“So what did this woman do?”
“She gave me a way out. But more importantly, she held up a mirror to myself. I saw myself for the first time—I saw how other people looked at me, how pathetic I seemed, and I hated it.” She let out a little sigh. “He’d come into the diner and started ragging on me like he usually did. He didn’t hit me or anything, just gave me the same old lines. And I started apologizing. Again.”
Just as she had a few minutes ago. Yeah, this was complicated.
“I started crying,” Louise said after a moment, “and I went into the bathroom to wash my face. The woman followed me, and gave me a card for a domestic abuse center in New York.”
“Why New York?”
“It was where she was from. She volunteered at the center there. But it suited me because I needed to get far away from Alabama. From the person I was there. It took me another two months to save up the money for bus fare. Work up the courage to leave.” She swallowed hard; he could feel and hear her ragged breaths. “But I did. I took a bus from Monroe to New York City and I found the center. They gave me a chance. A place to live, first of all, and they helped me find a job. They even helped me apply for night classes at Columbia, and then I ended up getting a scholarship. After that I didn’t look back. Ever.”
Except, Jaiven thought, when she’d met him. And he’d reminded her of this bastard. He pressed his face into her hair, the guilt and remorse he felt a hot lump in his throat.
He tightened his arms around her and drew her more securely against his chest. When he trusted himself to speak, he said, “I’m glad you told me all this. And thank you for telling me, because I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Not,” Louise agreed, “a laugh a minute.”
He laughed then, a low rasp of a chuckle, because at times like this he realized how much she absolutely amazed him. How strong she was. To endure what she had and be where she was, a successful, professional woman who was sexy and confident even if she didn’t always think she was? To have the courage to tell him all her stuff and still be able to joke about it? Unbelievable.
He wanted to tell her something of what he felt, but even as the feeling surged in his chest, the words bottled in his throat. He’d never done this before. Cared so much before. And somehow his own fears and failings got tangled up with all the admiration and affection he felt for her, and he couldn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms even more tightly around her and pressed his face against her hair again, breathing in her scent.
Louise slid her hand on top of his, entwining their fingers. “Would you…would you stay the night?”
Did she even have to ask? But before he could tell her he would, she clarified quickly, “Not—not for sex, fantasy or otherwise. It’s not that I don’t want you, but…” She trailed off uncertainly, but he still got it. All of this revelation had left her too raw for sex, especially with their history. He understood that. He felt it himself.
Well, sort of.
“I’ll stay if you want me to,” he said. He touched her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head so she was looking at him. “But if you change your mind and want me to go, I’ll do that, too.”
Her eyes widened and she blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But I won’t want that.”
“Even so.”
Silently, still clasping his hand, she led him from the living room to her bedroom, its gabled window overlooking a tiny cement courtyard in the back, the steep roofs of other brownstones stretching on like a sea of slate.
She didn’t pause on the threshold, but he did. He remembered lying on that bed with her, taunting her with her own desire, forcing her to admit she wanted him. Humiliating her, because he’d been so angry, so hurt. What a pathetic bastard he’d been.
“Jaiven.” She turned to him, pressed her cold hands to his cheeks. He blinked at her, the memories banished for a moment, even though his stomach still churned with guilt. “Stop thinking so much,” she said quietly. “And just hold me.”
“That sounds good to me.” He craved the closeness of her body next to his, her warm curves pressing into his hard angles and planes, softening him. He needed her for that, he realized. He needed her so much.
And so he pulled her into his arms and she pressed against him, her hands sliding around his waist and locking around his middle. Then after a moment she eased away, gave him a mischievous smile. “If we’re going to do this right,” she said, “let me brush my teeth and change into pajamas.”
He laughed, grateful for the moment of lightness. “That’s doing it right?”
“In my book.” She undid the tie on her dress and slipped out of the clingy black jersey, revealing a black lace bra and pants. Jaiven swallowed hard.
No sex, he reminded himself. Don’t even think about it. And if that was the penance he needed to serve, then so be it. He would do whatever it took.
He stripped down to his boxers and T-shirt; he normally slept in the buff but he knew that wasn’t going to happen tonight. A lot, he acknowledged, wasn’t going to happen tonight.
But a lot already had.
Louise lent him a spare toothbrush and they stood shoulder to shoulder in her tiny bathroom, brushing their teeth in a way that felt totally bizarre and yet weirdly companionable. As if he could imagine doing this every night for the next fifty years.
Then when she slid into her double bed with its ivory duvet and pastel-colored pillows and held out her arms Jaiven wasted no time in joining her and taking her into his arms, where she snuggled right down.
“This feels,” he said as he stroked her hair, “like a sleepover.”
She let out a laugh that sounded as if it had turned into a hiccup. “Is this too weird?” she asked, anxious again, and he slid his hand around to cup her cheek.
“It’s different than what I’m used to,” he told her, “but at this point in my life different is good.”
“How so?”
He kept his hand on her cheek as he sifted through his feelings, chose his words. “The whole fling thing had started to seem kind of empty,” he said. “I admit I’ve had my fair share of one-night stands and flings.”
“I’d say more than your fair share,” Louise murmured. “You’ve had mine, too. And maybe half the population of Manhattan’s.”
“That might be a slight exaggeration,” he answered. Then he asked, “Does it bother you?”
“That you’ve slept with tons of women?” She considered the question, her cheek pressed against his chest. “If I’m honest? A little.”
Which was fair enough. He didn’t particularly like the thought of her with other guys, which was probably some stupid caveman instinct, but he still felt it. “Well, if it helps, I’m not into that kind of life anymore.”
“That’s rather an about-face.”
“Maybe it’s been coming for a while, and I just didn’t see it. Didn’t want to see it.” Maybe it was who he really was, what he’d wanted all along, and he’d just denied it because he’d never felt worthy.
And you still aren’t. You still haven’t told her the whole truth.
But he would, Jaiven told himself. Eventually.
Louise drew a breath as if she was going to say something more, but then she let it out on a sigh and relaxed against him. And maybe that was better. They’d both said a hell of a lot tonight. Jaiven wasn’t sure he had much more in him.
Louise