Page 25 of Lonesome Man
Her light tread reached me as she came down the stairs, and I turned when she reached the bottom.
She stared back at me, her eyes sparkling, but the longer she looked at me, the more her smile slipped. Her eyes slid to the laptop behind me, then shot back to me.
“Libby?” I choked out.
Her eyes flared, then she stepped toward me, her hands lifted like she was approaching a wild animal, or maybe a skittish one that was about to bolt.
“I can explain?—”
“So it is…it’s you?” My voice sounded as wrecked as I felt.
Her slender throat worked. “Yes,” she rasped and took another step toward me.
I stumbled back, confused. Fuck, I felt sick. “What the fuck is this? Why would you do this? I don’t…” I shoved my fingers through my hair. “I don’t understand.”
“Tuck,” she whispered. “Please, let me explain.”
When she tried to step closer, I put the table between us. “Stay the fuck where you are,” I growled, betrayal and humiliation flooding me. “Was this some twisted joke to you? You cut me off four years ago, then you come out here because what? You wanted to know what it was like to fuck me? Is that it? Are you that hard up in the city that you thought, I know what, I’ll go visit Tucker, pretend I’m someone else and see if I can fuck him up more than I already have?”
“Tuck, no, please, you have to listen to me. I had no idea who I was coming to stay with?—”
“Bullshit,” I roared.
She froze, staring at me wide-eyed, and it took everything in me not to apologize for raising my voice at her. Jesus fucking Christ.
“I didn’t know it was you,” she whispered.
“I don’t fucking believe you, Libby. And even if I did, even if that was the truth, you still chose to keep who you are from me this entire time.” A laugh burst from me, and it sounded dark, hateful, even to my own ears. “No wonder you got so wet when I fucked you. You must have gotten off knowing just how much you’d fucked me up. God, you must have thought I was pathetic. That’s what all those questions were about when we were in the workshop, right? You must have loved knowing I was still hung up on you so badly that I hired someone to pretend they were you.”
“No,” she said. “I never thought that. I wanted to tell you, but then you said my name, and I…I knew?—”
“Just how much you’d messed with my head?”
“Tucker—”
“Were you afraid of me? Afraid of what I’d do if you told me?”
“No.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t pay you?”
She crossed her arms and shook her head. “God, no, I don’t want your money, I don’t?—”
“What, then? What was it that made you keep lying to me? If this is all some coincidence, why didn’t you tell me who the fuck you are?”
“Because I was scared that if I said who I was, that if I told you that every moment I was here with you, I was realizing what a huge fucking mistake I’d made, that I wouldn’t be able to leave, and I had to leave.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t stay here.”
I stared at her, my heart hammering in my chest. It felt like she’d plunged a fucking dagger in it. “Nah, Libs, I’ll be the one leaving,” I said, then strode out of the house, slammed the door behind me, got on the ATV, and tore out of the yard.
I couldn’t believe this was happening, that Libby, my Libby, was standing in my fucking kitchen.
That it had been her in my bed this whole fucking time.
No wonder I’d been so mixed up, so drawn to her.
Fuck, I thought it was bad enough when she stopped talking to me four years ago. I’d never gotten over it, how the fuck was I going to get over this, knowing what I did now? The look in her eyes when I made her laugh, when I made her come, the sound of her cries and moans, the taste of her lips, the way she felt when I was inside her, the perfection of sitting on the couch with her and just talking, the feel of her wrapped in my arms while she slept.
And after last night, I knew what it was like to make love to her.
