Page 19 of Needing Your Love
I sipped my drink, not tasting the hops or even paying attention to the liquid sliding down my throat. “And what do I do when he leaves again, hmm?”
“Sutton.”
Lips pursed, I shook my head. “I can’t afford to lower my walls and give him the chance to own my heart if he doesn’t have plans to stick around, Dex. Even though I’m scared shitless to let someone in, I want forever, not some sexy, warm body in my bed just to ease the ache in my balls.”
“But what an easing it would be,” he teased with a waggle of his eyebrows.
I elbowed the fucker, as he was fond of doing with me, but didn’t disagree. Considering his experience with sampling from all of the local men into dick and the apps he used to locate said guys, I wasn’t about to argue.
But I needed more, goddammit, and I’d been hurt enough in the past that I knew without question what I did or didn’t want invading my peaceful yet lonely existence.
Putting my heart on the line by falling into bed with a lying younger man who called out to every single part of me was nothing but absolute fucking trouble, exactly as I’d stated.
Jimmy Riley would eventually grow bored with the old chief’s body and head back to Elite Escort’s gay branch, who’d supplied him with hungry dick and a well-padded bank account for the previous five years.
No way a sex worker would ever settle down with a man sixteen years his senior whose sex drive would pale in comparison to his energetic ass. The boy would wear me out on day one.
The continued thickness in my shaft argued a different story, but I reasoned my unusually strong desire for release was due to lack of action.
Jimmy was not a safe place for me, however, that truth wouldn’t stop me from being there for him as a friend if he needed me.
But further interaction required I keep my own walls sturdy and remember how being vulnerable only ended with broken hearts. I would be smart to remember the devastation left in Darla’s wake and how long it’d taken for healing to allow me some sort of joy in life outside of Jamie.
Never again.
Mind set, I finished my beer, said my goodbyes, and went home to a dark and quiet house where I focused on the plans Jamie had to propose that night and the surety of gaining another son. A smile might have curved my lips while I lay in bed alone, but the heaviness in my chest, the unpleasant ache of longing traveled with me into my dreams as it did every night.
Chapter 8
Jimmy
Adrenaline crashed through me the second I opened my eyes.
Today, I would stand before what had haunted me every day since I’d left Pippen Creek. Putting off the inevitable any longer wouldn’t gain me anything but further panic over what was to come.
A cold sweat broke out over my body as I climbed into my car, my stomach a rock. Beads of moisture lined my upper lip and forehead as I drove through town then southwest. Gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white to keep from scratching at my arms, I rounded the final turn onto the dirt road I hadn’t traversed in nine years.
Breath burst in and out of my squeezing lungs as Dad’s house came into view. Muscles twitched, my instincts demanding I swing my BMW around and get the hell away from there. Doing so was certainly an option. I could have hired a contractor to do what needed done in order for the house to sell without having to lay eyes on it. A cleaning company could have righted the mess inside Gram had warned me about.
But for me to move on, to get rid of the nightmares that riddled my dreams and controlled a lot of the processes in my mind, I had to face this shit. A real man wouldn’t tremblebeneath the weight of nightmares. I would stand tall. Take care of business. Finally find healing through staring down my fears.
My wheels rolled slower on crunching gravel as my shaking leg attempted to press against the brake.
The car stopped.
I shut off the engine.
Suffocating silence flooded the BMW’s interior, and I swallowed hard, rubbing damp palms down my jeans. No words to amp me up filled my mind, and no encouragement rose to give me energy to move.
I stared at the peeling front door, the crooked steps I’d spent countless hours sitting on with Sutton by my side while we’d shared chocolate bars loaded with delicious caramel and peanuts.
His warmth had always radiated through the space between us, offering comfort I couldn’t derive from anyone or anywhere else.
Clinging to the pleasant memories of my hero, I climbed from the car on weak knees. Every shuffle closer to the house made my guts clench and shoulders roll inward. I bit my tongue to keep from whimpering but could do nothing to stop the tremble in my lower lip.
A dog barked, and I flinched at the intrusive sound, another fresh rush of adrenaline racing through my system.
One step at a time.
