Bent Not Broken (A Cedar Creek #1) (2 page)

“I’m a man. Men don’t bake. At least that’s what dad always says. But I could buy you a coffee. Right, dad?” He said, now grinning even bigger.

I gave him another wink, then straightened and grabbed the book from the shelf. I turned around to go back to my counter when I ran smack into something hard. I tried to catch myself, but my hand landed on a hard chest covered in a soft plaid shirt. I looked up. What I saw made my body go still.

Hell and damnation!

Cal was looking down at me with soft and warm eyes. He had taken his sunglasses off, and I was staring–yes, staring–at the warmest eyes I had seen in my life. His lips were turning up at the corners.

“Thanks, Ivey. Appreciate it.”

I closed my mouth. Shit! Had my mouth been hanging open? How embarrassing!

I opened it again and stuttered, “N-n-no problem.”

One of his hands came up to mine on his chest and gave it a quick squeeze. My body jolted, and he immediately released it. He took a step back. What just happened?

Stunned, my eyes found Tommy’s, and with a shaky smile I said “See you later, honey,” before I dashed back to the safety of my counter.

“I like her. She’s cute,” I heard Tommy say during my retreat.

“Yeah, bud. She is,” this came from Cal.

My body shivered and my stomach flip-flopped. I walked faster.

Shit. Time to call Grant

*****

Friday night.

Which meant enjoying a bubble bath, reading a good book and drinking a bottle of beer. Leaving this world behind and delving into someone else’s problems seemed like a really good idea.

Time to shut everything out and not think about anything that had happened this week.

Fridays were my favourite time of the week.

Especially this week. I had been looking forward to this since Tuesday. The Tuesday after the embarrassing scene with Cal in my bookstore. The Tuesday after I cut Grant loose.

Grant had been one of my go-to booty calls. He was a nice guy, and soon a good woman would snatch him up to have a great life with him at her side. I liked him and knew he liked me. Or
loved
me even, or so he said Tuesday night. He shouldn’t have said that. I had always been straight with him about what I wanted. Or
not
wanted. Right from the start. I couldn't give him more than what I had been giving him. Which was sex. Nothing but sex. This I had no choice but to make crystal clear to him, which ended in me leaving.

As I had decided during the staring-with-my-mouth-hanging-wide-open-at-hot-as-shit-Cal-scene that freaked me way the heck out, so all I could think of was to escape like an idiot, so Tuesday night after work I called Grant. I had always been comfortable with him. Out of all the guys I had been with in the last nine years since
him
I had been the most comfortable with Grant. He took me the way I came. He always had an easy smile on his face, never asked questions he knew he wouldn’t get answers to, never asked to take me out to dinner or drinks or a movie, only took what he knew he could get. I thought he was good with that. Turned out I was wrong.

When I showed at his apartment Tuesday night he greeted me like he always did, with an easy smile and a quick kiss on the lips. This was exactly what I needed. Fun and distance. Exactly what I needed. I gave him a sexy smile when I walked into his apartment. He knew what that meant. Time to get down to it. This was how things were between us. I would call or he would call, I would come over to his place in Louisville, which was a fifteen minute drive from Cedar Creek. He switched off the TV he’d been watching, grabbed my hand and led me to his bedroom. I had always liked his bedroom. Clean, if not tidy, few clothes strewn on the floor, dark masculine sheets on a huge unmade King-size bed.

Delicious.

He led me to stand next to his bed and started kissing me. Both his hands went to my cheeks until he was holding my head with both his hands in my hair. I expected him to do what he always did, kiss me deep and long while starting to undress me, then push me onto the bed and follow me down, our hands roaming and gripping and trying to undress each other as quickly as possible. That was not what he did this time, though. The kiss he gave me felt great, but almost too intimate, because instead of devouring my mouth like he usually would he went slowly. I liked kissing, loved it, but this kiss felt way too caring, too soft, simply too much and not enough at the same time. I needed more, I needed wild, so I gripped his wrists and tried to pull him closer to me, to turn the kiss into something faster, something more detached, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Slow, baby. I want to take you slow,” he murmured soothingly against my lips.

My body froze.

He had never called me
baby
. That was one of my stipulations when we first hooked up. No pet names, no endearments.
Especially
not that one.

He had never taken me slow.

He had never murmured anything against my lips.

That’s not what we were about.

Grant felt my body stiffen in his hands and stopped kissing me. He moved his head back an inch and looked into my eyes.

“Ivey, baby?”

There it was again.

Baby
.

In that soft voice.

I was nobody’s
baby
.

Nobody had called me that since
him
and nobody ever would again. I wouldn’t allow it. Not even sweet and easygoing Grant.

Nobody.

I had made that clear when we met.

My hands still at his wrists, I pulled them away from my face, stepped back, and dropped them.

“What’s going on, Grant? What is this?” I had an idea what this was, but was giving him an out by asking, hoping that he would see the error of his ways, that he would come to his senses and be the Grant that I needed him to be.

He took a careful step towards me, but I retreated at the pleading look in his eyes.

He stopped.

“Baby—,” yes, pleading. He was pleading with me. I knew what he was going to say, so I stopped him before the words that would end our arrangement came out of his mouth.

“No, Grant. I am not your
baby
! You know I’m not,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

“Please, Ivey—,” He begged while he advanced again. Again I retreated.

