“I was sleeping until a needy Kitten woke me up.”
“I didn’t wake you for this.”
“Is that why you’re thinking so hard I could hear you in my sleep?”
“Why did you leave me, Spence?” I blurt.
His body freezes beneath mine. Seconds pass between us before he relaxes back into the pillows. “I’m right here, Cortney.”
“You know I’m not talking about this moment.”
“Are you having regrets?”
I force him to roll on his back as I hover above him. The room is dark except for silver moonlight streaming in through the wall we left open leading out to the patio. Memories of begging him to make me come while other people could have been nearby listening send a flushing heat through my body.
I soak in the vulnerable look in his blue eyes.
“Last night should be enough indication that I don’t have regrets. Not this time. I just have questions that I deserve the answers to.”
“I had to.” He stares at the ceiling and cocks an arm behind his head. The bulge of his bicep draws my attention. Despite hiding the scarred skin of his torso with a tee shirt, the burn along his right arm is fully exposed. The raised skin appears painful, and I’m sure it looks much worse in the full morning light.
My heart constricts as the memory of hearing about his injury floods my mind. Our families were out together for drinks when the call came that Spencer was gravely hurt. His brother Sutton and I only had to exchange one look for an entire conversation to pass between us. I relived months of brokenhearted memories in the span of a few aching breaths.
I push the distracting memory aside. “Care to explain?”
“Not exactly.”
Disappointment surges like a lightning strike through my system.
I loosen my hold and roll out of bed. With my escape routes limited, I pad naked across the cold tile and out into the night.
“Cortney, c’mon,” Spencer calls after me. The sheets rustle behind me, but I don’t bother turning around.
“A little honesty for getting your dick wet isn’t asking for much, Spencer.”
“Fuck. Shit!” More rustling follows his cursing. He stumbles over the sheets in his haste to follow.
My retreat ends at a railing beside our infinity pool. A light breeze blows my hair across my cheeks as I rest my forearms on the ledge without a care for my nakedness.
“I’m not used to sharing those parts of me.” His rumbled admission vibrates against me, seeping into my back with the heat from his proximity.
“Was it me? Did I do something to push you away?”
“What? No. There’s not a single thing you could have done to get me to leave or make me stay. The decision was mine.” The sound of his swallow is audible in the otherwise quiet night.
Strong arms settle on either side of my body, gripping the railing beside my hands. His knuckles twist, turning white. The silver band on his ring finger catches the moon.
“I had a job lined up. I knew I needed to go.”
My eyelids flutter closed as I absorb this new information. He delivers the honesty I wanted with a gentle tone, but that doesn’t stop the pang of hurt glancing through my heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know how. I was eighteen and—and selfish. More like my dad than I’d ever want to admit.”
I didn’t know him when his dad left, but the way Spencer tells it, he was thirteen when his father started an affair with his teaching assistant. The two of them ran away together one night. They left both their families in a wake of devastation and never looked back.
He slowly peppers kisses up the back of my neck as if savoring each one. “I knew I had to go, that I’d never make anything for myself in Fairview Valley, but I wanted you so damn bad.”
A tremble rockets through my body. “You got me,” I whisper.