Yeah. It made me a bitch.
Yeah. I didn’t give a single fuck.
For a few hours, I’d sat at that booth and forgotten about the world outside. I’d listened to a broken woman laughing, and as stupid as it might sound, it had done wonders to soothe the hate inside me.
I traced my fingers over the arrows I’d made leading to the exits, wishing I had taken her hand, dragged her out of that restaurant, and disappeared into the night with her at my side. In that world, outside those doors, Travis wasn’t sick, Charlotte wasn’t shattered, and I was able to extinguish the fire blazing inside me once and for all. In other words, the impossible.
Closing my eyes, I tossed it back into the drawer.
I was rising to my feet, heading for the door to help the staff finish closing up so we could all get the hell out of there, when I heard the commotion outside.
“I said, wait up front!” Emily, the hostess, called out as my office door swung open.
My whole body locked up tight as a woman came flying inside.
And then my heart stopped, unsure if she was real.
I blinked. Then blinked again. It didn’t look like her, but I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.
She was soaking wet from the rain, tears dripping from her eyes, her eye makeup running down her ghostly white face, and her entire body was trembling.
“Charlotte,” I rasped, slipping around my desk.
Emily appeared behind her. “I’m sorry, Porter. I asked her to wait out front.”
I lifted a hand to cut her off, never tearing my gaze away from the woman I’d somehow willed into fruition. “It’s fine. Shut the door behind yourself.”
“Yeah. Okay. Sorry,” she rushed out, and then I heard the door click.
Alone.
My heart slammed against my ribs and thundered in my ears.
I took a slow step forward, cautious as though the movement might spook her.
She didn’t say anything as she stared at me with wild eyes, her chin quivering, her mouth opening and closing as if she were trying to talk.
I curled a finger in the air. “C’mere.”
She didn’t move, so I stepped closer and kept my voice soft, my arms aching to reach her.
“What’s going on, sweetheart?”
She closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest, and on a loud sob I could barely make out, she cried, “I need it to stop.” She looked back up, the emptiness searing me. “I need it to stop, Porter.”
I didn’t waste another second. My legs devoured the distance between us until our bodies crashed together, her hand fisting the back of my shirt as she buried her face in my chest.
“It won’t stop,” she cried, and it was so visceral that it slashed through me. “I just need it to stop.”
Gliding a hand up her back and into her hair, I tucked her face into my neck. “Shh… I’ll stop with you, Charlotte. I’ll stop with you.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and climbed up my body, circling her legs around my hips.
Slapping a hand out to the side, I turned the lights off and plunged the room into darkness—our darkness. Then I carried her over to the leather loveseat in the corner and sat with her securely on my lap.
She burrowed into me, her legs on either side of my hips, our chests so tight that I could feel her heart thumping. Strangled words flew from her lips, most of which I couldn’t make out. But there was one phrase she kept repeating.
“It has to stop, Porter. It has to stop.”
I brushed her dripping hair off her shoulder and peppered chaste kisses against her temple, murmuring, “I’ll stop with you. Right now, it’s just me and you in the dark.”
Her body bucked from sobs, and she writhed as though she were trying to crawl inside me.
I whispered her name over and over, for no other reason than to remind her I was there.
I couldn’t be sure how long we sat there, but with every second that passed, the likelihood of letting her go grew smaller and smaller. She was in utter emotional upheaval, but she was in my arms, so I was breathing for the first time in two weeks.
After a few minutes, her chest stopped heaving and her cries fell silent. And a few minutes after that, her tense body relaxed into me.
“There you go,” I praised, gathering her wet hair in one hand to get it off her neck.
“It’s been ten years. And it’s getting worse,” she confessed, nuzzling her soft cheek against my stubble.
“No judgments,” I whispered.
Her head came up and turned. I couldn’t see shit, but I thought I felt her lips sweep mine before she went back to softly nuzzling the other side of my face.
“What’s your darkest secret, Porter?”
Without an ounce of hesitation—not with her—I admitted, “I think I killed my wife.”
Her body went stiff, and then it melted as if she were somehow relieved.
That time, I definitely felt her lips, and my body came alive as she pressed a deep, apologetic kiss to my mouth. I slanted my head, but when I tried to touch my tongue with hers, her mouth shifted to my ear.
“I’m afraid that he’s alive,” she whispered.
I sucked in a sharp breath and hugged her tight. “Charlotte…”
Her tone grew painfully intense. “What if whoever took him abuses him? There are horrible people in this world, Porter. What if he’s hungry? Would they take him to the doctor when he got sick or just leave him to suffer?”
Those were all serious concerns I couldn’t address. But the darkness wasn’t about fixing each other. It was only about knowing we weren’t alone.
“What if, instead of fighting her, I had forced her to the surface?” I asked. “What if I had realized before that day that she was suicidal? There had to have been clues I missed. I hit her, Charlotte. With the same hands I use to hold my children, I hit their mother and then left her to die.” My voice broke as I wrenched my eyes shut.
Her hands framed my face at the same time her lips came back. We both inhaled reverently, sharing the air as though it could bring us closer.
Our parallel conversation continued when she murmured, “For years, I daydreamed about finding him. I must have created a million different scenarios where the police brought him back to me.” Her already quiet voice became softer. “Now, I dream about them telling me he’s dead so I can finally let go.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut, my breath breezing over her skin as it flew from my lungs.
I didn’t have time to acknowledge the pain because she was waiting for my next confession. And it was probably the darkest one I’d ever have to share.
“For the last two weeks, I’ve missed you more than I’ve ever missed her.”
She gasped and then whispered a sad, “Porter.”
“I get why we can’t be together, Charlotte. I swear to God I do. But I’ve never in my life been able to talk to someone like this. I don’t go through the motions with you. For one fucking day, I wasn’t numb or angry. But the best part was that you know what it’s like, so it wouldn’t have mattered if I was.” Cupping her jaw, I tilted her head down to rest her forehead on mine. “I know who you are, Charlotte. And I know it doesn’t feel like the darkness when we’re together.” Sliding my hand from her jaw to around her neck, I leaned to the side and lowered her back to the loveseat. “Tell me you feel it too.”
Her breathing shuddered. “I feel it.”
A heady combination of relief and excitement blasted through me.
She gasped as I followed her down and pressed my lips to her neck. “Oh God,” she breathed, threading her fingers into the top of my hair.
I teased my fingers at the waistband of her jeans and trailed my lips to her collarbone. “Any more confessions, Charlotte?” I asked, pushing her shirt up to just below her bra, my hand gliding up the soft skin of her stomach.
I silently cursed the absence of light; she felt fucking beautiful.
“No more confessions,” she moaned.
I found her satin-covered breast and rolled my thumb over her peaked nipple, and I said, “Good. Then we’re done talking.”
Surging up, I took her mouth in a desperate kiss. Her lips opened, inviting me in, and our tongues tangled with greed. A growl rumbled in my throat as she arched up, her soft curves molding around my hard planes.