Page 7 of Shattered Hearts

The thought of confronting the past exhausts me, this conversation has exhausted me, and I slump against Gage’s chest. We might have gotten things out into the open, but it didn’t accomplish anything.

I still feel like I am literally losing my mind.

“I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

“Okay.” She pats my arm, and after a second thought, hugs me. Her hair smells like the vanilla conditioner she likes, and I breathe in the comforting scent.

“You came for me.”

She rocks, and I’m uncomfortable, half in her arms, half in Gage’s lap, the awkward angle burning my ribs.

“I’d do it again a million times,” she whispers into my ear. “You’re my sister and I’ll do anything for you. Just ask.” She leans away and brushes the hair away from my face. “We’ll let you talk.”

Zane opens his mouth to protest, but Stella pulls on his hand. Ingrid leaves too, and the room’s quiet. It’s just me and Gage, and all the shit I’ve caused because I can’t take care of myself.

“I’m sorry.” I crawl out of his lap, tuck myself into the corner of the couch, and drag a pillow into my lap.

“No, I am.” He stands and unzips his jacket. Tossing it onto the couch Zane and Stella were just sitting on, he says, “Zane’s probably right. We wouldn’t be in this mess if we had gone slower. I’m sorry, Zarah. I was too damned excited to be with you to think about what you needed from me.”

“That’s not true. All you’ve done is what I’ve asked you to do. Less. I would have made love to you that night, but you knew I wasn’t ready and you stopped me. I don’t know how much more you could give me. All I know is I need you. These past two weeks have been hell. I didn’t know if you were giving up on me, if I would ever see you again. Zane took my cell phone, or I would have called. I tell myself I would have, but I was scared of what you’d say.” I wipe tears off my cheeks.

“Sweetheart, I don’t want to be bad for you. If your setback is my fault, I should leave you alone.”

His words send a shudder of dread through my body. “No! That would hurt more than anything you could ever do to me.”

I press my face into the pillow, and howling, I let out all my grief. I feel safe with him, safe to be who I am. And right now that’s a sad, lost little girl who would lose everything if the man she loves walked out the door.

Gage sits on the couch, and I push him back, my tears dripping onto his shirt. He lies against a decorative pillow, and I cover his body with mine, wiggling against him. I need to be as close to him as possible.

Sighing, he wraps his arms around me. “I don’t want to leave you alone, either. I love you, and these past two weeks have been hell for me, too. I don’t know what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s up, or what’s down. All Idoknow is Zane and I need to work together to get you better. He’s been talking to your doctors, not me, and I shouldn’t fight against him. If your doctors recommend we slow down, then we have no choice. I’ll start bringing Baby out to run in the woods. You’ll be in city to go to your therapy sessions and we can have lunch. We’ll still see each other.”

My heart starts to hammer. We can still see each other, sterile dates and chaste kisses, but it won’t be enough. “I need more,” I beg against his lips. “I need more.”

He opens his mouth, and I slip my tongue between his teeth, his familiar flavor a balm soothing the burning fear I’ve lived with during the weeks without him. He fists my hair, angling my head, allowing him to deepen the kiss, and I gladly let him. Anything to keep him close, to keep him from giving up on me. I press against his cock, and it’s hard under the fly of his jeans.

I want him right here, right now. If we make love, maybe he’ll never leave me. In the back of my mind, I think that’s stupid, but I can’t stop myself from offering, just like Jerricka talked about in her office. Offer, offer something I might not be ready to give, if it will only keep him with me.

Furiously, I grind against him, and he squeezes my butt, lapping at my mouth.

He wants me, and I reach for the button of his jeans.

“No. No, Zarah.” He yanks away and gulps in air through his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut. “No. Even if I didn’t thinkit would hurt you, we can’t make love in your living room. It’s not romantic, and it’s disrespectful to the other people in this house.” Gage cups my face in his hands. There’s no recrimination in his eyes, only regret he has to stop. “I want it more than you know, but now isn’t the time.”

Defeated, I rest my head on his chest. I know sex won’t make him stay, not if he really wanted to go, but like thousands of women before me, I thought, nohoped, maybe, maybe it would. “One day you’re going to leave me. You’ll get tired of who I am, who Ash turned me into, and leave.”

Gage forces me to look at him and searches my eyes. “The person you are, right now, is the woman I love. When all this is over, say you’ll marry me. You would never break a promise, would you? Marry me, Zarah. A little ceremony. Just you and me, Zane and Stella. Lucille. Pop. Baby. I’ll promise you my life in front of the only people who matter.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes.”

I let our promises soothe me. They’re all I have, and I wrap his words around my heart, even after he leaves, even after I swallow the medication Jerricka insists I need to get better, even as I lie in the dark hoping to sleep because my reality has turned scarier than any nightmare I could ever have.

CHAPTER THREE

Gage

“Give Zarah back her phone. That’s emotional abuse.”

Zane’s in his study, leaning back in his chair and sipping a lowball of something that looks really damned good. My edges are so raw, if someone brushed up against me, they’d be a bloody mess all over the floor.

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