Page 70 of The Man I Love

26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

July

Present Day

The soundof a rooster’s crow startled Samantha from a dream—one about Tristan—that was so hot and heavy she immediately shifted to see if she was still dressed. She was, but Tristan’s heavy thigh was now tangled with her own, his hand on her belly, and his face so close to hers on his pillow that they practically touched noses.

She immediately turned away, taking a full breath.

He moved. “Sorry, I?—”

“It’s okay…”

His voice was groggy and husky. She slipped her thigh from beneath his heavy one and rolled toward the edge of the bed. “Habits,” she murmured. And it was true. That’s all it was...right?

She placed her feet on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. The light was still dim through the window, showing the sun hadn’t fully risen in the sky. She got up to use the restroom, but when she turned around his eyes were on her stomach.

Her shirt had risen slightly while she slept, and her cotton panties were now visible for the whole world to see.

Not thewholeworld.

Just him.

His eyes drifted up to hers, and she held completely still.

He hadn’t touched her, yet she could feel him all around her. It had been months since he’d looked at her that way. With heat. With desire, and somewhere along the way she’d convinced herself she was no longer desirable. Her stomach too round, her skin too stretched— yet here he was, telling her with absolute certainty that wasn’t true. Every cell in her body lit on fire. She swallowed, remembering what usually came next.

Her eyes fell to the floor, and she slipped into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She needed air. Needed time to process all that happened. The good—because for the first time in months they had talked as though they were friends. And the bad—because they had crossed lines, and she wasn’t sure how to get back.

For the rest of the morning, they were silent. They just packed up their things and were back on the road after sunrise. By noon, heat overwhelmed her again. The cab was sticky, and sweltering, filled with the repulsive heat of Utah. She comforted herself knowing they only had about seven hours left until they reached her apartment. For the millionth time on this trip, she cursed the moving truck company for thinking this truck was fit for human occupancy. She wasn’t sure if it was possible, but the air blowing around the cab seemed hotter than the heat, which visibly rose from the street in translucent waves.

Samantha shifted in her seat, counting every minute, every second, until she was finally home.

“Are you okay?” Tristan asked—which was the same question he’d asked at least a hundred times since they’d left New York.

She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was at the beach somewhere. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” But even to her own ears, she sounded irritated.

Discomfort spread like a disease over her entire body. Her nerves were razor thin, but she was determined not to take her frustration out on him. “It’s the hormones, I think. My body feels like it’s on fire.”

“Let’s stop, get a cold drink somewhere?” His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror.

“We just stopped. If we keep stopping, we’ll never get anywhere.”

“We can stop again.”

“No.” And it was final. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want a drink. She just wanted to hurry and get this trip over with, so she never had to see this moving truck again.

He didn’t say another word after that—but twenty minutes later the truck began to slow, and she opened her eyes to see they’d veered off the interstate.

“What are you doing?” she asked, sitting up.

“Detour.”

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