Remember When 2 (24 page)

   A friend who, right at that moment, couldn’t seem to find a way to tear his gaze from my lips.

   “Well, it was good to see you, Trip. Keep in touch.”

   I was going through the motions of walking him out, trying to keep things light. If I truly allowed myself to think about what was really happening, I would have been more of a mess. I had my hand on the doorknob when Trip’s words stopped me in my tracks.

   “I’m breaking it off with Jenna.”

   I died. No, I mean seriously, I actually died. Heart stopped beating, blood stopped pumping.

   “You’re what?”

   Okay, fine. I’m exaggerating.

   His voice was soft, almost pleading, when he answered, “Yeah. I was all ready to do it last night, had the phone in my hand and everything.”

   “You were going to do it over the phone? How old are you?”

   “I just didn’t want to wait. I’m done. She has a right to know. That way, she’d have a few more days out there in Milan to get used to the idea before she came home.”

   “But you didn’t go through with it?”

   “No. It just felt… tacky. But I will. As soon as we’re both back in L.A.”

   I was speechless. Trip was, for all intents and purposes, single.

   But I was still very much engaged.

   “I’m sorry. That must have been a hard decision for you.”

   “Not really.” His eyes locked onto mine, the real words he wanted to say stuck somewhere behind the expectant look he was aiming at me. “I just kept thinking about what you’d said to me in the hospital. You’re right. I deserve better.”

   “I…” I didn’t know what to say. I felt guilty that my words were the ones that had caused the breakup. But I can’t say I was saddened by the news. The underwear model was all wrong for him; Trip loved too deeply to be stuck in a relationship with someone so self-centered. He deserved nothing less than someone who was going to be good to him, someone that could give him her whole heart. “Well, you do. Deserve better.”

   He was looking at me with barely restrained longing in his half-lidded eyes, gratitude written on every feature. I was torn in two; not wanting to care, but feeling my heart go out to him anyway. He swallowed hard and I watched his lips press into a tight line, a muscle twitching in his jaw… his hand lifting up to touch my face...

   I jerked back involuntarily, causing Trip to freeze for a second, before slowly raising his hands in a soft gesture of defense, as if I were a stray, rabid dog to be approached cautiously, his pose trying to convey
I’m not going to hurt you
.

   If that were true, then why was my heart in so much pain?

   His mouth curled into a sultry grin as he held my gaze, daring me to look away. I knew that look all too well. Things were about to get ugly.

   Facing off against that incredible mug of his, my heart started to beat wildly, my breath coming in short bursts. The standoff was brief, Trip and I fixated on one another, stuck in a squaring-off situation like two wrestlers in a ring, sizing up the competition, trying to figure out who was going to attack first. The question was: Did I want to wrestle?

  Oh, hell yeah. Of course I did.

  Because suddenly I knew—right then in that second—that what I wanted, what I
needed,
was to feel Trip’s mouth on mine again. I needed it like the blood coursing through my veins, like the air required to breathe. Oh, hell. Who was I kidding? I knew it all along. I’d fought it for weeks, for
years
, lied to myself, tried everything to stay on the straight and narrow… but there it was.

   Even still, there was the tiniest little voice in the back of my brain which reminded me that “want” wasn’t what I needed to be focusing on. I knew “want” shouldn’t even be up for consideration. I didn’t know how I was going to turn this off. I only knew that I had to. The thought of doing so caused a physical pain through my insides as I watched Trip looking at me deviously, coiled and ready to strike.

   But he didn’t kiss me.

  
He came at me.

   His hands grabbed my wrists, pinning my arms to the wall above my head and slamming his body against the length of mine. My breath hitched in surprise, and Trip was breathing as if he’d just completed a marathon.

   But we both knew damn well this wasn’t the completion of anything. It was only just beginning. Again.

   We were attached from shoulders to toes, our faces turned toward one another, only far enough away for him to train his focus upon my aching lips, an inch from his own as we breathed heavily against each other. The rest of my body was aching as well, my heart threatening to bust clear out of my chest. The feel of him against me causing heartbreaking memories to tumble over one another, to spill forth like water released from a dam.

   He lifted his gaze to my eyes, and I could see the agony play out on his face as well. We both knew that this yearning could never be fulfilled, this craving could never be satisfied. The hope that had been repressed for years, unknowingly tempered during our time apart, suddenly brought back to the surface in the most unexpected way to torture us once again.

   We stood there like that for an eternity; his beautiful cobalt eyes boring into mine, his gorgeous full lips just an inch from my mouth, both of us panting rapidly, his breath mingling with mine. I inhaled his sweet, clean scent, and it filled my lungs, which were heaving severely against his hard chest. A very rigid reminder was pressed against my hip, pushing insistently against me, leaving no room for doubt about what Trip was feeling.

   Finally, he broke the stand-off when he brushed my face with his cheek, quietly admitting the next words into my ear, his voice a hypnotic caress, a silk-over-gravel plea. “I
need
this, Layla. I need
you.
Help me to remember, Lay. Help me to remember
us
.”

   He started to pepper my jawline with soft kisses, and even if my hands were free, I don’t know that I could have stopped him. He pulled back to check my reaction, hoping to find something written in my eyes, which surprisingly, hadn’t rolled to the back of my head.

   I was sparring with my conscience, a fiancé who fought for attention in my warring thoughts. Even through the guilt, I found myself trying to banish Devin’s image from my mind, tried to keep him far, far away from whatever was happening here. I had a flash of his face, a split-second reminder of the real world that invaded the space between Trip and me. What kind of person would I be to let this continue? The thought must have flickered across my face.

