Page 29 of Insta-Love

“Ava, wait.” He murmurs the words while he pulls me back, effortlessly turning me to face him with one smooth sweep of his arm.

This will never work …

His eyes hold me captive, only the whisper of the night air between us while I drink in every detail of this man before me.

Gone are the slight wrinkles around his eyes that say he mocks me with his words.

Gone is the furrow to his brow that says he detests me.

Instead, I find only honesty and even a hint of confusion staring back at me.

“Say it,” I dare.

His broad chest rises and falls with quickened breaths, the slightest twitch in the hand that still grips my arm.

“Say it, or let me go.”

He swallows thickly, nostrils flaring before he carefully sounds out the thought that seemingly brought him here, to now. “I don’t know what it’s like to be loved.”

My shoulders drop. “You have over close to a million people who love you.”

“Not like that.” His brow furrows, his head dropping as he shakes it. “Like you love Lily. Unconditional. Real.”

Why is he telling me this? Does he want me to mother him? Because as much as I’m down with the idea of stroking this man’s hair while he rests his head in my lap, I’m not into that kind of kink.

“All that gratitude online?” He huffs, dropping his hand from my arm. “It’s hollow. It’s like chasing the end of the rainbow.”

I reach out and set my palm gently against the hard planes of his stomach, desperate to reconnect when he’s so open, so vulnerable. “Are you okay?”

He takes a moment to answer, the conflict so clear in his features as he twists his mouth, still unable to look at me. “Does it sound like I am?”

The snark is there in his reply, yet the cadence of his words tells me he fights so hard not to push me away.

I sigh out my nose, glancing to my parents’ house before settling my gaze back on this conundrum before me. Damn, empathy. It gets you nowhere in life—honestly.

“I’m not in a hurry to do anything if you wanted to make me a coffee,” I say with a slight tease to my tone.

Come on, you big rock—crack.

He chews his bottom lip in that arrogant way men do as he lifts his chin and seeks out my eyes. “Coffee?”

“I swear to God, if you’re reading anything other than a need for caffeine after a long day …”

The deep resonance of his chuckle is a thing to herald. My money is on that being a sound he doesn’t share all too often.

“Sure.” Bowen steps away from my touch, circumventing me to head for his door. “You want to let them know you’ll be a bit longer?”

“No.” I shake my head and turn to follow. “I might live at home again, but I don’t have a curfew.”

He grins at my jest, slotting the key in the door. “Pity. Could have been fun to make you break the rules.”

I swallow back the apprehension that lodges in my throat as he disappears inside the darkened house. A flood of light follows soon after, Bowen framed in the hallway.

“Coming?”

“Yeah.” What the hell for, though, I don’t know.

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