Page 68 of Ring Me

“I used my spare key to get in. Then I heard her moaning, and the bed squeaking so damn loudly, before I saw her naked with her ex. She was right. The bed-framedidneed to be fixed.”

My hand covered my mouth. “Conner, I'm so sorry.” I smoothed my palms over his jaw until he focused on me. “No one deserves to be hurt like that.”

He grabbed my wrists gently, his tone getting more serious. “Exactly. That's why I need to come clean to you.”

“You didn't cheat on me.”

“I still broke your heart. Let me finish, I have to get this all out.” He closed his eyes, face contorting in pain. “Between losing my mom, then losing the woman I thought was my soul mate, I was a mess. I refused to see anyone—not even people I'd once called my friends. I let her keep everyone in our network. I didn't explain why we split, I uprooted overnight, blocking everyone because I knew I couldn't survive seeing her face or hearing her name. The risk alone was debilitating.”

That's why he said he had no friends!I knew he wasn't an introvert.

“I was so hurt. Every part of me felt like a raw, gaping wound, and the idea of letting anyone close again was like someone poking straight into that cut until I screamed.”

His heart, pressed to my cheek, was drumming erratically. Telling me this was torture for him. I was sure I was the first to hear his story in such detail.

He said, “I moved into the nicest place that was available in Nashville. When you saw it, you said it was too big. I think there was a part of me that wanted to show my worth through my money, because what else did I have to offer? Certainly not my heart, that was in tatters,” he chuckled morbidly. “I needed an escape from my thoughts. I devoted myself to my work. Even then, I couldn't get away from the emotional damage... why else would I decide to make adating app?I wanted to help people connect with someone so perfect, there'd be no reason to cheat.

“I did two things for three months straight—worked out at the gym, and mashed away at my program. I put more effort into that algorithm than anything else I've ever made. I trusted it. Believed in it!”

His chest lifted; he held his breath.

“Conner?” I asked warily.

“I believed in it one million percent... until you.” He covered his mouth, stifling a brief, pained chuckle. “I was logged into my Master User account—the one that let's me bug test and see everything on the backend. Like I said before, I was just grabbing whatever new accounts were there to make sure things were functioning. You'd just signed up, that put you in my net. I read your bio... I saw your profile photo... everything you put out there caught my eye, Maya.

“You accused me of peeling back the curtain and snooping on your private info, but I didn't. I didn't have to. It wasn't your body or your kinks that had me wanting to talk to you, it was what you wrote. Your energy had such a pull. I had to message you.” His fingers wrapped around my hair a little too tight—like he was reliving the moment he decided heneededme.

I winced, and he let go. “It's okay. Tell me the rest.”

Conner nodded like a man resigned to the gallows. “When I logged into my normal user account, I couldn't see your profile. The program I'd designed so perfectly? It decided we weren't a match. I didn't get it. I couldn't accept it!”

I remembered him telling me that RingMe had never matched us. I felt his frustration as he detailed the hours of work he'd poured into the code, only to have it block him from connecting with me.

“I hacked the code,” he said miserably. “I forced our profiles to match. I'm sorry, I feel terrible for doing that, but I just... I knew I had to talk to you! There you were, through this wall of glass, a perfectly amazing human being and I couldn't even say hello! It was maddening! I hadn't felt a pull towards anyone since...” He didn't say her name, he didn't have to. “How could I accept the rules I'd designed?”

“So you didn't,” I said. “You just did what you wanted.”

He was shaking all over. His arms left me, a huge hand covering his face, but I saw his grimace between his fingers. “I had to tell you. Now you know, and if it's not enough to fix us, I get it. I'm so sorry, Maya. Sorry I made you doubt me, because I swear, all this time, I never looked behind the curtain. Not once.”

Sitting in his lap, I studied the muscled beast of a man as he fell apart. His grief was tangible, to the point I waited for him to begin crying. How much was he forcing himself not to shed a tear? Wasn't that agony?

I set my fingertips onto his wrist lightly. “You should have told me from the beginning.”

“You're right,” he growled. “I know. I was terrified you'd do exactly what you did, because how could you not? Why would anyone trust that I wasn't abusing a system I already admitted to abusing?”

“I think... most people... wouldn't believe you,” I said. Conner's shaking began to slow. “But I do.”

His arms slid from his face. The edges of his blue eyes were red with regret. “Why would you...”

“The number of times you asked me to tell you about myself. Favorite color, favorite food, what kind of dates I like. We talked so many times before we met up, and always, it was you trying to learn more about me. Why would you bother if you could just crack open the code and see the answers?”

His mouth was slightly open. His arms were noodles on his thighs. Together, we both realized I was straddling him so intimately that our blood had warmed to the same temperature; hot with expectation. Lowering my head I kissed him before he could kiss me. Conner wove his grip into my hair, holding me steady, not ready—not willing—to let me go.

Finally I leaned away, my heart thudding in my throat. He kept his hold on my hair. “I love you,” I blurted, smiling helplessly, blushing like a virgin at prom. “How could I not trust that you feel the same?”

“Maya,” he groaned, crushing me in his embrace. My lips were sore from his within minutes. “I love you, too, I really do. Please forgive me, let me have another chance to show I'm not done learning about you. Inside, outside, in between... I'd give anything to know who you are.”

I laughed so happily that I started to hiccup. Wiping my eyes, I let him ease me off his lap so he could get me a tissue. Cleaning my tears away, I looked up at Conner with a flood of new, intense emotions. “I have something else to tell you. Good news, actually.”

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