Chapter 37
Bennett
Content.
For the last half hour, I’d been lying here trying to figure out the last time I’d felt this feeling. If someone had asked me a few months ago, I would have said I felt it every time I had sex—that post-orgasmic relaxation that takes over your body. But I would’ve been wrong.
That was sated. I hadn’t realized until now that there was even a difference between feeling sated and content. But there is—a damn big one. Sated is that satisfied feeling you get after a good meal when you were starving. Or when you’re horny as shit and you get a release that drains the life out of you. Sure, I was drained right now; don’t get me wrong. And I also felt satisfied. But I wasn’t sated. Sated satisfies a hunger that always comes back. Content makes you feel like you don’t need anything more. Not ever.
And that’s fucked up.
Yet at the moment, I didn’t give a crap how screwed up it was that I felt this way. In fact, for the last half hour, I’d had to take a piss. But I didn’t, because I was afraid when my feet hit the floor, this feeling might be gone again.
Annalise’s head rested on my chest, as I stroked her hair. Her fingers traced a small circle around my abdomen.
“Can I ask you something?” Her voice was low.
“Yeah. I can go again. Just move your hand down a little farther south for a minute.”
She giggled and play-smacked my stomach. “That’s not what I was going to ask.” She paused, and her voice turned serious. “But could you really do it again? We did it twice already since I got here.”
I took her hand and pushed it down to my cock. I was still semi-erect after the last go-round.
“Ummm… I think you might have a problem. It’s supposed to deflate once in a while, you know.”
“Well, now that we’re talking about my dick, he knows it, and he’s even more awake, so if you had a real question, you better get to asking it pretty quick. Your mouth is gonna be too full to speak in a minute.”
Annalise propped her head up on her fist, which rested on my chest. “What do you think would happen if we didn’t have an expiration date?”
I froze. “What do you mean?”
“What if we just worked together and one of us wasn’t relocating soon? Do you think we’d be doing this a year from now?”
I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I needed to be honest. Words normally came from my brain, but it felt like this one ripped and tore its way up from my heart.
“No.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
Fuck.
She turned her head and rested it back on my chest. A few minutes later, I felt wetness on my skin.
Fuck. Fuck.
She was crying. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then I rolled us until she was on her back and I could speak to her face to face. I wiped a tear with my thumb. She looked over my shoulder instead of at me.
“Hey. Look at me.”
I hated that her eyes were filled with pain when they met mine. Pain I’d caused.
“The answer has everything to do with me, and nothing to do with you. You’re…”
I was rarely at a loss for words. But I didn’t have any to accurately describe what I thought of her. Yet I knew it was important that my message get through. She’d just come out of a shitty, long-term relationship, and she needed to know what she was.
“You’re everything, Annalise. I’ve met two types of women in my life: every woman out there. And you.”
“Then I don’t understand…”
“You asked me if things were different, if we would be doing this a year from now. I’m being honest. We wouldn’t be. But I don’t want you to think it’s because I wouldn’t be the luckiest son of a bitch if I got to keep you in my bed for that long. Because I would. But some people just aren’t cut out for long term.”
“Why not?”
The truth was because they don’t deserve it. But I couldn’t tell Annalise that. She’d spend every last minute of the time we had left together trying to prove me wrong.
I looked away, because I couldn’t look into her eyes and lie. “Because I like being single. I like my freedom and not having to answer to anyone or have any responsibilities. You want candles and flowers on Valentine’s Day, and you deserve to get what you want.”
She swallowed and nodded her head. I decided it was about time I answered nature’s call. “I’m going to go to the bathroom and get something to drink. You want something?”
“No, thank you,” she whispered sadly.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been wrong. By the time my feet hit the ground, my feeling of contentment was long gone.
***
She avoided me for days after that.
And I let her. We weren’t fighting or pissed off at each other. When we passed in the hall, we put on fake smiles, and she made up some excuse about an appointment she had to run to that I knew from stalking her calendar she didn’t have. Yet I didn’t call her out on it. There was no point.
It was starting to feel like our relationship had run its natural course, and the best night of sex of my life had turned out to be our swan song. It was probably for the best—put a little space between us, and it would make things easier. Our presentations to Star were next week, and Pet Supplies was scheduled for the beginning of the week after that. What was the point of keeping things going?
Yet I couldn’t stop myself.
Her door was shut, but I knew she was still in there. We were the only two left in the office at almost nine o’clock on Thursday night. I was also fucking starving.
I knocked on her office door after rummaging through the refrigerator.
“Come in.”
I held up a tin-foiled sandwich in my hand. “You hungry? I’ll split with you.”
