Page 25 of Taming Hawke

“Fuck!” Hawke growls. He looks down at his boot before kicking the outside of my door. He finally looks up at me. “Yes, but it’s not what you think,” is his answer.

My stomach dips and my knees wobble at his admission, and with all the courage I’m not feeling, I straighten, looking directly into his piercing blue eyes.

“Did you sleep with her?”

“Fuck, Lu, do you really need to ask me that?”

He looks hurt but I don’t give in. “So that’s a no?”

“Of course it’s a fucking no. I’m not a fucking asshole.”

I take a breath, the one I’ve been holding all this time, and just as I’m about to unlock the chain on my door, I ask one more question. “Did you kiss her?”

My breath hitches at the back of my throat when I see his eyes are now laced with pain.

“Lu, don’t do this,” he pleads as he tries to reach for me through the door again.

I wrap my hand around my neck, feeling my pulse run at a rapid pace. “Did you kiss her?” I repeat, and he looks down at the floor, then back into my eyes, now blurry with tears.

“It didn’t mean anything,” he admits in a low voice.

As he says those words, everything turns into slow motion for me. He kissed her, he kissed Josie, and then he came home to me.

I cover my face with my hands and cry into them, feeling ashamed that I’d trusted him.

“Lu, let me in. I can explain, it was nothing, just a kiss. I stopped it.”

“Shut up!” I yell. “I don’t want to hear it. I want you to leave.” My voice is quivering as my heart beats a thousand miles an hour.

I feel sick. My insides threaten to leave me and I sink to the ground, my back against the door. I try to push it closed but Hawke’s boot blocks it, keeping me from slamming it against his face. I begin to cry, burying my face in my knees as feelings of shame wash over me.

“Baby, please let me in. Please,” Hawke begs, his voice cracking with emotion.

“Get out, Hawke, just leave. I need some time to process this. I can’t talk to you right now.” I take in a deep breath, trying to get the words out. “You’ve broken me,” I whisper.

Slowly, my body moves backward as Hawke removes his boot, and the door shuts behind me. I can hear him out there pacing, and imagine him running his hands through his hair, unsure about how he’s going to deal with this situation. My heart wants me to open the door and run into his arms, tell him we’re going to be okay, but my mind won’t allow it. It knows that what Hawke has done is wrong. And yes, it may have been just a kiss, but to know that his lips—on mine last night, giving me such intense pleasure—were on hers before then. Well, I can’t deal with all this right now. I don’t even know who this Josie is. I do want to know, but I can’t deal with it tonight. Tonight, I need him to leave.

The shuffling of feet stops, and I jump as a loud bang hits the door, followed by him cursing. “Fuck!” I can only assume that it’s Hawke’s fist striking the hard wood. I bite down on my bottom lip to hold back my cry, and then he does it. He rips my heart out.

“Baby,” he says, his voice husky and broken. “I’ll leave right now if that’s what you want. But before I go, I need to tell you something.”

I cover my mouth with my hand, concealing my cries so I can hear him clearly.

“I love you.”

I hear him move away, and then footsteps trail down the hallway. Soon I hear nothing and know Hawke has left.

I cover my face with my hands and cry. I big-ugly cry, where my voice comes out wailing. He said he loves me.

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