My eyes widen. “So, the last two years?”
“I used my hand, if you really wanna know.”
“But it’s not the same.”
“I’d agree with you, but no other pussy is gonna do.”
I turn to look over my shoulder at him. “Aust, you don’t have to just say shit. You’re a guy?—”
“And that’s pretty much what you said to me last time. Is it so hard to believe that I abstained because I wasn’t feelin’ like just fuckin’ around when I left? You think it was easy for me lettin’ you go?” The frown on his face tells me all I need to know.
Haze isn’t an angry man, not with me. He also rarely loses his temper or shows his frustration, so this must be a sore subject for him. “I don’t think that.”
“But it still happened, didn’t it? That’s what you mean.”
“We need to get past that,” I whisper. “If we ever have a chance at moving on, that’s all I’m saying. You bring it up everychance you get, as if I need a reminder of that day, or the days that followed.” I pull my shirt to cover myself as I twist to sit up. This is going sideways fast.
“One of the reasons we broke up is because we never communicated,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “You don’t tell me what’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours, and until you do, this can’t continue.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “This?”
He waves a hand between us. “Sex, babe. Trust me, I want it more than anythin’, but the whole point of my self imposed celibacy was because I needed to find myself again. You did too. I was wounded, sure. I wanted you to beg me to stay, and that was selfish and wrong of me…”
“And I didn’t,” I whisper, my eyes springing with tears. “I didn’t beg you, did I, Austin?”
“No, and that’s okay, because you never have to do that, but what isn’t okay is you keepin’ things from me. If we’re seriously gonna have another shot atus,then I need to know what’s goin’ on upstairs, baby girl. I can’t play guessin’ games with you.”
“I know. I’m working on it.”
“I know we both had rough childhoods with our parents. Deep down I know they loved us, and my mom tried hard to keep the family together, but we can’t blame them for how we are as adults,” he says, surprising me. “I know you have issues with your dad, and I don’t blame you for that. But he can’t come between us if it’s what we really want.”
I cup one side of his face. “I know you feel as if you aren’t good enough in my dad’s eyes,” I say, hating how I’ve put that look on his face. It tells me he really does still think that. “But it’s not true. Yes, I should’ve fought for us more than what I did, but we were different people then. We hardly knew what we wanted when we got married, and a rebellious part of me did it to piss my parents off, but I still loved you.”
He piques a brow. “Do you love me now?”
I bite my lip. “I never stopped loving you, Aust, you know that.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“We try.”
He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, squeezing them before he opens them. “Then we gotta do it right.”
“As in?”
“As in we get to know each other all over again. Properly. Talkin’ is a good place to start.”
This man befuddles me. He spends the last five years all but celibate — bar the few times we hooked up — and here I am on a golden platter, and he wants to talk. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with Haze in the beginning — because he wasn’t like other guys. He was never afraid to tell me how he felt, even if that made him look vulnerable. I wish I could be more like that, and I vow to try. I know they say leopards can’t change their spots, but they can pivot. And I want to pivot, I really do. I can’t let him get away again because I’m too afraid to reach for what I want.
“I’m half naked and you want to talk?” I balk.
He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “While my dick is gonna protest, I think we both know what needs to happen here. I love bein’ inside you, bein’ close to you, but this will become about sex all over again, just like it did two years ago, and we had nowhere to build from there.”
“I’ve never met a man like you before,” I blurt. “You really want to talk about getting busy?”
“Didn’t say that. I said, ‘I want to know you’.” He taps a finger over my heart. “What’s inside here. The many layers to Willow Dawson. I know it’s gonna take a while to get there, but I’ve got all the time in the world.”
Willow Dawson. Not Sinclair.
