Want You More by Nicole Helm (24)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Will knew somewhere in the recesses of his mind he should roll off Tori. Clean himself up, give her some space to breathe, but there was nowhere he’d rather have her than curled up into his chest, sated and pliant, all his.

It had been a long time since he’d indulged in sex. He’d been faithful in his marriage to Courtney if only because his father hadn’t been faithful in his marriage. He’d been celibate afterward if only because the town wasn’t exactly crawling with young, available women.

He’d been on one disastrous date a few months ago where he’d been certain he’d seen Sarge.

“When did you first get to town?” he asked absently, wondering if he’d been as off his rocker has he’d thought at the time.

Tori wiggled underneath him and he finally released her, withdrawing from the comfort of her body. She was flushed and tangled, and no matter that she thought she looked like a drowned rat, he thought he liked her best this way. Mussed and flushed. From him.

Yeah, he liked that a whole hell of a lot.

“Few weeks before the wedding.”

Will rolled off the bed to get rid of the condom. It wasn’t enough time to have gone back to his date with Dr. Frost, so apparently, he really had been losing it a bit.

“Why?”

He shrugged, walking back to the bed, not missing the way her gaze dropped to his dick. He grinned, and when she finally tore her gaze away, she rolled her eyes.

“Oh, so I’m ogling. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“But that’s exactly where it’s gone.” He crawled back into bed, and though he noted the way she shied away from him, he didn’t react to it. Tori was . . . well, she’d hate the comparison but she was a bit like a skittish dog, and she’d been hurt a lot. It would take some time and care to prove he wouldn’t cause her harm.

Something sickening flipped in his stomach, that old certainty he wasn’t the man for a sensitive job, but he pushed it away. The dipshit he’d been seven years ago couldn’t handle this, but the dipshit he was now could, or would.

He wouldn’t hurt people out of his own fear anymore, and he wouldn’t hurt himself. Something had to change, because Brandon had entrusted him to change.

He crossed his arms behind his head, hoping she’d snuggle up to him, wondering what it would take. If only she was as easy to win over as Sarge had been. A piece of hamburger and the dog had loved him for life.

Love.

He still shied away a bit from that. He needed time to sit with it, work out what that meant for him. For her. It would take time and finesse and making sure he didn’t fuck it all up again.

So he changed the subject in his head. “You just let me know when you’re up for another go. I haven’t had sex in a while, so I’m pretty sure I could manage.”

She cocked her head, inching just the tiniest bit closer. She smelled like lake water and fresh air, and it was the perfect scent for his drowned fairy.

“How long is a while?”

He shrugged, not meeting her curious gaze. The more he didn’t look at her, the more she scooted closer and closer, and eventually she even laid her head on his shoulder.

He curled his arm around her, drawing her in, nuzzling against her tangled hair. “Well, as screwed up as the end of my marriage was, I wasn’t going to sleep with someone else.”

Silence followed, and after a few seconds of that heavy, considering silence, Tori tilted her head back so she could look at him. “Because of your father?”

Will shrugged. “Guess so.”

“But that was months ago, wasn’t it? Your divorce.”

“That it was.”

“And you haven’t had sex since . . . her?”

Tori was looking at him with such consideration he couldn’t help but fidget, and he was not a man prone to fidgeting. “What?”

She shook her head lightly, strands of her hair brushing against his arm. He twined his free hand in one of them, curling it around until it was tight.

When he finally met that shrewd blue-green gaze, she spoke.

“That’s noble, I think. Good, anyway.”

“I’m not perfect,” he replied, because he knew it would earn him a scoff. She hardly thought he was perfect.

“No, but you are . . . Well, you’re more like Brandon than I think even you’d like to admit.”

Will didn’t care for that observation. All those moral codes and shit came easy for Brandon. Will had pieced together his moral compass to make sure he wasn’t like his father. It wasn’t some innate goodness in him, he’d just wanted to be something Phillip Evans wasn’t. Decent.

Not something he wanted to dwell on, all in all, so he turned to her instead. She was still looking at him with that careful, studying gaze that tumbled through him alarmingly close to worry. But there was nothing to worry about.

He wouldn’t fail at this. He’d stick until he convinced her, and then he’d stick some damn more. He tugged the twined piece of hair until her mouth was close enough to his to devour.

The thing that amazed him was not that kissing her was like finding some peaceful, perfect spot in the woods where he could lose himself, his thoughts, his fears, his shitty past; it was that there were so many ways a kiss with Tori could tangle deep inside of him.

Not just attraction. Not some past affinity for each other, something deep in his bones that archaeologists would read civilizations from now. It could be hot, it could be tender, it could be a million things, but it was always Tori, and that was always what mattered.

There was a moment, sweet and pure and damn near perfect, where she sank into it, willingly, enthusiastically, not an iota of that thing hiding beneath the surface of her and her attraction to him.

But it was short-lived, and that thing was back, something he couldn’t read. All he could figure was it was some self-preservation instinct, some hesitancy since he’d hurt her before. Fair, all in all, but he’d prove it wasn’t necessary.

She pushed at his chest. “We, uh, have to get back. Excursions. And stuff.”

