Unbreak Me (17 page)

“You know that’s not the only thing stopping me.”

“You know too much about me,” I whisper. “I don’t blame you for not wanting me. You’ve seen too much of who I really am.” Oh God, that sounds like such a pathetic plea for attention that I don’t even have to wait till morning to hate myself for it.

He groans, tugging me against him until I can feel the hard ridge of his erection against my belly. “Maggie.” His mouth is at my ear, a rush of heat as he breathes my name. “Do you think I don’t want the same thing you do?”

His voice is low, for my ears only, and it sends a wicked whip of pleasure through me.

“Do you think I don’t close my eyes and remember exactly what it feels like to slide my hand between your legs? To feel you, wet and swollen for me?”

My breath catches on his words and my heart pounds. I have to avert my eyes. Looking at him while he says these things is too much, too intense.

“Do you think I haven’t thought about what it’s going to be like to spread your legs and taste you?”

My breath hisses out of me, and I look up to see his hot eyes watching me.

“I want to be inside you, Maggie. I want you in my arms and in my bed, and I’ll have you there.” He twirls a lock of hair in his fingers and tugs gently until I lift my chin and look into his eyes again.

I swallow. “What’s stopping you?”

His eyes drift across the bar and I’m not surprised to see them land on Will. This is Will’s favorite place. Is that why I keep coming here? Because I know he’ll show up?

“You saw him kiss me,” I say. “Why don’t you hate me?”

The sway of Asher’s hips stalls for two heartbeats before he resumes our dance as if I’ve said nothing.

“I kissed him. Didn’t you see that? I was there with you and I kissed him.”

“Why do you need me to be angry with you?” He trails his fingers down my sides, brushes his thumbs over my belly, his fingertips over the curve of my hip.

“You know things.” I step back away from his touch to make sure he’s hearing me. “You know things that no one else knows. That no one else
can
know. Do you understand that? You shouldn’t want to be with me. You should want to be with someone…better.”

“Fuck
should.
I want you.” His hands are on me again and I feel like I’m walking along the edge of a steep precipice, like I might slip over the edge and lose control.

“I keep waiting for you to stop showing up,” I say. “To give up on me.”

“Do you want me to give up? Because I saw the way he was looking at you last week, Maggie. If you want him, he’s yours.”

I blink. Krystal had said the same thing, but they don’t understand that it’s not that simple. “And what if I want you?” I ask softly.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are. You keep coming back. For what? What is this between us?”

He slides a hand into my hair and leads me to lean into him again. “It’s whatever you want it to be, gorgeous. With one exception.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s not just sex.
That’s
why I won’t sleep with you. I won’t
let
this be just sex.”

That makes me smile. “Why me, Asher? I’m just some small-town slut with too much baggage. You could have anyone.” I can feel his heart beating against my cheek and its steady pace increases at my question. “Why me?”

“Sweetheart, when you know the answer to that question, we won’t be talking anymore.”

I pull back and blink at him. “You’ll be gone?”

His lips quirk. “I’ll be inside you.”

***

Asher

Maggie feels so amazing in my arms. I don’t want to let her go, even if we are dancing in the middle of a rundown bar. I bury my nose in her hair and inhale deeply. She has me so addicted to her scent, I’m surprised I haven’t tracked down her shampoo for a daily hit.

“We’re getting another round,” Lizzy calls from the bar. “You need one, Mags?”

Maggie cuts her eyes to me before shaking her head.

“You don’t have to stop drinking for me,” I say softly.

“I know. But it’s okay. I’m done.”

“What about you, Asher?” Lizzy asks.

“I’ve got everything I need right here,” I call back, tightening my arms around Maggie.

“Want to sit?” Maggie asks.

I nod and follow her to a booth. She grins when I slide into the same side with her, thighs touching.

When I wrap an arm around her, she settles into me, and I see her ex watching us from across the bar. For the first time, though, Maggie doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Why don’t you drink?” she asks, peering up through her lashes. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“It’s a condition of my probation.”

She inhales sharply.

