Page 27 of Only You and Me

When I rip my eyes away from her chest and look up at her face, she’s biting her lower lip, watching me nervously. I mistake the look in her eyes as a sign she’s regretting that our shirts are off, so I reach for mine and move to put it back on. She grabs my wrist and stops me.

I take my free hand and cup her face. “It’s okay. We can go back to just kissing. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t wa?—”

“I want to. It’s just…” She casts her eyes downward.

“Hey, it’s okay. Look at me and tell me. Nothing you say could make me upset.”

“I don’t take this lightly. That’s all. You have more experience than me and I want you to know the physical stuff means something to me. Okay?”

“Trina, believe me when I say that since the moment our lips first touched outside your apartment that night, everything in me has regretted that I have so much experience. I wish I didn’t, but I can’t change it. I can only promise you that this means a lot—everything really—to me, too.”

I watch as she reaches behind her, never taking her eyes off of me, and unhooks her bra. She lets it fall off her shoulders, then slips it off her arms. And I’m a ruined man.

We stay on the beach for another hour and a half, exploring each other’s bodies with our hands. Initially, everything stays above the waist, but when she begs me to touch her under her panties, I don’t have the strength to say no, to suggest we wait. We don’t have sex, but we both find our release in the touch of the other. Afterward, we lie on the blanket holding each other until Trina dozes off.

She has to work tomorrow so, after a few minutes, I kiss her on her head and reluctantly wake her so I can get her home, and she can go to sleep. When I drop her off at her door twenty minutes later, she tries to pull me into the apartment, but I resist. As much as I would love a repeat of this evening, what she really needs right now is sleep. She doesn’t argue too much, which is how I know she realizes it as well.

After I kiss her goodnight, I walk away, then remember I needed to ask her something. “What time should I pick you up on Thursday?”

Her brow furrows. “Thursday?”

“Yeah, remember I told you my parents are having a birthday party for Jack and me?”

A strange expression crosses her face, and she looks down at her feet. “Oh, um… I’m not sure me coming to that is such a good idea.”

Confusion washes over me. “Huh?”

She sighs deeply, peering up at me. “Ben, I’m not ready for other people to know about us yet.” She must see my eyes widen because she quickly tries to explain. “What if you tire of this—of me? What if…”

She stops talking and stares down at the ground.

“You don’t trust me.” It comes out as a whisper, not because I blame her—I don’t—but because I realize my reputation has caught up with me and is hurting my relationship with the one woman I actually care about.

Her only response is, “I’m sorry.”

I arrive at the Police Station and turn off my vehicle, then rest my head back on the headrest and sigh. If I have any hope of keeping the tenuous truce that lets Trina and I coexist slightly more peacefully recently, I have to remember all the work I’ve done to grow and be a better man than I was years ago. I have to stay self-aware of my potential triggers and avoid reverting to old attitudes. It’s not easy, but I have to do it. If not for me, then for her.

And I’d do just about anything for her.

CHAPTER8

TRINA

The sensation from my fists slamming into Fitz allows a tiny bit of my tension to release. I haven’t been this stressed since I went to the fire academy almost a decade ago. Back then I had to deal daily with several testosterone fueled misogynists who made it no secret that they didn’t think women should be firefighters.

I can’t believe I was stupid enough to let down my guard and drink so much that I not only fell into bed with Ben, but married him. Whether or not the license gets filed and the marriage is legitimate, the evidence shows that I must have stood before some officiant—or scam artist posing as an officiant—and made vows to the only man I’ve ever loved. And the only man I’ve ever let break my heart—romantically, anyway. My dad broke my heart all the time, but that was different.

So, the rage coming out in my punches today is about all of it—what I let happen in the past, and what I let happen in Las Vegas. I’m also pissed because, despite our conversation on his patio, on my next workday, Ben had the nerve to send me a bouquet of pink tulips at work. I promptly removed the card and dumped them in the trash while my crew watched, and I pocketed the card to dispose of where none of them could find it and read it.

Adding insult to injury, on my shift yesterday, another bouquet arrived. Pink roses this time. I’m not sure what Ben is playing at, but he needs to stop screwing with me. With an intense need to release the escalating tension, I spin and land a roundhouse kick to the pads Fitz is holding. His eyes widen when he stumbles back a few feet toward the wall.

As strong as I am and as often as Fitz and I box, I’ve never been able to move my mountain of a best friend when we’re sparring like this. I’m shocked, but the brief look on his face is priceless—bulging eyes and a gaping jaw. He quickly recovers and grins before dropping the strike pads he’s holding and raising his hands up toward me, palms out.

“Okay. You win today. But don’t think you could normally knock me back like?—”

I’m not done.

Because when I recall sitting on my back porch this morning and opening both cards that came with the flowers, I’m filled with fury. The written words have been repeating in my mind since I saw them. “I can’t stop thinking about you” and “I keep dreaming about you.Maybe it’s a sign we should spend time together.”

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