Page 28 of Fire

And not from afar for a few seconds in a crowded restaurant.

The door swung open, but instead of finding Gwen, he was met with her roommate. “I need to see Gwen.” At three AM, he didn’t sugarcoat the reason—no matter how obvious—for his visit.

“She’s sleeping. Like I was until a minute ago.”

He went to take a step forward and almost got the door slammed in his face.

“Not so fast.” Allie was eyeing him through the gap.

He didn’t want a confrontation with Gwen’s best friend, so he would try reasoning with her first, but make no mistake, he was getting in.

Placing his hand on the doorframe, he leaned in closer and used a word he rarely used. “Please. I just want to talk to her.”

He spent the next thirty seconds being glared at before she finally relented. “Fine. I’ll ask if she wants to see you, but if not, you’re out of luck.”

She made to close the door. “Wait.” He slipped his foot in the gap to prevent it from falling all the way shut. “She hasn’t been taking my calls.”

Allie glanced down at his foot then back to his face. “You’re not going to go away peacefully.”

It wasn’t a question, she was stating the obvious, but he answered anyway. “No.”

She threw open the door. “Fine. But you’ll wait while I go get her. No sneak attacks.”

He could live with that. With a nod, he made his way to the living room and sat on the couch while Allie went in the direction of the bedrooms.

He had a long wait, and in the state Gwen was in when she appeared—hair all over the place, sleepy-eyed, and big baggy clothes—it was clear she hadn’t used that time to make herself presentable. More likely, it had taken Allie that long to convince Gwen to talk to him because he wouldn’t be leaving until she did.

But even with messy hair, baggy clothes, and, especially, sleepy eyes, she was beautiful. Even more so than when she fixed herself up. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and for a man like him, surrounded by beauty daily, that was saying a lot.

He’d missed her. The four days they were apart had felt like a lifetime. He must have picked up the phone a hundred times to call her, ask for her forgiveness, only to change his mind, thinking it was for the best. But what happened at the restaurant, had been a game changer. He needed to talk to her and set things straight. Because as bad as thinking Gwen feared him had been, thinking she hated him was even worse.

He stood when Gwen entered the room. Allie, he noted, had thankfully made herself scarce.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was a touch raspy, and that was sexy as hell, too.

“I tried calling.”

“Yeah, I saw, then turned my phone off.”

Direct hit.

“I suppose I deserved that.”

“That and more.” Her tone implied she was pissed, but her eyes told a different story. Hurt shone in their depths, and it gave him hope. If she hurt, she still cared.

But he couldn’t rectify the situation if she wouldn’t talk to him. “Will you at least come and sit down?”

“Not until you tell me why you’re here.”

Stubborn.

Frustrated, he slid a hand through his hair, trying to be patient—not one of his best qualities. “I want to talk to you. Explain what you saw.”

“And you needed to do that at three in the morning? It couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

He shook his head and took a step in her direction but stopped when her eyes narrowed into a glare. “I couldn’t let that last look I saw on your face at the restaurant go unanswered.”

She folded her arms across her chest, tucking the material tight to her tits. Fuck she even made an ugly, old T-shirt look sexy.

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