“Lucky me, huh?” I stare into my glass. “I sure know how to pick ’em.”
Her eyes cloud with anger. “Has he hurt you?”
I know she means physically; I did say Chad. “No…”Yes.So much it’s fuckingagony. My heart hurts more than anything Chad ever did.
“He hasn’t hit you?” She’s scanning me like she’s looking for bruises.
He did, actually. Slapped my face. My breast. It’s not what she means either. And it wasn’t even the same. It was… different. Not wrong.
Wait. Notwrong?
Fuck.
Tears fill my eyes. I don’t know if it’s shame, humiliation, loss… pain…
“He hit you.” She makes it a statement. “I’m going to fuckingkillhim.”
“He didn’t,” I say quickly. Still protecting him. “No, it’s not that. He hasn’t…”
“What did he…” She pauses. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shift in my chair. “Kurt mustn’t know. Not yet.”
“That’s probably for the best,” she says slowly.
Not the response I was expecting. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh, well…” She looks awkward, waving a dismissive hand, the motion jerky. “He’s protective of you.”
Protective. One step away from possessive. Seemseveryone wants to own me.
“Declan didn’t…hurtme.” He just ripped my heart out. Hardly counts.
Tasha doesn’t buy it. “No bruises doesn’t mean no pain, girl.”
“I suppose not.”
Silence falls. A sparrow settles on the railing for long enough to think better of it, fluttering off again. We both watch it.
“Do you love him?” Tasha asks.
“No, I—” The answer comes fast, but I stop myself. It’s not that simple. Ilikehim—liked—but that’s not it either. “I haven’t known him long enough to love him,” I say carefully.
“What difference does that make?”
Fair.
“I don’t think I love him.” I bite at my lip, then take another gulp of wine. “It just hurts a lot, you know?” He got inside me, in more ways than one. My heart feels broken, but I don’t know if it’s our relationship I’m mourning, or my own naïve hopes. “To be honest, I think it’s more me than him. He ripped open wounds he didn’t know I had. That’s not really… his fault.”
But sleeping with me when he’s married is totally his fault.
Tasha shakes her head. “I hate when men make us think we’re the ones to blame.”
Except I am the one to blame. At least in part.
“Can I ask what he did?” Tasha’s tone couldn’t be more tentative.
“Fucked me really hard, twice.” Best sex I’ll ever have.