“No! Don’t do this!” My voice started trembling, and my gut tightened. This wasn’t happening. I needed him to be the easygoing Grant I knew, who would let me escape into feeling the things he could do to my body. I didn’t need him to go all serious on me.

“Ivey, baby, let me explain—,”

“Do.
Not
. Call. Me. That.” I was getting angry now. A defense mechanism to keep out the memories. My voice was low and threatening. I was trying to keep it all out. Everything I knew he wanted to say. Everything I could read in his eyes. Him calling me
baby
. That last one I couldn’t let penetrate. It would be too painful, and I couldn’t expose myself like that. Not to anyone. But I could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t change his mind. This had happened before with a few of the other men I had hooked up with. They thought they could fix me, help me, be there for me. I had thought Grant was different. That he knew there was no way in, that he respected that. He had for eighteen months, but now he was done accepting. He had thought about this move and would follow through with it. He thought he had a chance with me. That we had a chance to
make things work
.

It was too much. I had to get out of there before he said or did anything that would set me off and send me in a downward spiral of emotion and pain.

I turned around and stalked out of the bedroom towards the front door.

Escape. That was all I could think of.

I didn’t make it. Grant had his arm around my waist and pulled my back to his front, and I froze again, afraid I would lose it, and the slightest movement would shatter me.

His mouth to my ear he said, “Listen. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore. Every time you leave, every time I let you walk out that door I want to kick my own ass for not asking for more. I want you. All of you. The good and the bad. You need to give us a chance. I can make this good. I can help you. Please, don’t run. Give me the chance to prove to you that I can take care of you. Give
us
a chance.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. He needed to shut up!

I started bucking against his arms until he had no choice but to release me if he didn’t want to hurt me.

I whirled around to look at him while backing away. I was done. I had no choice now but to cut him loose. And I knew I had to be a bitch while doing it, or he wouldn’t give up and come after me sooner or later. I couldn’t have that.

So I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to control my anger and disappointment. My voice was cold and impassive, dismissive, when I looked him straight in the eyes and said to him, “No, Grant. I told you sex and a good time was all I wanted. No strings. No expectations. I meant that. That is all I want. I will not change my mind.”

He swallowed, but was determined. “That’s not enough anymore, Ivey. I’ve tried. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to give you time to get used to me, hoping you would call and ask me to have a beer with you, for you to open up and let me in, but my patience has run out. I can’t do it anymore. Having you over here for a booty call and nothing more, when all I want is to spend time with you, get to know you better, have you get to know me, introduce you to my friends and family, be a couple. I love you. I want you. I want
us
!”

My body had gone so still I was afraid if I took a breath, it would shatter into a million pieces.
Love
? There was no such thing as love. At least not where I was concerned. I closed my eyes and hung my head. I had to get out. No matter what I said, we would never be able to go back now. Not if he thought he loved me. I took a deep breath and blocked everything else out, pulled up my wall, and put my mask in place.

When I looked up and found Grant’s eyes, he flinched. He knew what that meant. No way to get in there. Hard as rock, cold as ice.

“I am sorry to hear that, Grant. That means we are over. I had fun. Thanks.” Even my voice was cold. Cold and empty.

At my words Grant’s head moved back, as if I had slapped him.

“That’s it? You had fun?
Thanks
? Are you kidding me?” He sounded hurt and angry. I tried to block it out.

Moving towards the door, I said, “No, Grant, I am not kidding you. I was straight with you from the beginning. You want more. I cannot give you more. That means we are done.”

I reached the door, opened it, walked through it then closed it behind me without saying another word or looking back, not even when I heard a loud crash inside the apartment. I kept walking. I felt like a bitch. But I didn’t have a choice. Grant didn’t give me one.

That night when I came home I went straight to bed, my walls still up, my mask still in place. But that didn’t help much, because they wouldn't stay up in my sleep. What Grant had said to me penetrated, and the floodgates that I had been able to keep shut in his apartment and on my way home opened. I ended up having nightmares of
him
calling me
baby
and of the absolute panic and terror when I realized I wasn’t strong enough to protect myself, nor the life growing inside of me.

Chapter Three

Serendipity

Ivey

When I had given up on sleep early Tuesday morning, I had a hard time getting my act together. It took me a while to come out of my dreams and lock them back up in their box. Now that they had managed to slip through a crack in my defenses, they wanted out. If I was being honest with myself, I knew that some day I would have to deal with the trauma I had endured, that I wouldn’t be able to bury it forever. But I told myself that day was not today. Nor was it anywhere in the near future.

I told myself I was strong enough, that nobody would be able to tell. But I knew I was full of it. I looked like shit. Still fighting my way out of my nightmares, I focused my mind on re-strengthening my walls by reasoning why cutting Grant loose was essential.

True, I would miss the casual companionship we had. It was a good thing I broke things off, though. My words and actions had hurt him, but he would get over it quickly when he realized that he was better off without me. That he deserved better. It wouldn't be fair to hold him to our arrangement when I knew he felt more for me than I would ever feel for him. He would come to realize that.

I knew that had been one of the reasons I had picked him in the first place. Because I knew I would never feel more for him than simple companionship. He would find someone who he could share his live with filled with beauty because I wasn’t a part of it. Cutting him loose had been necessary. For me and for him. This was better.

Okay, now I felt slightly better.

Now, how to fix my face? I hated wearing make-up but it looked like I had no choice. I couldn’t go into the bookstore like this and scare the customers away. A girl’s gotta eat.