She sighed. “Starving, actually.”
I walked to her desk and handed her half a PB&J.
Annalise licked her lips and took it, though she stopped with it halfway to her mouth. “Wait…this is yours, right?”
I grinned. “Just eat it. I’ll come in early in the morning and replace it.”
She glanced longingly down at the sandwich and back to me. “This is Marina’s, isn’t it?”
I bit half of my half off in one gigantic bite and spoke with my mouth full. “Mmmmm. It’s so fucking good.”
The corners of her lips twitched, but she bit into her half anyway. “You’re corrupting me.”
“I thought you were enjoying me corrupting you.” I tilted my head. “But you seem to have been too busy for that the last few days.”
Annalise’s smile fell. “Oh. Sorry. I’ve been…swamped.”
I glanced over her desk. Her laptop was shut, and a stack of files had been neatly piled up.
“Looks like you’re just finishing up.” I caught her gaze. “So does that mean you’re free tonight?”
She stared at me for a few heartbeats and then raised one hand to cover her mouth while she opened it for an obvious pretend yawn. “I’m really wiped out. Maybe another night.”
I knew she’d lied even before her skin started to blush, yet I let her off the hook anyway.
I nodded. “Yeah. Sure. I’m tired, too.”
***
I hadn’t been lying. I was tired.
Yet I didn’t go home.
Instead, I hit up the shithole bar closest to the office and ordered a double scotch. And then another one. And then another. Until the bartender told me he’d give me one last drink only if I handed him my cell phone.
I tossed it on the bar and slurred my words. “That’s an expensive drink. But go ahead…keep it. Just give me the damn thing.”
The bartender took my phone in one hand and poured me a drink with the other. He raised a brow. “What’s her name?”
“Annalise.” I laughed maniacally. “Or Sophia. Take your pick.” I tipped my glass toward him, and half of it sloshed onto the bar. “And she looks fucking great in a cowboy hat.”
“Which one we talking about? Annalise or Sophia?”
“Annalise. Beautiful, man. Just beautiful.” I swallowed a big gulp of my drink.
“I’m sure she is. I’m calling you an Uber. Where you heading after that drink?”
“She thinks I’m a dick.”
The stoic bartender sighed. “Pretty sure she might be right about that. What address you going to, buddy?”
“I don’t deserve her.”
“I’m sure you don’t. What about that address?”
I knocked back the contents of my glass. “Are you married?”
He held up his left hand. “Sixteen years.”
“How’d you know you loved her?”
“If you give me an address to call this damn Uber, I’ll tell you how I knew.”
I rattled off the address. He typed into my phone and then slid it across the bar to me. “You know that saying if you love something, set it free, and it will come back to you?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “Well, that’s a crock of shit. If you love someone and you set her free, she might come back with herpes. So get over yourself and lock that shit down before you get an STD.” He paused. “Your Uber will be here in four minutes, so you should start walking your drunk ass to the curb right about now.”
***
“We’re here.”
The driver’s voice jolted me awake. Slumped in the backseat, I must’ve dozed off on the short ride home.
I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”
It took me a few tries, but I managed to find the door handle and open the damn thing. I even stumbled out without falling on my face. The Uber driver mustn’t have been as impressed with how well I’d done, because he didn’t stick around to watch me make it to the door. He had his foot pressed to the floor to get the hell out of there before I could even finish swaying enough to walk the three steps to the curb. But I waved goodbye anyway.
Somehow I made my way to the front door. Luckily, when two-hundred-and-twenty pounds leans forward on the verge of falling over, it also propels a lot of momentum. I spent five minutes trying to get the key in the lock, but the damn thing wouldn’t work. I’d started to think someone had come to my place and changed the fucking lock.
I took a step back and squinted at the door, attempting to get a good look at the lock. But then the door swung open.
What the fuck?
Stumbling back, I blinked a few times.
“What the hell are you doing?” Fanny pulled her robe tight.
I’d gone to the wrong house?
Fuck.
Maybe I didn’t.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her.” I swayed back and forth. “I didn’t know how she felt.”
“It’s after midnight. I should call the goddamn police.”
I looked down and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
I’d said the words so many times eight years ago. They did nothing for either of us back then. But what did I expect? Forgiveness? Forgiveness doesn’t change the past.
“You want me to tell you it’s okay? It’s not. Lucas told me about the girl you brought to Disney. You want me to accept your apology so you can move on without a guilty conscience? Is that what this is about? My daughter doesn’t get to move on, does she?”
No, she doesn’t. I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“You know what sorry does?”
I looked up and met her angry eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
The door slammed in my face before I could say another word.