“Why? You were already full of me. All night.”
I had to clench the muscles of my nether region as his cocky attitude reminded me yet again that I wasn’t wearing any underwear. Speaking of…
“Um, I hope you don’t mind I had to pull out one of your T-shirts to wear. I couldn’t find my clothing from last night.” I glanced over my shoulder at Xavier.
“I hid them,” he answered while he fixed two cups of coffee to set in the dining room just off from the kitchen.
I turned to him.
“You hid my clothes?”
When he finished setting the coffee on the table, he looked up at me. “Yeah.”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because you like to run and I wasn’t taking that chance this morning. Breakfast done?”
I put my hand on my hip as I poked it out. “I wasn’t planning on running this morning,” I defended.
“I wasn’t taking the chance. We still need to discuss a lot.” He leveled a serious look at me. “Breakfast first.”
He fixed both our plates and carried them to the table. When he stood there looking at me, waiting, I strutted over to the table, allowing him to hold out the chair for me to sit. We ate mostly in silence, the music I had on still playing in the background. I savored the last few bites of my breakfast, wanting to put off this inevitable talk as long as possible. I knew it was necessary, but still hated the idea of it. What if Xavier told me he didn’t want to be with me? That just might crush me.
I’d been trying to convince myself that we were over, but in truth, deep down, I hoped we’d find our way back to one another. What we had was too strong and magnetic just to let it slip away. Still, there was a lot in my past that needed to be drudged up and exposed. And I suspected in his, too. For a while I’d been convinced there was something in Xavier’s past that had triggered his reaction when he found out about Ethan’s abuse. It was more than just my lying that’d pushed him out the door that day.
“You’re doing it again.” His words broke my train of thought.
I lowered my fork to my plate and wiped my mouth with one of his cloth napkins. “Doing what?”
“That look. The one you get when you’re thinking hard about something. The one when your eyes gloss over a little bit and they get that far-off look. It’s accompanied by a slight crease in your forehead. Depending on how deep the crease is I can tell whether you’re thinking about work, family, or me.”
My mouth went dry. I lowered my head, looking down into my lap. I’d never get over how closely he observed me. How well he knew what I was thinking just from a look. I inhaled deeply before looking back at him.
“And what look was I doing just then? What was I just thinking about?”
He gave me a half-smirk. The dimple that I’d missed so much emerged on his cheek and my belly flip-flopped.
“Me.”
I blew out a breath.
“You ready to talk yet?”
He casually pulled my chair closer to his, turning it towards him, so we were face-to-face.
“Doesn’t seem I have a choice,” I quipped.
“You don’t.”
I sighed. “Okay. I’ll start. Where’ve you been the last month and a half?”
“Mostly Vegas. A few other places, working, and no, I haven’t seen or been with any other women.”
I felt my shoulders sag at his words. I hadn’t planned on asking him about other women, but hearing him say there was no one else was a relief. I stared out over his shoulder, avoiding eye contact, but still able to feel his gaze burrowing into my eyes. Finally, I garnered up enough courage to ask the question I’d wanted to know for weeks.
“Why did you walk out? And why didn’t you answer any of my calls?” I hated the thread of hurt that laced my voice. It made me feel vulnerable and needy, two feelings I loathed more than anything.
“Why did you lie to me?”