“What, like it’s a secret?”

“I…” She licks her lips. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it.”

“My past is ugly, and I’m not proud of it, but it’s part of who I am. It made me who I am. I’m not hiding from it.”

She ducks out from under my arm and wraps her arms around herself. “No one’s asking you to.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m doing a fine job of fucking up an otherwise perfect night, aren’t I?” I open my eyes again when I feel her fingers on mine.

“I won’t judge you for your mistakes, Asher. I’m the last person who would do that.”

I intertwine my fingers with hers and squeeze her hand. My heart knots painfully in my chest with something I can’t name. “I did it,” I say. “I’m not some innocent dude being punished for a crime he didn’t commit. I did it.”

“Were you drunk?”

“Yes. Drunk. High.” The silence grows heavy between us as I let the ugliness rise up. I examine it with such detachment now. “You’ve read the reports, I’m sure. I was drunk and out for blood.”

“I haven’t read them.” She shrugs. “I don’t care to. You aren’t that guy, Asher.”

Her confidence shakes me, and I have to swallow back this feeling in my throat I know she wouldn’t like.

“So, probation? What does that mean?”

“For me it meant anger management classes, and weekly drug and alcohol screening.” And a protective order that keeps me from seeing my daughter any time I want.

She blinks. “Wow. That sucks.”

I lift a shoulder. “It beats the alternative.”

“Which was what?”

“A year in prison for aggravated battery.”

“A year?” she says softly. “But you definitely don’t have to serve time, right?”

I shrug. “Assuming I can stay on the right side of the law for another month, sure.” I force a smile. “But that’s why I’m in New Hope and not at my house in the city. Easy enough to stay out of trouble here.”

She snorts. “Depends who you talk to.”

I squeeze her hand.

“What happens if you get in trouble with the law while you’re on probation?”

I take a breath. “I have to serve my year sentence.” And worse, I’d miss a whole year with my daughter.

***

She’s silent the entire drive home. I pull into the driveway of her rental and shut off the ignition.

I want to stay with her tonight. I want to kiss away the memory of Will and any other man who hurt her. I want to take her slowly and softly in her bed. I want to hold her, because—whether she’ll admit it or not—that’s what she needs.

She’s looking out her window, not at me, and the soft tension of unspoken secrets hisses like steam in the silence.

“I have a daughter,” I say into the darkness. “She’s four years old, and smart and amazing, and because her mother is living with the man I assaulted, I can only see her during my one week of visitation a month.”

“A daughter?”

“That’s why I wasn’t around this week,” I explain. “I flew to New York for my week with her.”

“I had no idea.”

I swallow, not entirely sure why I’m sharing all of this. “I want primary custody, but my lawyer said going after that while I’m on probation is asking to lose. So I’m waiting, but she’s my world.”

She’s still not looking at me, but if my having a child scares her away, so be it. Zoe has to come first.

“You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes. I have too. But I believe we’re more than the sum of our mistakes. I didn’t used to. I thought I was a piece of shit. I thought I was nothing.” I take her hand and lightly brush my thumb over the gauze wrapping her wrist. “I used to drink to feel numb, but then I sobered up and a different kind of numbness followed. It was Zoe who made me feel again, and who made me believe I was more than the sum of my mistakes.”

“You’re lucky.” Her voice shakes. I wonder if she’s cried since that day at the river. I wonder if this might be the moment she breaks. What does it say about me that I want her to? I want her to break so I can find her in the pieces, just like she does with her mosaics.

She laughs but it sounds crazed, maniacal, but then she looks out the window and whispers, “Oh, my gosh,” and there’s a smile in her voice.

The streetlight slants in the window, giving me just enough light to make out her changing expression.

“What is it?”

“That’s Krystal’s car.” She slumps down in her seat, and the light catches on her earring, making it flash in the darkness.

I follow her gaze to the red Mini Cooper parked down the block. “Is she visiting you?”

“Not me,” Maggie breathes. “That’s Tyler’s house.”

“Who’s Tyler?”

