“And I wanted to make you happy. To show you I know how to please you. That I can do it a million times better than they can.”
Color leaches from his skin as pain washes across his face. Tears pool in his eyes as he moves closer, pressing his forehead to mine. “Jesus, Sel,” he rasps, his voice cracking. “I don’t need you to prove anything to me.” Then he breaks down in my arms, sobbing as he clutches on to me, and I freeze. The only other time Keanu has cried in front of me was the night I told him what had happened to me.
And now, I feel like shit for upsetting him.
“I’m sorry, K,” I whisper, as tears roll down my face. “I didn’t want to upset you. I just wanted to make you happy.”
“Selena.” He lifts his head, peering at me as we both cry. “You make me happy every second of every day that you’re by my side. You don’t need to do…that, to do anything sexual, to make me happy.” He chokes on a sob. “I love you!” he cries. “And getting to love you and to feel loved by you is all I need to be happy. I…” He wraps his arms around me, holding me close, and his body heaves underneath me, shuddering with gut-wrenching sobs. “God, Sel. I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s my fault for not saving myself for you. If I had, you wouldn’t feel like this.”
“No, Keanu!” I cry. “It’s not your fault.”
“But it is!” he says. “Now, you feel like you have something to prove, and I never want you to feel like you’re forced into having sex with me!”
“I don’t feel forced. I love you, and I want that with you. I want to make love to you.”
He clasps my face firmly in his palms. “And I want to have sex with you. I want tomake loveto you. I crave it. But not like this! Not because you feel like you have to!”
“It’s not like that!” I plead.
“Isn’t it?” Pain shimmers in his eyes, and a wave of guilt sweeps over me.
I’m making a mess of everything. “No.” I shuck out of his embrace, climbing to my feet. I pace the floor. “We’re never going to get beyond this, are we? What’s happened to me is always going to come between us. I will never be normal!” I cry out as tears stream down my face. I bend over, clutching my stomach, and my body throbs with pain. I feel it in every cell, every nerve ending, every molecule. “I will never be good enough for you.”
I drop to my knees on the floor, sobbing.
Keanu is beside me in a heartbeat. “Baby, don’t say that.” He bundles me into his arms, and I collapse against his bare chest, crying tears all over his warm flesh. “We love each other, and we both want to take things to that level, but not like this.” He kisses the top of my head. “It’s going to work out, I promise.”
“I feel like such a failure as a woman,” I truthfully admit, snaking my arms around his waist and clinging to him. “Like I’ve failed you. I pushed you into those other women’s arms because I couldn’t give you what you needed.”
“Stop it, Sel.” Keanu forces my face up to his. “That is not what happened, and we both know it.” Air whooshes out of his mouth as he stares at me. “I love you so fucking much. I wish I could open my chest, open my heart, so you could see how much. So you could know I would go to the ends of the Earth for you. Please don’t give up on us, Sel. Please believe me when I say you are everything to me. You are the only woman that matters. And I want everything with you, but when it’s right for both of us.”
“Okay,” I mumble, because I know he’s right.
He carries me over to the bed, lying me down on top of the comforter. Brushing hair back from my face, he looks at me with so much love there’s no doubt about the extent of his feelings. “I’d like to talk to Denise about this,” he says. “Together.” He links our hands. “Let’s arrange a couple’s session. We need to talk this through, to find our way to a place where we’re able to make love for all the right reasons. Please?”
“You want to talk to her about something this intimate?”
“Yes. I trust her. And I know you do too. She’ll help us figure it out.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I’ll set it up.”
21
Selena
“Morning,” Kent mumbles when I arrive downstairs in the kitchen. Keanu is taking a shower, so I’m cooking us a decent breakfast, because I don’t know how long we’ll be at the FBI offices for today.
“Morning,” I reply, moving to the refrigerator.
“I’m sorry about last night, Selena,” he says, watching as I remove eggs, onions, tomatoes, garlic, grated cheese, and spinach from the fridge.
“It’s okay, Kent,” I say even though it’s really not okay.
I’mnot okay.
Keanu’s not okay.
But it isn’t Kent’s fault.
