Irritated with himself, he flopped down beside her and listened as they both tried to catch their breaths. He turned his head to crack a joke about it, to ease the sudden tension between them, but Bailey was already on the move.
Bailey
Oh, my God.
I’d done it again.
I couldn’t believe I’d done it again.
Fear, anger, pain lanced across my chest, making it hard to breathe, and I knew I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Not looking at Vaughn, I pulled up my panties, ignored the throbbing between my legs, and hopped off the bed. I quickly pushed down my skirt and hurried over to where my shirt lay.
“What are you doing?” Vaughn asked, concern in his words.
I ignored the concern. “Getting out of here so I can self-flagellate in private for letting you do this to me again.”
He sighed and I heard him get out of bed, but I refused to look at him. Looking at him only got me into trouble. My hands trembled as I grabbed up my bra and shrugged on my shirt. Behind me I heard rustling then the sound of his zipper going up. Then suddenly I felt the heat of his presence right next to me, felt the overwhelming focus of his eyes on my downturned face.
Gently, Vaughn swatted my hands away from my shirt and started to button it for me. My hands fell uselessly to my sides, limp with surprise. “I didn’t bring you up here to do that. That . . . My dick apparently can’t control itself around you.”
I glowered up at him and the asshole had the audacity to grin at me.
“Nice,” I snapped.
“But it wasn’t my dick that led you up here.” Finished buttoning me up, he took my face in his hands and looked at me with such tenderness I felt the war start up again within me. “Bailey.” A look of vulnerability crossed his face; his breathing seemed shallow. “Bailey . . . I’m in love with you.”
I froze.
Had I just heard correctly?
“I’m in love with you.”
My breath got locked inside of my throat and I struggled to draw in air as I tried to process this revelation.
“I’ve been in love with you for a long time. I’ve fought it. I’ve hidden it. I’ve tried to cast them aside. But since our night together I haven’t been able to hold my feelings down. And I don’t want to anymore. I’m sorry for saying I didn’t want you when I always have. I need you to know I’m done with that bullshit. I want to be with you. I want to see where this could go.”
The silence fell thick and fast between us as he stared into my eyes with sincerity and tenderness in his expression.
It would have been so easy to let this moment with this beautiful man override every moment that had come before it.
But I couldn’t let it.
I couldn’t trust it.
I couldn’t trust him.
Instead I was suddenly overwhelmed with fear and anger. I took his hands from my face and pushed him gently away.
“No.”
The word seemed to wind him. “No?”
Tears burned my eyes as I backed away from the pain in his. “No. No! You can’t do this to me!”
“Right now you’re scared, I get that . . .” He tried to reach for me. “But that’s because you care about me, too.”
I dodged his touch. “I do. I absolutely do. But I don’t trust you, Vaughn.”
His jaw slackened as though I’d physically gutted him. “You don’t trust me?”
“No, I don’t.” I shoved my feet into my shoes, glaring at him, and I gathered every memory of his ill treatment of me, his confused, hurtful behavior to me like armor against him. “You tell me you love me, but only a week ago you told me you didn’t want anything to happen between us. Everyone knows you’re a womanizer! So no, I don’t trust you because the truth is I don’t think you can trust yourself . . . You don’t know what you want.”
Anger tightened his expression. “Don’t you dare tell me what I’m feeling. I fucking know what I want. Do you know how hard this was for me? If you walk out on me that’s all about you, not me. I’m not the one running scared now, princess.”
“I have every right to run scared. You were a confirmed bachelor until two seconds ago! You’re lost, Vaughn, completely lost! And I don’t need another guy like you in my life.”
I thought of the man, the boy really, who was just like Vaughn. I thought of how easily I’d bought his lies, his apparent sincerity, and I knew I couldn’t trust myself with someone like him again.
Vaughn needed to know that this moment wasn’t part of the dance we’d been performing around each other for months. This was the end of the dance.
I stared at him, and suddenly I saw the boy from my past, smiling at me in that boyish way of his that had captured my young heart. “One summer a long time ago, I met a boy.” The words spilled out of my lips before I could stop them. Vaughn seemed to draw closer to hear me, but I was barely cognizant of his movements. I was thrown back into the past.
“Do you love me, Hartwell?”
I laughed. “I told you yesterday that I do. Do you need to hear it every day?”
He stared sadly at me. “Yes. Because up until now no one has ever said it to me before.”
Tenderness rushed over me. I clasped his face in my hands and whispered, “I love you. I love you so much. And I’ll tell you every day from now on. I promise.”
“I love you, too.”
“Someone just like you,” I whispered to Vaughn. The hurt was an old hurt, a wound that had healed over time, but I still remembered what it had felt like to be so blindsided by someone I’d loved. “He was handsome and charming and rich, and he told me that he wanted me. I thought it was real and I fell in love with him.”