“Uh-huh.” He found a spot on her neck that made her squeak and nibbled. “Consider this a precursor for tonight.”

“Will. Really. I can’t . . .”

He pulled away incrementally. Something in her voice reminded him of panic, and he didn’t like that at all. “What’s wrong?”

She withdrew from him, drawing herself into a protective sitting position on the edge of the bed. As far away from him as she could get.

He really, really didn’t like that.

“I have plans with Cora tonight.”

“I can come by after.”

She shook her head, twisting her fingers together. “No. I . . . I don’t want you to come over tonight. I don’t . . .”

He reached for her twined fingers but she scooted away, and it was something in that rejection that had him freezing.

“I just need some processing time,” she said, not meeting his gaze, not doing anything to ease that frozen fear inside him.

“What does that mean?”

She swallowed. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny, very nearly blue. “Please,” she whispered.

It undid him, completely, to see her so vulnerable. So willingly vulnerable. Uttering a word like please that she’d as likely cut her tongue out as use, at least toward him.

“All right. For today.”

She straightened her shoulders and let out a long breath. “Your timetable then, huh?” she asked, lifting her chin, challenging him.

But he wouldn’t fall for it. Not here. Not now. “My timetable would be you underneath me for approximately the next seventy-two hours.”

“You think too highly of yourself,” she replied dryly, but her mouth quirked, amused by him in spite of herself. But that humor died, quickly, and offered a stabbing pain in the center of his chest.

“I hope you know how serious I am about this. About us.” He swallowed at his own bolt of panic. Declaring his intentions, being serious about something, it had never worked out for him.

He cut off the line of thought when it started to sound too much like his father’s voice in his head. Luckily, whatever emotion might have shown on his face Tori couldn’t see as she’d wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight.

He hugged her right back, drew some comfort in her, reminded himself this wouldn’t end the same way. Not this time. He wouldn’t be the one standing in his own way anymore.

She kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said so earnestly, so seriously.

The reverent way she’d spoken those two words, as though she hadn’t meant thank you, but as if she’d been trying to say something else, bothered him the entire time they got dressed, the entire way back to Mile High.

And as they parted ways to go on their separate excursions, she’d looked at him with too-soulful eyes.

“See you later,” he offered, trying to figure out the weird post-sex mood she was in.

“Bye, Will,” she replied, a smile never gracing her features.

* * *

Tori had accepted there was going to be a perpetual lump in her throat until this was all taken care of. Unfortunately, she had to face the second hardest part of this whole thing. The first had been saying good-bye to Will, no matter how oblivious he was to it.

But asking Brandon for help, asking him to keep it from Will, well, that was a whole load of crap in itself.

“It has to be done,” she whispered to herself.

She’d hurried through her excursion, desperate to time it so she could get back and talk to Brandon before Will was done with his. She’d been curt with a few question askers, and was probably the new cause of Mile High losing repeat customers.

She pressed a hand to her heart and tried to even her breath and blink back the tears for good, but it was hard to push away all those emotional responses.

She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted Gracely and Will and the future she’d always planned to have.

Life had taught her better, time and time again. Better to do it on her own terms than let something or someone else clobber her again. She had to remember that.

It was incomprehensible how hard that was when she’d built her whole life on it, but she supposed Will had always been her Achilles’ heel. So maybe it made all the sense in the world this was the hardest thing she’d ever done—even harder than leaving home, because as scary as that had been she’d had to do it to survive, to keep herself safe.

Now she was only trying to keep her heart safe, and that seemed such a little thing. Maybe she could . . .

She marched forward into the Mile High offices. The longer she procrastinated, the longer she had time to second-guess herself. Did she really want to be the hurt, weak-willed thing she’d been after Will had crushed her the first time?

Hell, no.

Skeet was at the front desk, and he raised an eyebrow as she stormed by, but Tori otherwise ignored him. She had a mission. She had to rip this Band-Aid off.

She went straight to Brandon’s office, relieved beyond belief that he was sitting there, alone, a phone cradled to his shoulder as he squinted at a computer screen.

He motioned her inside, and she closed the door behind her. He murmured a few things into the speaker, but he was looking at her speculatively. As though he could see through what she thought was a pretty good calm and certain façade.

“Well, e-mail me the numbers then, and we’ll go over it at our next meeting. Yeah. Bye.” Brandon pushed End on his phone and smiled blandly at Tori. “What’s up?”

“I need you to do me a favor.” She swallowed. “A big one.”

“All right.”

“I’m . . .” Why was this so hard? She knew exactly what she had to say, sweaty palms and sick feeling in her stomach be damned. No one else was going to protect her. She had to do it herself. “I need to . . . I was thinking about getting out of Colorado. I’ve been here . . . so long.”

His eyebrows puzzled together. “I don’t follow.”

“Would you know of anywhere, kind of like this, out of Colorado, that might be hiring, that you could put in a good word for me?” She was messing it all up, and sounding like an idiot in the process. “The point is, I have to leave.”

Brandon’s expression went from confused to serious and he pushed out of the chair. “What’s happened?”

The demand was so forceful, the truth nearly came tumbling out. A reflex to that no-nonsense tone. Except what happened was none of Brandon’s business. “N-nothing.”

