Rhett

“If a good person does a bad thing but had good intentions, does that make them a bad person?” Ayla stands on the other side of my door this afternoon. Her hazel eyes are glassy, and she chews the inside of her lower lip. Before I have a chance to answer, she pushes past me, showing herself in and dropping her bag on my counter.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Just answer my question.”

I rake my palm along my jaw, studying her.

She did something. I can tell. It explains why she’s pulling away and being short with me lately. But the question isn’t what she did, it’s do I really want to know?

“I need context,” I say.

Her arms fold. “I can’t give you context.”

“Then I can’t give you my answer.”

She exhales, her lips slightly pouty as she stares at my feet.

“Ayla, relax.” I go to her, sliding my hands down her arms until they stop at her waist, and then I pull her body against mine. Tasting her lips, I inhale her soft scent. Just being with her quiets the storm in my mind, and I’ve missed this so much. “You want a drink?”

“It’s three o’clock.”

“Your point?”

She hesitates. “Yes.”

I go to the fridge and grab her a beer, twisting the cap and tossing it in the sink before handing over the brown bottle. She chugs drink after drink, letting it slosh around before bringing it to her lips all over again.

“Come on.” I take the beer from her clenched fist and sit it aside before lifting her onto the counter. Her legs straddle my hips as our eyes meet, and I reach for the buttons of her jeans before working them down her hips and yanking them off her thighs.

“We can’t keep doing this,” she says.

“Doing what?”

“Distracting ourselves with sex,” she answers.

“That’s the entire point.” I slip a finger beneath the waistband of her panties, sliding it between her folds, aided by the slickness of her arousal. God, all I have to do is look at her and she’s wet, and that turns me on like nothing else has ever turned me on before.

“Oh, god,” she says with a hitch in her breath when I plunge two fingers deep inside. Her eyes squeeze and her head rolls to the side while I drive my fingers in and out with steady friction. Reaching for my shoulder, she braces herself against me.

“That’s what I thought.” I slide her panties off completely before spreading her thighs apart and feasting my eyes on her gorgeous pussy. Lowering my mouth to her perfect mound, I taste her. Soft strokes, then hard. I slip a finger inside, dragging my tongue along her seam then circling her swollen clit.

Ayla leans back, resting on her elbows with her head hanging limp between her shoulders. I devour her pussy, pulling her lips between my teeth before letting them go, alternating unrestrained with gentle, soft with hard, and fast with slow. I stay down there for ages, going harder and faster when I hear her breath grow jagged. When her hand reaches for my hair, grabbing a fistful, and her hips buck against my mouth, I know she’s almost there.

“Come on my mouth,” I whisper, my breath hot against her pussy. “Just let yourself go.”

Her hips buck and writhe as my fingers push deeper inside her, curling and stroking against her g-spot as my tongue laps her arousal and flicks her sensitive crux.

Ayla releases a harbored moan, pulling my hair, and her body tightens before it releases. When it’s over, she’s limp and lifeless, her body melting into the cool marble counter like a spent sex kitten.

I give her a second before helping her up, and with wobbly legs she slips her jeans and panties back on.

Sliding the beer in her direction, I head to the fridge and grab one for myself. I’d ask her to return the favor because I’m hard as a goddamn fucking rock right now, but she seems a little out of it.

Ayla climbs onto one of the bar stools, taking a small sip, her eyes dancing nervously between mine and the bottle before her.

“What?” I ask.

“I was just thinking ...” her voice dwindles. “I’m going to miss this.”

“Of course you are. It’s fucking amazing.” I twist the cap off my beer.

“I don’t just mean the sex,” she says. “I mean… I don’t know. I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I’m in love with you or something.”

My heart freezes, and our eyes lock. She shouldn’t have said that. Why the fuck did she just say that?

She places a palm toward me, defensive.

“I’m not in love with you, let me make that clear,” she says, sitting up tall. “I just mean, someday, I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss what we had, and I’ll probably even miss what we’ll never have.”

“What we had?” I scoff. “Ayla, we don’t have anything. We have sex. That’s it.”

“I’m not making myself clear.”

“Who the hell are you?” My forehead wrinkles, and I take another swig. I need it. “You’ve been different lately.”

“Don’t you think it’s kind of sad that we have all this chemistry and we’re so good together—physically—but we can’t even have a regular conversation like two regular people?” she asks. “Every time I so much as hint at taking our conversations in a deeper direction, you deflect. You change the subject.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” I take a bigger drink.

Ayla places her hand over her heart. “You’re so closed off. You’re cold. Emotionally, you’re cold. And I worry about you.”

“Don’t waste your time. I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?” she asks.

I don’t answer.

“Maybe you don’t want happiness with me,” she says. “Maybe you don’t want anything with me, and that’s fine. You shouldn’t. We’re all kinds of wrong for each other in ways you couldn’t even imagine because you won’t let me tell you a damn thing about myself, but I digress.”

I roll my eyes. “No clue what you’re talking about.”

