever seen. And we were both so freaking hungry that we didn't talk until we were almost finished.

He didn't look up at me when he spoke. He was sopping up hollandaise sauce with a biscuit. "We should do this again, Ettie. Next weekend. How about it?"

My heart was suddenly thundering in my ears. I watched him as he pointedly focused on cleaning his plate. "Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" I asked.

He finally looked up. Those blue eyes were hypnotic. And heartbreaking. "I'm asking you to have another fun weekend with me. That's what I'm asking."

My eyes fluttered as they started to sting. "Do you need to get to know me better before asking me to be your girlfriend?"

His jaw muscles tensed. "Ettie, I—“

"Look, Wyatt. I have had just the absolute best time of my life with you this weekend. I have all the information I need to know I want to be in a relationship with you."

He snorted and leaned back in his chair. "You don't know shit about me, Ettie. This was fun. But it was superficial and you know it."

My chest constricted. I had to take a moment to swallow back the pain. "It wasn't superficial. I'm sorry it didn't mean as much to you as it did to me—“

"It meant plenty and that's why I want to see you again. So let's do it, Ettie. Next weekend. We'll meet at the bar Friday and maybe we could road trip down to Gulf Shores or something. Or we could go zip-lining up at Cave City. All kinds of fun shit we could do together. That's what I want."

"I want to go home with you."

He looked away and shook his head in frustration.

"I graduate in six weeks. I want to spend time with you this summer. In your home."

"Well that ain't gonna happen, is it?"

I forced down the ache in my chest. There would be time enough to deal with it. "I guess not."

"So, what? You just don't want to see me again? Because I won't take you home? Is that it?"

It was obviously more complicated than that, but his brain was in that obtuse zone so characteristic of males. "Yep. That's it."

He leaned forward and squeezed my hands in his. "I love my wife, Ettie."

I nodded. I wanted to understand. I'd never lost a spouse. It must take a very long time to get over. "I wouldn't rush you. We could take our time."

He sighed and leaned back. He watched me for a long moment. I silently begged him to come around to my way of thinking. "It was a really good weekend," he said.

My face screwed up in pain and I caught my breath and looked down at my lap.

He stood and went to pay the bill. I collected myself and strolled past him out to my car. When he came up behind me, I turned and hugged his waist. He held me and squeezed me with his hands. We kissed long and hard. I needed him. The thought of the long drive back home and knowing I wouldn't see him again seemed beyond my capabilities. It was too much. He'd asked to see me again next weekend. Maybe I still could. Maybe I could be his weekend fun girl. Surely that could be enough for me.

He kept kissing me. His hands were in my hair. I dared to open my eyes once and realized he was in pain, too. I started to pull back. He whispered, "Not yet," and pulled my lips back to his. He pressed me against my car with the length of his body. He wouldn't stop kissing me and touching me. It was killing me. I realized I was doing the same as him, clinging and clawing, desperate to hang on. I touched his face and neck and shoulders and chest. I ran my hands down his waist and hips and around to his ass. He moaned and pressed harder against me.

Finally I turned my head to break the kiss. "Please!" I gasped, not knowing for sure what I was asking.

He stepped back and took with him all of the warmth and light he'd brought to me this weekend. And he took away the warmth and light I'd had on my own even before meeting him. He may as well have dropped me in a cold, dark pit. It was no consolation at all to see the tears in his eyes and hear the trembling in his voice. "I'm sorry," he whispered. And then he turned and left.

I got in my car, closed the door and screamed, "Coward!" after him. And then called myself every version of the word "stupid." The two-hour drive home was the longest of my life.

CHAPTER FIVE

Blake sat on the couch in Lauren and Ettie's apartment Monday morning. He'd made the journey back last night after giving up on waiting for his dad. He'd finally managed to reach Wyatt on his cell phone and verify that he was okay. Apparently he was fishing with Cal. At least he had a friend.

It was nearly noon and Lauren was fixing sandwiches. Lauren was Ettie's roommate and one of Blake's best friends. She was tall, slender, and red-headed. That dark auburn color. She kept a very old-fashioned hairstyle that made her look like Rosalind Russell in
His Girl Friday.
"You don't have to feed me," he said.

"It's fine. I was fixing one for Ettie, anyway. I'll be glad when she doesn't have a ten-thirty class anymore. She can take over and fix me lunch for a change."

He leaned back and checked his watch. He'd tried to come by last night, but Ettie had already been in bed. He needed to get this straightened out. He wanted to take her home with him for Spring break this weekend.

Lauren sat next to him and handed him a plate with a sandwich on it. She crossed her legs and her dress slid up her thighs another inch. She had the best legs he'd ever seen in his life. Legs he would never get to touch or have wrapped around him. He accepted that. He'd bungled his first and only date with Lauren two years ago and she hadn't been willing to entertain the idea of a second ever again. So he'd moved on. No sense pining over what he couldn't have. But God, those legs looked good.

"Whatever you're planning to say to her, Blake," Lauren said, "go easy. She came home yesterday a complete wreck."

Blake was concerned. But also a little hopeful. Maybe she'd regretted trying to break up with him again. "Did she say what was wrong?"

"Yes. But that's covered under girlfriend confidentiality, so you'll just have to ask her yourself."

"Ettie tells me everything. She has no brain-to-mouth filter. Makes it impossible for her to lie."

"Just go easy on her, that's all."

"I resent that you think I'd ever be harsh with her. She's one of the most trying people I've ever met, but I've always treated her with patience and kindness."

"Just because you speak with a gentle tone, doesn't mean your words can't still hurt."