Page 81 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

Her gaze met his across the quiet cab. “Unless we find an apartment sooner,” she said, hope lining her eyes.

He reached for her, and she leaned toward him willingly. As they kissed over the center console, he was a split second from crawling into the passenger seat to join her. But she broke away to say, “I’ll make sure it’s sooner.”

“Good.” Grinning, Jonah hurried from the truck and hobbled around with his cane to open her door, but she was already climbing out.

They met by the front bumper, and she took his hand again. He liked holding her hand. Her fingers were small and delicate and made him feel like her protector. He was freshly amazed by how much shorter than him she was.

Without talking, he led her up to his and Aubrey’s apartment. Once inside, he pointed toward the kitchen, motioned down the hall to give her the mini tour, and then turned to study the couch across the living room. “And that’s where I’m bunking.”

Tess’s brow wrinkled with worry as she studied the short couch and then turned to eye his large, tall frame. “There aren’t two bedrooms?”

He shook his head. “No. But that’s okay. This is better than I thought I’d end up with when I left the hospital.”

Nodding slowly, she looked down to pick at her chipped fingernail polish. “And you never planned on coming back to me. Did you?”

He gulped, knowing they’d have to discuss this eventually. But he wasn’t ready to leap right into it, first thing.

Grasping her hand, he lifted her fingers to touch the fading red polish, the same color they’d been when he’d last seen her. “Haven’t you repainted them since…”

She watched him run his thumb over each nail. “No. I tend to only paint them when I’m—”

“Happy?” he guessed. She didn’t answer, but when she glanced at him, she really didn’t have to. Her expression told him he was right. Bringing her telling fingers to his mouth, he kissed them desperately and then squeezed his eyes closed.

“I messed up.” The confession tore its way from his soul. “I don’t…I don’t know.” He glanced up through his eyelashes with a wince. “I’m still not…I mean, I’m better. Heaps better—emotionally—than where I was in February, but…it’s still a work in progress. And I’m not anywhere near the kind of man who deserves you.”

Her gaze clouded to a cool indifference. “So you said in your letter.”

“And I know it wasn’t my place to decide for you what kind of person you want in your life, but I also wanted—no, I needed to prove to myself that I could be apart from you without—” He shook his head, took a breath, and looked deep into her eyes. “I was in such a dark place when you walked into my hospital room that night. I was confused, hurt, angry. A total mess. And you saved me, saved me from losing myself to my own demons. You were like this angel, the only bright spot in my world. I latched onto you with both hands. So, I wanted to make sure that what I felt for you was—” he licked his lips and glanced away “—true. I didn’t want this to just be a dependency for me. I wanted—”

When he looked at her, her blue eyes glittered with a restless anxiety. “You wanted what?”

“I want this to be real.” He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers, his eyes begging for something that he couldn’t voice with words. “I don’t want you to be a crutch for me to lean on in my darkest hours. I want to be in a relationship where I give as much as I’ve already received. Hell, I want to give you more than I’ve ever gotten from you, but I know that’s not possible because you’ve given me…everything.”

“But you have given me things, Jonah. You—”

“I mean, more than just making you feel needed,” he bit out. If only he could do for her half the shit she’d done for him.

“Listen to me.” Her voice was as stern as it was soft. He had no idea how she managed it, but it was the kind of thing only Tess could accomplish. Casing his face between her hands, she smiled at him as if she cherished him.

“You have given me so much. More than you’ll ever know.”

He wanted her words to be true. But he just couldn’t hope.

She must’ve seen the distrust in his gaze because she insisted, “You have. I told you about my stupid gene, right?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and rolled his eyes. “But you’ve never said anything stupid to me, or acted—”

“No, actually, I have. But aside from that, for some strange reason, I can be more me around you than I can around anyone else, maybe even Bailey.” Kissing him softly, she took a moment to simply hold her mouth against his. When a consuming need rose inside him, he took her bottom lip between his teeth and pulled her into a deeper kiss.

It was so easy to get lost in her. He would never be able to touch her enough, or kiss her enough, or love her enough. When she pulled away with a breathless laugh, he leaned into her and inhaled her hair, relishing every breath he got to spend with her, because he wasn’t sure how long they’d have together.

“I am so awkward and clumsy and a complete dunce around any guy I find remotely attractive. That’s why the whole girlfriend word popped out of my mouth when I first met you. I had it all planned to say we had a class together or were passing acquaintances, that we were just friends, and that’s why I was coming to visit you. But then I saw this drop dead gorgeous stranger in the room, and everything in here,” she tapped the side of her head, “went to mush.”

A sudden thought struck him. He might have known she’d never had degenerate plans when she’d come to visit him, but he’d always assumed she’d at least known who he was. But she’d just used the word stranger.

“Why did you go into my hospital room that day?”

She flushed hard. “Bailey and I had volunteered to work as candy stripers one evening a week. I was supposed to make sure you ate.” When she bit her lip and sent him a shy look as if bracing herself for his anger, he merely shook his head.

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