Page 111 of Only in Your Dreams

Zac watches me wipe my tears with the back of my hand. “Mel, I… I’ve never been in a relationship. So, I can’t pretend to know what this feels like—”

The guilt hits me square in the chest. “I’m sorry. You must be so sick of hearing his name.”

“I could go an entire lifetime without hearing that fucker’s name, and it still wouldn’t be enough,” he admits. “But what I was going to say is that I think it’s normal to have good days and bad ones. Hell, I know how hard it is getting over someone you love, and I didn’t even have a six-year relationship behind it. Never mind the kind of stuff you dealt with.”

I turn my head and I was right. The tips of our noses touch.

“You loved someone?”

Zac rakes his teeth over his lower lip and nods.

Oh, that fucking hurts. I’ve worked hard at ignoring the thought of Zac in the ten years since we’d seen each other, and the women who must have had him. It’s irrational, considering where we are, the things we did last night. It’s silly, considering how much I know he cares for me. But I feel so viscerally jealous of her, whoever she is.

“What happened?” I ask him.

The corner of his mouth ticks up, just for a split second. “I screwed it up.”

We’re lying so close together I can only take in his face in segments. The sad slant of his brows. The tightness in his jaw. He doesn’t add anything, but whatever the story is, his regret feels fresh.

Apparently, I haven’t adequately tortured myself this morning, because my next question is: “What was she like?”

Zac’s eyes leave mine, sweeping the space above my head like he’s casting around for the right words. “She’s funny. The kind of sense of humor that has you hanging on every word, just to see what she’ll come up with next. She’s sharp and tough and has this way of making me feel like I can do anything. I’ll be in the dumps and she’ll be… she’s that first ray of sunlight, after a bad storm. Peeking through the clouds.”

He says the words with such longing, reverence, that the envy in my chest thickens, feels almost unbearable. I hate her. Despise her.

Could Zac talk about me that way one day?

I doubt Connor ever did.

“I wish I picked up his call,” I say after a while. “I wish I’d told him off. But I knew I couldn’t handle it.”

“I think that shows you’re doing a lot better than you think you are.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“Think about it. You said you’d always give in to him. Put him and his issues first. But you just put yourself first there by not picking up. Maybe one day you’re ready to tell him to go to hell. You knew today wasn’t that day, and you called it. That’s tough as hell, considering how you’ve described the last six years.”

His lower lashes brush below his eyes as his gaze travels over my face, and it looks so fluttery and delicate I shiver like they’re sweeping my own skin.

“You really think so?”

“Not that you require my validation whatsoever, but yeah, I really think so.”

My chest swells. It actuallyswells.

With a single finger, Zac hooks a loose strand of hair lying across my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. His finger tip grazes my skin along the way, just a tiny whisper of a touch, but I feel myself sink deeper into this bed. Drowning in caramel-colored eyes.

There’s a voicemail waiting on my phone from the person who spent years decimating me. But right now, I feel safe.

Not because I know he’d protect me if ever we faced a threat together. Safe in the way that I could go out into the world on my own, make all the stupid mistakes I want. Fail spectacularly, fall flat on my face, and I’d still have somewhere warm to come home to. I’d have someone who’d help dust me off, and set me on my feet to try again tomorrow.

It takes Zac breaking into a blinding grin to realize I’m smiling. So big I actually have to lift a hand to confirm the aggressive rise of my own cheek.

This man, and his impossible ability to fill me up when I go empty. I don’t know what I did to deserve him. I push him onto his back, move on top of him, biting my lip at the small groan he gives when I straddle him.

“Thank you,” I tell him, kissing along his neck, stretching the neck line of the t-shirt he never took off last night to keep the trail going over his shoulder.

I squirm my approval when he reaches for my ass. Last night was the kind of mind blowing that did nothing to satiate me. I’m starving for him. My hands fall between us, crawling under his shirt, feeling his stomach.

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