Like Gravity (13 page)

Perfect.

“Brooklyn,” I said, smiling flirtatiously and placing my hand in his. This was going to be even easier than I’d expected.

“Don’t you know it’s not good to drink alone,
Brooklyn?” He laughed.

I sidled a glance at him, winking. “Good thing you’re here to keep me company then.” He grinned and I downed the rest of my beer.

Two beers – courtesy of Landon – and thirty minutes later, I was feeling buzzed and ready to leave. I was anxious to get away from Lexi’s accusations and Finn’s flock of women. I’d purposefully avoided looking in his direction, then immediately scolded myself for doing so. If I couldn’t even watch him flirting with other girls, he was even deeper under my skin than I’d realized before. I needed Landon to help push Finn from my mind as soon as possible. Maybe then I could finally get back to normal.

Part of my mind was screaming at me, even as I allowed Landon to lead me toward the exit.

Is this the person you want to be, Brooklyn?

Do you really want to go back to being the guarded,
selfish, self-preserving whore you were a few months ago?

What about all the progress you’ve made with therapy and Lexi and
Finn?

Just thinking his name had me
pushing away that annoying inner voice and snapping back to reality. It was suddenly easy to lace my fingers through Landon’s and follow him to the exit, once again eager to leave.

Near the club door, Landon bumped into a table of his fraternity brothers and stopped briefly to talk. He introduced me, laughing and blushing as his brothers made
crass and utterly unoriginal comments about him “getting lucky” tonight. I rolled my eyes and waited impatiently for him to move on.

When nearly five minutes had passed, I
tapped Landon on the shoulder and told him it was time to leave. Turning toward the door, I cast one final glance behind me and, to my dismay, locked eyes with the one person I’d been determined to avoid.

I grinned halfheartedly at
Finn, but felt the smile drop off my face as I registered the anger in his eyes. His dark blue irises were steely with rage as they glared at Landon, who’d just placed his hand on my ass in an attempt to usher me out. When I didn’t move, Landon leaned down and kissed my neck.

“Come on, babe, I thought you wanted to go?” His breath was too warm and smelled like beer; it made my skin crawl. There were no butterflies, or
chills, or stuttering heartbeats – just an intractable sense of wrongness.  I ignored the feeling, pulled my neck away from Landon’s lips, and tore my eyes from Finn’s.

He’d ignored me for an entire week, and now he was furious that I was leaving the bar with
someone? Well he could go to hell, as far as I was concerned. Either he had some kind of multiple personality disorder, or I was missing some crucial information.  

“Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go,” I
said, setting my shoulders determinedly and ignoring the ache in my chest as I allowed Landon to pull me through the exit.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a long walk to Landon’s apartment. He lived about three blocks from the club, in the same neighborhood as me. I
tried to remind myself how hot he was as we stumbled through his front door, his lips fused to mine. When his tongue entered my mouth, I responded on autopilot, unable to engage on a deeper level. Groaning in frustration – which Landon no doubt assumed was passion – I pulled off his shirt and ran my hands over his chest.

His six-pack was a chiseled work of art. If I’d met him months ago, I’d have gladly spent the night tracing my tongue along each indentation in a show of my appreciation. But tonight, I wasn’t going to waste any time. I needed him to clear out my mind.

Lexi used to say that I treat sex like a trip to the masseuse or the chiropractor – like a romp between the sheets was nothing more than a good back stretch or spine cracking. I’d always laughed when she’d said it, but deep down I knew it was true. I’d used sex to scratch an itch, nothing more.

Until I’d met
Finn, and started to care.

I knew instinctually that sex with him would be different. I also knew that
what I was doing with Landon right now couldn’t hold a candle to the fantasies I’d had about being with Finn, let alone compare to what actually sleeping with him might be like.

My grey tank top hit the floor, followed quickly by my bra. Landon’s hands cupped my breasts too clumsily and roughly to even remotely turn me on. He was slobbering on my neck
, murmuring between openmouthed kisses.

“You’re so fucking hot, baby
.”

“Don’t call
me baby,” I said immediately, muscles tensing under his touch.

“
Okay.” The slobbering continued as I stood unresponsive, my hands at my sides. “You’re so fucking hot.”

His hands reached for the button on my jeans, and I knew I had to put a stop to this before he went any further.
Glumly, I admitted defeat – his touch couldn’t drive Finn out of my mind any more than alcohol or denial could.

I was screwed. And not in the literal, good sense of the word.

“Landon, stop.”

To his credit, he did stop immediately. Some guys probably would have been assholes about it
– complaining or even trying to force me to continue. But Landon was understanding when I told him I needed to leave.

“It’s cool,” he said, grinning
and running a hand through his messy blond mop of hair. “You ever change your mind, though, you know where to find me.”

I laughed as I put my clothes back on and said goodbye. He wasn’t a bad guy. I knew he’d
be a good boyfriend to someone someday – just not to me.

Thankfully, the walk home was short. I hadn’t worn a jacket to the bar and the temperature had dropped in the hours since I’d left my house.
I rubbed my arms with my palms, trying to work some warmth into my limbs as I turned onto my block. To my surprise, a familiar black pickup truck was parked in front of my house.

I approached cautiously, noting that the truck was
still idling and that Finn was probably sitting inside. I’d stopped just short of the passenger window when I heard the engine cut off abruptly and the driver’s side door flew open.

Finn
rounded the front of the truck in a blur, grabbing me by the arm and planting my back flat against the passenger door before I could even formulate a protest. He glared at me, his face mere inches from mine. A muscle worked in his jaw as he tried to get control over his anger.