“That’s exactly the problem.” She rises off the bar stool, walking toward me. When she reaches her destination, she cups her soft hand against my tense jaw, her eyes gently narrowing. “I just hope someday you get what you need.”

“You sound like my …” I stop myself, refraining from bring up Irena because then Ayla might ask questions, and I don’t want to have to explain anything.

“Are you afraid of getting hurt?” she asks.

“Afraid?” I chuckle before taking another drink, then I leave the tight space we share, heading to the sofa in the living room. She follows. “Wait a sec. You showed up here acting all weird, and now you’re turning everything around on me. Do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time trying to psychoanalyze me.”

“I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you. I just wish—” she stops herself, sinking into the sofa beside me. She’s close enough that she could touch me if she wanted, but she keeps her hands to herself, bathing me in nothing but a sympathetic gaze.

Now it’s all starting to make sense. She saw the photos of Damiana and probably took it upon herself to conduct a little background research, and I’m sure she’s drawn some kind of conclusion that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“So you read some articles about me and now you think you know everything.” I exhale, staring forward at a lifeless fireplace. “And on top of thinking you know everything, now you feel sorry for me.”

“What happened to you is a matter of public record, but no, I didn’t go digging up anything,” she says. “And I don’t feel sorry for you, Rhett.”

“Good. That makes two of us.”

“Your situation is none of my business, and I’m sure you’re using me to distract yourself from any real emotions,” she says. “But I find it concerning that you won’t have an actual conversation with me. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

“For a writer, it sure takes you a hell of a long time to get to the point,” I say, huffing.

“You make me tongue-tied. And sometimes my thoughts don’t make sense when I think about you,” she says. “And on top of that, I always feel like I’m walking on eggshells around you, like I’m two seconds from saying the wrong thing that’s going to completely flip this bizarre dynamic we have.”

“Bizarre dynamic? We fuck. That’s it. Stop trying to make it into something else.”

She licks her lips, exhaling. “We’re past that, Rhett. This is something else whether or not we want to admit it.”

I roll my eyes, rising out of the chair and moving toward the floor-to-ceiling window on the north wall.

“You want it to be something else,” I say, not asking. “That’s what this is about.”

In an instant she’s behind me, her hand resting on my shoulder, barely touching me. “I don’t. And I don’t expect you to believe that. I just want to be able to have a real conversation with you because I like you. And I don’t mean I like you, like I want you to be my boyfriend or something. I mean ...”

She exhales louder, her hand falling from my back. I turn to face her.

“Maybe this makes me sound like a jerk, but I don’t like a lot of people, Rhett. My whole life has been a series of disappointments,” she says. “I get my hopes up too much. Or I used to. Too many times I put my happiness in someone else’s hands only to be let down. But you? You’ve kept your word since the moment we met. Do you know how rare that is? So in that respect, I like you.”

“Great.” My tone is flat. “But what’s your point?”

“Do you like me, Rhett?” she asks.

I take a small step back, brows narrowing.

“In any capacity,” she says, “do you like me?”

“I don’t see how your question is relevant.”

“You want to see me all the time,” she says. “You blow up my phone. You demand my body every chance you get. But sometimes, the way you look at me ... the way you touch me when I’m lying in your bed ... it confuses me. I think you want to like me, Rhett. But I don’t think you’ll allow yourself. And that’s why you’re so closed off. If you let me in, you might fall for me, and that terrifies you. But guess what? I won’t let you fall for me. I’m just as terrified to fall for you too.”

Her confession sucks the air from the room for a brief moment. Falling for each other was never remotely a part of this agreement.

“I like what we have,” I say. “I don’t want it to change.”

“Because you’re afraid you might like me, and you’re afraid I might hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid of anything. I just don’t want it to change. Not sure why that’s so difficult for you to comprehend.”

Ayla lifts her fists to the air, clenching them tight before walking toward the kitchen. She’s getting nowhere with me and she’s frustrated, but this is how it has to be.

“Where are you going?” I call after her, following.

She grabs her bag from the kitchen counter. “Home.”

“So that’s it?”

All this because I won’t open up to her? Good fucking riddance.

Ayla turns to me, brushing her dark hair from her face and lifting her nose slightly. “Yeah, Rhett. I guess that’s it.”

She turns away from me, walking farther and farther away, across the apartment. It doesn’t feel real until she’s twisting the doorknob and disappearing into the hallway a moment later, the door almost slamming behind her, and suddenly there’s this cannonball-sized gaping hole in my chest.

I take a seat at the kitchen island to compose myself. Wasn’t expecting to feel a damn thing. I didn’t even think I liked her. Hell, I knew I liked her company. I liked her mouth. And her body. I liked the seductive smile on her face that appeared like magic every time I’d open the door. I liked the way she wasted no time pouncing on me and the way her body melted onto mine the second I touched her. I liked the way she smelled, like clean soap sometimes; sweet almonds other times. I liked the sound of her voice; velvety soft, calm. And her laugh; gentle and easy.

God damn it.

I think I like her.