   I could feel the aching in Trip’s voice when he rasped, “No, no, no, don’t... Don’t ask me to stop, Layla, I can’t do it.” He tried to persuade me with his broken eyes before dropping his head in disbelieving defeat. He fired the only weapon left in his arsenal, a childlike attempt at good manners in order to plead his case. “My God, just...
please
.” He kissed my neck again. “
Please
,
Layla
.”

   It was the “please” that did me in. The word was like a confession, a prayer, a benediction. I felt my defenses falling away, my arguments disappearing into vapor. My mind started to justify his nearness, the hold I allowed him over my existence. This beautiful man-boy that held my heart in his memories, who claimed my soul with his smile. I knew that if I kept looking into those deadly eyes, I’d sink into their infinite depths, lost forever. And something in my brain, in my heart, allowed that to be okay.

   The fact was, I’d
already
kissed him in the hotel weeks ago. What had been done couldn’t be undone. Would it be so harmful, would it be so
wrong
to just kiss him again? Just to say goodbye. Just once. Once more.

   I licked my lips, and the subconscious gesture must have served as an invitation. His words were the final attack that broke through my defenses. “I’m going to kiss you now. And when I do, you’re
going
to kiss me back.”

   And then suddenly, there were no more words at all, because his lips were on mine.

  
Oh, dear God.

   He worshipped me with his mouth, that sweet, delicious mouth, slanting his lips fiercely against my own, my breath coming out in ragged gasps.

   He still held my wrists pinned to the wall, which was a good thing, because my knees had gone weak and I would have melted into the floorboards without his support. He pressed himself full-length against me, his body threatening to imprint itself on mine, my back leaving an impression in the plaster.

   The familiar moan stirring in his throat turned me into liquid fire as I wrenched my arms free from his grasp and twined my fingers in his hair.

   I was lost.

   And I was kissing him back.

   His newly freed hands gripped at his shoulder blades, ripping the shirt from his back—ohsweetjesus, Trip
shirtless
, it was my kryptonite—and made quick work of the buttons of my blouse, before he slipped his fingers across my ribcage, his thumb brushing along the edge of my bra. I smashed my body against that smooth, beautiful, rock-hard chest, devouring his arms, shoulders, neck with my hands, the incredible sensation of our skin in such intimate contact, our mouths opening against one another.

   I could have kissed that man forever.

   My body thrummed as his sweet, full, insistent lips positively claimed me, his low moaning reverberating throughout my insides. His tongue teasing against mine, his arms crushing my body to his. How could we have denied ourselves this for so many years? How did I live without this overwhelming passion in my life? There was nothing that could compare to kissing Trip. Nothing in the world.

   He slid his hands down my hips, curving over to cup my backside, lifting me up and smashing me against the wall again, the framed picture knocking askew on its hook, the side table rattling the bowl that held my keys.

   I wrapped my legs around his waist, crossing them against the small of his back, felt the insistent force of his hardened body pressing against me—
ohmyGOD
—his mouth open against mine; demolishing me, wanting me, threatening to smother me with his animal need.

   And then… he started to move.

   At first, he was just using his body to keep me pinned against the wall. But slowly, deliberately, his hips started in with a purposeful rhythm, leading me down a road I had no intention of travelling.

   “Trip…” I said warily, still thinking I could control the situation, feebly attempting to defuse the both of us before things went too far.

   He shook his head, denying me. “Don’t say it, Lay. Don’t. Because I’m not stopping this. I need to be inside you more than I need to breathe right now. But if we can’t do that, if this is all we have… I’m taking it. I’m taking every last bit of you you’re willing to give.”

   And that was it. That right there was the line drawn in the sand, and I knew it. If I’d been lying to myself about not crossing any boundaries before, surely there was no denying it now. I could have chosen not to cross it, but my brain was no longer calling the shots as his mouth opened against my neck, kissing and licking and biting, his hands at my ribcage, too afraid to explore further, too far gone not to. They wrapped underneath to cup my ass, pulling me tighter against the insistent, driving knot in his jeans. The demanding pressure of his body thrusting against mine, driving me over the brink, driving me insane. I started trembling in his arms as the electrical currents began to race along every nerve ending, and oh God, could
that
really happen because of
this
?

   My heart was beating like mad even as I felt it breaking in two. It was too much, not enough, everything I’d ever wanted and nothing I could have. Could a person die from this?

   His breathing turned ragged and he groaned against my neck, his mussed hair brushing along my cheek, his body slamming against me, losing it. “
Christ
, Lay. Tell me you want this.”

   I didn’t want to admit it to myself, much less him. But I found myself gasping out, “I do. I want this.”

   “Tell me how much you want me.”

   There was no denying him anymore. “I want you. So much.”

   “Me. Not the movie star, right?”

   And
that
. That one simple question filled with all the vulnerability, all the insecurity, all the truth of this man in my arms is what pushed me right over the edge of reason. For all his seemingly abundant confidence, all his swagger, that defenseless side of him was never seen by anyone. Just me. 

   His words caused a crack to form within my heart, splitting it down the middle, breaking at the thought of this incredible man questioning his value. The uncertainty he lived with, the need for me to confirm his worth. How could he even ask? Didn’t he know the amazing man he was? Nobody before or since had ever made me feel the way he did. Maybe it wasn’t everything, but it should’ve at least counted for
something
.