Page 47 of Flare

No! Dammit.

Shit.

I tried to flip us around, but Beck was too damn big.

It’s fine,I screamed in my head.He’s fine.He’s not... But he was so close, so big, so... everything.

And I couldn’t breathe.

The hand on my arse slipped between our bodies and palmed my flagging dick, and I froze. His lips hesitated and lifted from mine as air ignited in my lungs, and I swallowed a sea of bile that washed up my throat.

He pulled back, concern bright in his eyes. “Rhys?” He gripped my shoulders and I instinctively lunged sideways, shoving at him. He stumbled into the copper wall and groaned. “Fuck.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.I reached for him, the music drifting away. “Jesus, Beck. I’m so sorry.” He shot me a confused look and I jerked my hand away, scrubbed it down my face instead.

This was why I didn’t do this. Nothing, nothing had changed. “I, um, I can’t do this, Beck. I’m sorry.” I backed away.

“Rhys, wait.” He reached for me, but I was gone, running across the street in the opposite direction from Flare. Beck needed to get back for Jack and I needed to get my stupid head sorted. Why? Why had I thought for a minute I could have this, have him? Have a normal fucking relationship.

I had to stop letting Hunter in my head. He meant well, but he didn’t understand. He didn’t know. Nobody did. Not even me.

I slipped into a bar, ordered a wine, and found a dark corner to drink it in. And then, when I knew everyone would be gone, I headed home. An hour later I was slumped on hard tiles, arms wrapped around shaking knees, a spray of steaming hot needles threatening to peel skin from flesh, and nebulous snapshots of memories from another bathroom and another time tormenting my mind as though it was yesterday.Shhh. It’ll be over soon.

Fucking, fucking hell.

This is why you stopped trying, remember? Stick to the rules. You’ve got a good life, a great career, a loving family. And you get arse as often as you want. It’s enough.

And it hadbeen. I’d been... content.

Until now.

I reached up and grabbed the soap to scrub the last of Beck’s smell from my skin, the smell of what I couldn’t have. A kiss. A simple fucking kiss. Sometimes it was okay. Sometimes it wasn’t. But face to face, so close, crowded against a hard surface... I should’ve known. I should’ve stopped it. Why didn’t I stop it?

I could’ve shoved Beck face first against that damn wall and fucked him hard, and I’d have been fine. But have him wrap me in his arms and kiss me? Hell no. My mind had no clue what happened that night in the club, but my body sure as fuck remembered a lot of things. There were situations I could pick as triggers, but there were other things, sometimes small things, sometimes just a tone of voice—things that would randomly set me off and I just never knew. Which was why Nolan had left. He gave up on my brittle unpredictability, and it was kind of hard to blame him.

I spun the temperature control to freeze-your-balls-off cold and crawled into the corner of the shower, ignoring the thin taste of salt in the water that ran from my cheeks.

Fuckingnicemen. Genuine, unpretentious,nicemen. Beckett Northcott kind of men. I really, really needed to avoid them. At least the industry I worked in wasn’t exactly overflowing withnicemen. And Beck was the first man since Nolan to stir something in me that wasn’t stuck in that sexual wasteland I’d occupied for too many years.

But what was I going to do about it?

Nothing, the voice soothed.Focus on the life you have and be thankful. Beckisa nice man. A nice man with a lot on his plate. He doesn’t need your issues. Don’t be greedy.

Don’t be greedy.

Don’t be greedy.

You don’t need anyone else to be okay.

The mantra I’d lived by for seventeen years.

I spread the words like balm on those tender wounds and waited for the pain to ease as it always did. But this time it sluiced off my heart, circled the drain, and slid into the waste, along with any hope I had for sleep. I could feel the panic building.

I dragged myself out from under the spray, wrapped a towel around my waist, and slumped against the wall with my phone.

Hunter answered on the first ring.

“I fucked up,” I cried down the line. “I tried, you know? I let him kiss me. I kissedhim. And it was all going okay, and then... I panicked and... Jesus, Hunter, I ran like a fucking idiot. I pushed him into a wall, for fuck’s sake. I hurt him. I c-can’t do this. I’m such a fucking mess. Nolan was right about me.”

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