Page 100 of Reclaim Me

“I have.”

“Why?”

“Hunter, you know why.”

“You’re right.” I’m taking slow steps towards her while her eyes beg me to stay away. My eyes tell her that she should ask me for anything else but that. I close the space between us in just a few seconds, and Rae stands her ground. Her chest heaves, and her eyes flare with restless indignation, but she stands her ground. “I do know why, so let’s skip over that and get to the part where you tell me how to get you to stop.”

Her eyes fall shut. “You can’t.”

I place one careful hand on her waist, and my thumb brushes against the sliver of skin that’s been neglected by her corset and pants. Rae sucks in a ragged breath.

“Rae.”

“Don’t do this, Hunter,” she pleads, opening her eyes again.

“Don’t do what? Don’t make you remember what it was like when you weren’t fighting me anymore? Don’t remind you that every time I told you I loved you that night, you said it back? Don’t tell you that I’ve missed you, that I regret letting you put that fucking wall back up between us when all I wanted to do is ask, no, beg, you to give us a real chance?”

It was my intention to come into this conversation with just a little bit of finesse, but it turns out that I’m incapable of doing that, so I just keep going.

“We deserve a real chance, Rae. You know it just as well as I do.”

Something inside her awakens at my assertion, and she steps back, shaking her head as she puts space between us. “No, I don’t know that, Hunter.”

“Yes, you do. You’re just too scared to admit it.”

“I’m not scared,” she lies, moving away further, this time rounding her desk to put a tangible barrier between us. “I’m just not willing to let one night of sex make me forget everything I know to be true.”

I hate everything about her tone, about the way she’s using it to keep me at arm’s length.

“And what is it you know to be true, Rae?”

Her eyes are hard as they settle on me, and I see what she’s trying to do. I see what the fear she swears she’s not caving to is making her do, and it pisses me off.

“I know that you’re not ready for this.” She gestures between us. “You think you are, but you’re not.”

My jaw clenches with restrained rage, and I contain the urge to look around this building she’s standing in and remind her of the million and one ways I’ve shown her that I am ready for this, for her, for Riley, for everything our life would entail.

“You don’t get to tell me that I can’t do this, Rae.”

“If I can’t, then who can?”

“I can!” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “I know myself. I know what I can handle and what I can’t, and I can handle this. I can handle you and all the complications and stress that come along with building something real.” I pause, and my throat aches around the broken words that come next. “I’m strong enough this time.”

“I believed you when you said that before,” Rae says, her voice deathly quiet. Her eyes razor sharp as they rove over my features with the kind of precision that tells me she’s been thinking about this for a long time. “When everything happened with Will, I trusted you when you said you were good. I listened when you said you could handle the things you took off my plate, and you crumbled under the pressure. You fell apart, and you nearly died.”

The pain on her face speaks a language that only the pain in my heart understands. They talk for a long time, their conversation filling the long, silent seconds when I can’t even formulate a response to Rae because it hurts too much to address what she’s said.

“Do you really have so little faith in me now?” I whisper. “After everything I’ve shown you? After all the ways I’ve shown up for Riley and for you?”

“I didn’t ask you to show up for me,” Rae says.

“But I did it anyway!” I roar, unable to keep my voice down, even though I know I shouldn’t yell. It just hurts so fucking much to see her so steadfast in her resolve, so committed to thinking that I’m the same man I was when I failed her all those years ago. I push out a breath, forcing myself to lower my tone. “And I did it because I love you, Rae. I did it because I love Riley. Because I love our family, and I am at my best when I am with you.”

Rae shakes her head. “I just don’t think that’s true.”

“Am I interrupting something?”

Aaron’s voice comes from behind me, and I don’t move immediately. I stare at Rae, and she stares back at me with that same maddening resolute expression. I can’t take it. I can’t stomach it. I can’t fucking believe it, so I stand there like a fool, waiting to be dismissed.

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