“What do you think you’re doing? Let me go,
Finn,” I glared back at him, tugging my arm from his grasp. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but I’m going to scream if you don’t back off.”

“You don’t know what my problem is? That’s perfect,” he
barked out a laugh, but there was no humor in it. His hands ran through his hair in frustration. “You.
You
are my fucking problem, Bee.”

He was calling me
Bee
again. He’d only done it once before, so I’d dismissed it – but here he was, using it was again. No one ever called me Bee. It had been my mother’s special nickname for me. I decided to let it go, for now; it seemed I had to pick my battles tonight.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, incredulous.

“Did you fuck that guy tonight?”

“That is absolutely none of your business! Now
let me go!”

“NO!”
Finn roared in my face, his anger reaching a new high. “I can’t let you go. I can’t. And believe me, I’ve tried really fucking hard. It’s impossible –
You’re
impossible.” He blew out a harsh breath, and some of the anger cleared from his face. He seemed defeated, suddenly. “I didn’t know how hard this would be. I wish I could say that if I’d known, it would have made me stay away from you. But I can’t, ‘cause I know that’s not true. There’s literally nothing that would’ve keep me from coming back to you once I’d found you.”

I had no idea what he was talking about at this point.
His eyes were wild with a desperate intensity I’d never seen before, and he looked like a man close to his breaking point. Honestly, he was starting to frighten me, and I was dangerously close to delivering a swift kick to his balls and making a getaway.

As I was contemplating escape options, he startled me by gently cupping my face in his hands.
Anger shifted to tenderness so rapidly I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it had happened. His blue eyes pierced mine with a look of steadfast resolve, as if he’d suddenly made a decision about something, and I had the overpowering urge to run far, far away from whatever he was about to say.

“I stayed away from you all week, trying convince myself that I didn’t need you.
I knew I should stay away from you, that I shouldn’t pursue this. But then I saw you leaving with that douchebag at The Blue Note and I lost it. I can’t even—the thought that—” He broke off, unable to even say the words. “Did. You. Fuck. Him.” He ground each word out, as if it caused him physical pain to expel them.

“No,” I said, glaring into his dark blue eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business. I can fuck whoever I want,
Finn. You certainly do.”

“I haven’t been with anyone since I met you.”

What?!

I pushed my shock aside and scoffed. “Yeah, right. And even if that’s true, why would I care? It’s not like I
give a damn who you’re fucking.”

In a flash, the anger was back. “Don’t do that. Don’t trivialize what’s between us. Don’t think you can pretend with me. Your little indifferent act might work with everyone else in your life, but I see through it. And you know what I see, Bee?” He paused, leaning in so close our noses grazed. “I see fear. You’re scared shitless that you feel something for me, ‘cause
god for-fucking-bid
you actually had to let down those walls you’ve built around yourself and let me in.”

My mouth gaped open like a fish as I tried to
conjure a response, a denial, even a laugh – anything to steer this conversation into safer waters. My mind was reeling, though, and I couldn’t form a single sound. I simply stared at him, adrift in a state of shock. Years of shutting out my emotions had left me utterly incapable of processing his declaration, let alone how I felt about it. Maybe Finn recognized this about me, though, because he continued to speak, undeterred by my silence.

“
Since the second you woke up in my arms on the sidewalk that day, it was only a matter of time until we got here, to this moment. We were inevitable. You know it. I know it.”

“You barely know me. And if you did…you might not like me so much any more. I’m sure you’ve heard my reputation…” I swallowed my
embarrassment, looking anywhere but at him. 

“
It doesn’t matter, Bee.”

“But–”
I protested.

“Look, I can’t fucking explain it,
okay? I’m no good at this. All I can tell you is that it feels like the most natural thing in the world for me to be near you – like I was put on this earth just to breathe your air and tell you how beautiful you are. To make you laugh at my dumbass jokes, and hold you in my arms when you’re sad. And I don’t want to control you, or own you, or change you. I just want
you
, no matter who you are or what your past is. I don’t care about the other guys, or anything that happened before we got together, because all that shit made you
you
.” He inhaled deeply. “Being near you, Brooklyn…it’s like breathing. I don’t have a choice about it; I just have to do it or I know I won’t survive very long.”

His eyes were so startlingly earnest as he spoke the words, there was no way I could doubt the truth behind them.
I’d thought he was done, but apparently he still had more to say; when he continued speaking, his tone had gentled and his gaze had grown serious.

“E
ven when I’m not with you, I can feel myself being drawn wherever you are, like a goddamned physical tether connects us. And it’s not going away; if anything, it’s getting stronger the more time I spend with you.”

He swallowed roughly.

“I’ve never felt anything like this before, and I
know
you feel it too,” he said, his voice low. “It’s undeniable – like a magnetic force. Like gravity. And it’s not something I can control, or change, or stop. It just
is
.”

His eyes softened as he recognized the
raw fear in mine. “Don’t be scared, Bee. Don’t you know I’d never hurt you?”

“I know that,” I whispered, realizing it was true as soon as the words left my mouth. He’d been protecting me since the day we met.
From fire hydrants, from Gordon, even from myself.

He slowly leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes. “I don’t think I can stay away from you anymore,” he admitted quietly, exhaling a breath and trying to shake off some of the tension in his shoulders.

“Then don’t,” I said simply, my mouth twisting up in a smile as his eyes popped open. His blue eyes stared into mine for a fraction of a second, evaluating whether or not I was serious, and then his mouth crashed down against mine.