“Tori. You’ve been here, hell, not even two months. You can’t leave again.”

“I . . . I have to.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and she’d forgotten that his natural leadership and innate power didn’t just exist inside Mile High or business. Brandon was like that with everything and everyone.

Except maybe Lilly. Would Lilly understand? Maybe Tori should have appealed to her, but it was too late now.

“L-look. So. I . . .” She let out a shaky breath. Hell, she wasn’t in the wrong here, she might as well tell him the truth. Surely he’d see . . . he’d understand. Brandon understood people better than anyone she knew, so he’d get it.

“Will seems to think . . . Well, it’s just, he’s got it in his head we can . . .”

“He’s in love with you.”

“No.” She said it on more of a gasp than was probably necessary, but the last thing she wanted to hear was that word. “No. Look. No. Things are all . . . No, and I just need to leave. We can’t . . . I need you to help me find a job, and if you can’t, it doesn’t change my mind. I can’t stay.”

His mouth flattened. “This seems sudden,” he said, his voice accusatory at best.

Which was helpful, really, because she’d accuse him right back. “I’ve thought long and hard about it.”

“I see. And what did Will say?”

Tori had to look away. This wasn’t going at all like she needed to, and it was her own fault. She was panicking. Not acting rationally. She should have gone home and planned it all out. She should have done everything different.

“Tori,” Brandon admonished, his hands falling to his sides.

“Don’t tell Will,” she said, losing what little pride she had left. “Please.”

His mouth went even harder. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Please? Please. Not for me, but for his own good.”

Brandon’s eyebrows furrowed again, as though she was speaking some foreign language he couldn’t work out. “What about yours?”

Her own good? Hell, this was for her survival. “This is for everyone’s own good.” She knew. She knew.

Nothing about this meeting had surprised her so far, but Brandon resting his hands on her shoulders did.

He looked down at her, trying to figure her out, so much like Will. Same dark, thick hair, same hazel eyes, same beard hiding so much.

But Brandon was her friend, not her heart. She didn’t understand him the way she understood Will. She didn’t understand anyone the way her soul locked with Will’s.

Which was the scariest thought of them all.

“I’m telling you what I would have told him seven years ago, had he asked. I don’t know what happened, but I do know running away isn’t the answer.”

“I don’t have a choice,” she managed to say, sounding sure. Because it was the truth. Truths were always hard. The right choice was always the hard choice. She’d learned. She knew.

“Of course you do,” Brandon returned.

Had he said it in an offhanded, condescending manner she’d heard Brandon employ often, she might have bristled. But he said it in that even, certain way that made her heart waver.

Did she have a choice?

“He’s not the same man, and I’d wager you’re not the same woman. This isn’t the same life any of us had seven years ago. You have a choice, of course you do. Having a choice is the hardest part of the whole thing. You don’t want to consider love, fine, but I don’t say it lightly when I say he cares about you, in a way he’s possibly never cared about anyone else, including himself.”

Her heart twisted, painful and scraping. “He thinks he does, but he . . . He doesn’t . . . He can’t . . .” She couldn’t find the words, or maybe she didn’t want to give them to Brandon. “Look, it doesn’t happen for me, okay? My life is a cruel cosmic joke. I’m saving everyone the trouble.”

He squeezed her shoulders, and though she refused to look up at him she could feel that heavy weight of his gaze. “We get to choose our lives, Tori. What we fight for. What we’ll hurt for.”

She pushed his hands away and stepped back, finding the strength to meet his concern with her righteous certainty. “I’m done hurting.” That was the beginning and end of it. Hurt was shit, and she was done with it. Life was about finding good and happy and easy. It was about being able to take a breath, not going through bloody and broken always wondering when someone would realize what she’d always known . . .

“If you won’t help me, that’s fine.”

“I’ll always help you, Tor. Always.”

“Then don’t tell him!” She swallowed, at the lump, at the rising tide of panic, at all the emotion swamping her.

“He’s my brother.”

“And he means more. Yeah, I get it. Someone always means more,” she muttered to herself. There was her certainty. Her reminder.

“If you’ve got a scorecard locked away in there you’ll always lose. Because life is not a win and loss column.”

“Well, you’re very wise and all, but I’ve got shit to do.”

“I’m not wise,” he said, even as she walked away. “But I learned that love will always be scary, and it will always hurt, and sometimes you have to do the thing you think you can’t.”

Tori closed her eyes briefly, but she didn’t stop her retreat. No, not retreat. This was an exit. A good-bye. Inevitable and necessary.

Brandon only thought different because he was married, because he was the type of man who could move mountains if he so chose.

Tori didn’t have that kind of power. Never had, and she never would. She marched through the front room of Mile High again, and though Skeet didn’t look up from his desk, he did speak.

“You’ll always regret running away. Trust me,” he muttered.

She gaped at the old man she barely knew, but he busied himself with papers on his desk, and Tori . . .

She had to get out of here. Clearly, it was some kind of insane asylum. Maybe some screwed-up nightmare.

Either way, it was done, and she had to go home and pack up the life she’d always wanted.