Page 17 of Affair
Then, he dropped the bomb.
Oh, and it was a big one.
“But this is the last month,” he admitted, laying down the law. “If I can’t get you fixed, to the point you’re ready to leave, I need to get you another therapist. Clearly, that means that I’ve failed.”
Yeah, that wasn’t the reason, and Poe knew it.
Who the hell was he kidding?
It was because not sleeping with the man, and lusting after him was getting almost impossible.
Gamble blinked.
“So even if I’m not fully healed, you’ll send me away?” he asked.
That hit them both hard.
It was time to be real, and Poe knew it.
Poe moved around the horse to stand by him, and he went there. He’d helped a lot of soldiers. It wasn’t easy to fool him.
This felt…disingenuous, so he was calling him out on it.
Here.
And.
Now.
“Gamble, I don’t think you’re having nightmares that would prevent you from leaving. I think you just don’t want to leave, and that’s okay. You feel safe here. I get that.”
Shit.
Well, there was no pulling the wool over this man’s eyes. That was for damn sure.
Only, it wasn’t simply because he felt safe. Gamble was fighting that attraction, and losing. Like now, Poe was so close to him, he could smell his cologne, and wanted to touch him.
If he was onto his scheme, that meant one thing for him.
He had one extra month to figure this out, and by then, he needed to come to a conclusion.
One way or another.
Was he going to try and pursue something, or was he going to just walk away?
At the end of the month, Gamble knew that he had to be one hundred percent honest with him, to see what happened, or he had to walk away, and give the man his life back.
“I understand,” Gamble said. “I’ll be leaving in a month. Well, a month and a week,” he said, needing every single moment of that time.
He wasn’t losing a single, solitary second of it.
Poe accepted that, and placed his hand on Gamble’s arm. Gently, he ran it up and down his sleeve.
“You’re very strong,” he admitted. “You’re stronger than you believe. You’ll be okay if you leave here. I promise. If you need to come back, you know my door is always open for you. You’ll have my number, and a way to call me.”
Was he strong?
No.