Maggie chews on her lip, masking her smile. “Tyler was her first love.”

Krystal steps onto the softly lit porch, dressed in a tank and shorts that show off her long legs. She’s quickly joined by a tall man in a dark t-shirt and jeans.

We watch as Tyler cups her jaw in his hands and kisses her softly.

She follows him in the door, and my chest is heavy with the implication of it.

“What will you do?” I ask.

Pulling her eyes from the illuminated scene, she turns to me. “What do you mean?”

“Will you tell him?”

She straightens. “Will and Krystal broke up the night of the housewarming. There’s nothing to tell.”

Will isn’t engaged to her sister anymore, and she’s here with me? “They broke up? For good?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not with him?”

“No.”

I lean across the seat and pull her against me, kissing her hard and hungry, because if she wanted her ex-fiancé back, she could have him. I slip my tongue between her lips and she opens to me, sliding her hands into my hair and kissing me back. Her lips are soft and her tongue hot, and I want so much more.

When we finally separate we’re both breathing hard and the porch down the road is dark.

We get out of the car and hold hands as I walk her to the door.

“You want to come in?” she asks, and the need in her eyes is more than a physical reaction.

I brush my lips across hers. “Go let Lucy out. You’re coming with me tonight.”

Chapter Fifteen

Maggie

“Do you take all your girls here?” I ask Asher. But the humor fizzles out of my voice when I see him spread a blanket on the grass.

He brought me to his house and led me through the backyard and down to the river.

With most men, this wouldn’t make me uncomfortable because knowing what they wanted, knowing where it was going, would give me a sense of control. Not with Asher. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you”—he tilts my chin toward the sky—“to look at these stars.”

So I do. I turn and lean into his chest and look at the New Hope stars. The bright ones. The ones that are so faint they look more like a hint of light than a dedication to it. I find the big dipper. The little dipper. I listen to the soft rushing of the water and feel my shoulders relax and my breathing slow.

The silence stirs between us for a long time, intense with what hasn’t been said, heavy with what I know I can’t say. I wish to be someone else, a woman with an untainted past, a woman who could whisper secrets about her life with no real shame.

Finally, Asher speaks. “I’m not asking anything from you, Maggie. I’m a patient man. I know you’ve been hurt and don’t feel like you have much to give.”

And there it is again. That ache. That burn to explain. And maybe I would. If this were a different world or I were a different person. If I weren’t so very afraid of what it might mean to trust him with the most fragile pieces of myself.

“Normally, I back off when I start to feel something for a woman. But the thing is”—he whispers now—“it’s too late. I’ve already fallen for you.”

My eyes fill with hot tears, and I duck his embrace and put space between us. I tell myself I’m not running away. I’m giving myself some much deserved space from a man who wants more from me than I can give.

I step closer to the river and slip off my shoes. Calm rushes through me at the slight give of the earth beneath my feet. The air is heavy with the smell of river. The scent of fresh water mixes with mildew and slowly decomposing earth. I love the smell, love the promise of it. That everything, no matter what its beginnings, has a purpose and will break down and become a part of something new. A tree limb will become part of the riverbed; a frog will become part of the rich soil that will nourish a baby tree until it grows into a great oak.

I sense Asher before I hear him. His fingers slip into mine before I acknowledge him. His big, solid hand warms my smaller one. I have to fight the temptation to pour all of my troubles out to him, to share my worries with this man.

I pull my hand away.

“I don’t want to scare you away,” he says. “But I’m not the kind of guy who keeps quiet when he feels something. Not anymore.” His voice is soft, soothing. A balm to my frayed nerves.

“I’m just not there, Asher. I don’t fall in love that easily.”
And you don’t want the likes of me loving you.

“Not since Will?”

I don’t know how to answer that.

“So many secrets.” He sighs heavily. “Love isn’t a bartering tool. I just wanted to tell you. I don’t expect anything in return. Nothing at all.”

I lean against him in the darkness and wrap my arms around his waist. “I didn’t say I can’t give you anything,” I say, pressing my mouth against his chest, kissing my way down.