Page 80 of Tulips and Lost Time

“Yep.” I lower to the edge of the dock, dangling my feet over the side until my toes touch the water, and setting my hands behind my back so they act as a leaning post. “I’m refusing to leave. This is a public place, I feel like I can’t breathe when I can’t see you, and you can’t control who is here.”

“I guess that’s where you’re wrong.” She tosses the fabric off her face, angry as she sits up again, and completely hurdling my middle statement. “Because I can control me. That’s actually a lesson you taught me years ago.”

“I did?” I tilt my head and watch as she flips to her hands and knees and hurriedly begins packing her things. “Care to elaborate?”

“Sure.” She lobs her lotion to the middle of her towel, then her sunglasses and keys. It’s like she’s preparing to make a knapsack. “You taught me, way back when I was younger and less worldly, that no matter how much I wished for something to be true, no matter how much I wished that you would come for me, I can’t control you. I can’t control anyone except myself.” She folds her towel, tucking things in so they remain secure. “You taught me that even if I loved you, and even if you not sleeping with my sister was, like, the bare minimum thing to do, you were still going to do whatever you were going to do. It was outside of my control. But—” She pushes to her feet, practically downward-dogging the lake and me for a split second before she straightens, “I can control how I deal with it. The Britt thing, I handled by pretending you no longer existed. This lake thing,” she turns and folds her arms, staring down at me like I’m nothing more than a bug on the bottom of her shoe, “I can control by removing myself.”

“So you’re leaving?” I laze back, moving my hands and taking up entirely too much space. “That’s it for us, Bear? You’re never going to speak to me again?”

“If I can help it.” She nestles her things in her arms and creates a double chin as she glares down at me. “Please move.”

“Can’t.” I lie back, taking up the whole width of the dock so she’ll have to step over me if she wants to pass. “I’m feeling a little lazy. And I don’t want to move. Fortunately, we’ve just established you can’t control me. So…” I squint my eyes most of the way closed to shield them from the sun, then I listlessly wave a hand toward the water. “Go over me. Or swim around. Control you.”

“You’re being an asshole.” She would stomp her foot, if only her too-mature self would dare allow it. “I don’t want to step over you. It’s no secret you’re a pervert.”

“Oh sure,” I chuckle. “I’m also the asshole who wouldn’t mack on you when you were begging for it. I’m the asshole who had a beautiful woman resting on his chest, pleading for me to put my tongue down her throat. But I’m the pervert.”

“Move!”

I open my eyes and cast a glance along the lake’s edge. Is anyone watching her throw a tantrum? “What would you say if Marcus drove out here right now and saw this little orange bikini show you were putting on?”

“I’d say he has poor taste in friends. Then I’d help him kick you to the curb and find someone better.” She spies the other side of the dock, gauging how far she has to step to clear my broad frame. “I’d also tell him not to comment on my clothes. Since he’s clearly a more evolved man and knows better than to shame a woman for what she wears.”

I snort, and braver than I thought I could be, I wrap my hand around her ankle and stroke her creamy flesh with the pad of my thumb. “I don’t recall shaming you.” I look up into her terrified eyes and swallow. “I merely commented on it. What I didn’t say out loud was that you look absolutely fucking delicious in that tiny scrap of nothing.”

“Luc—”

“I didn’t say the bit about wishing you would forgive me. Or the part where I’m desperate to just be near you. We don’t have to be touching. Or dating. Or even best friends. But nearness…” I draw a long breath and hate how her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “I would die to be near you again, Kari. Breathing the same air.”

“Please let me go.” Her voice crackles, an ache so deep, it makes my heart tug. “Please let me live my life without worrying about your happiness.”

“I worry about yours.” Slowly, I push up to sit and drag my hand along her calf, hovering at the back of her knee and gulping because her leg breaks out in goosebumps. “I worry about you every fucking minute I’m awake. And when I sleep?—”

“Luc…”

“I dream of you.” Carefully, I bring my free hand up and gently tug her things from her tight grasp. Thankfully, the towel doesn’t unravel and the phone and keys she hid in the center remain secure. Then I set everything down before I bring my eyes back up. “There wasn’t a moment I didn’t want you, Kari. There was just right and wrong. I was doing the best I could to get us through a period of our lives where it was simply not okay for us to be together.”

“You hurt me. You sent me away. And then you continued to hurt me, even while I was gone.”

“You pretended to date a dude twice your size, allowing him to sleep over so much the girls created a nickname based around the size of his cock.” I draw my hand along the back of her thigh. But I don’t go so far as to cup her ass. I don’t violate her completely… until she’s ready. “I made bad choices over the years, Bear. I admitted to them. And I never hid them from you. But when I tell you it took everything I had to not drive over to your place and put a scalpel in Blake’s heart?—”

“So your self-control is to be celebrated,” she drawls. “You didn’t kill a man, and so, you’re a hero?”

“I didn’t take you when you were eighteen, even though I wanted to. That makes me the fuckin’ messiah.”

“You’re a pig.”

“And you still want me. You’ve always wanted me, and I’ve always wanted you. We know how this ends, Bear. So how about you stop fighting it and just sit in my lap?”

I’m such an asshole.

“Marcus would kill you if I told him the things you’re saying to me.”

“Uh huh.” I flash a wide grin and thrill in the way her eyes drop to my lips. “You’re not ready to give in to me yet?”

“No! I?—”

So I do what any man in my position would do. Noble or not. I grab her hip and shove her to the side, physically yeeting her off the dock until she floats in free air for an impossibly long second. Her wild hair flipping around her head, and her eyes, wide like saucers.

---