Page 49 of Safe With Me
“Oh, God.” Nails scoring my scalp, she convulsed and came on my mouth, rubbing all over me.
She collapsed onto my lap, chest heaving against mine. My heart threatened to beat out of its confines, thudding against my ribs.
Bracing her forearms on my chest, Hannah rested her forehead on her clasped hands and puffed out a breath. The slight distance shouldn’t mean anything, but it felt off. I wanted her close, my arms wrapped around her.
I needed her wrapped around me.
She lifted her head, brushing her hair back with one hand. The gold-tinged strands fell about her shoulders in disarray. A hand on my shoulder, she sat up, body still flushed with pleasure. “Thank you.”
Thank you? What the fuck? Brows tugging together, I tried to pull my thoughts in order, but my pleasure-fuzzed brain didn’t want to cooperate.
She was thanking me?
“I just needed to forget a little while.” She slipped off my lap and reached for her clothes.
Bare ass naked, I watched her step into her leggings and pull on her tank top like we’d just gone for a little swim or something. This had meant something, damn it, but she got dressed like it was . . . fucking nothing.
“Hannah.”
“Come on, Tate, you can’t just sit there naked.” Grabbing my jeans and shirt, she dumped my clothes in my lap. She paused, a serious expression flitting over her face. “I really do appreciate this. For a few minutes, I got to feel safe, and that’s . . . well, thank you.”
She appreciated me. What we’d done made her feelsafe.
Safe.
Yeah. Right.
She was the only one.
Chapter Thirteen
Tate
“Sara’s worried about Hannah.” Trace rubbed the sweat from his face, then rested his elbows on his knees, towel dangling from his fingers.
Slugging down a swallow of water, I grunted. Hell, I was worried about Hannah. A week had passed, and the online comments had settled some because Elizabeth hadn’t posted anything new. The ones mentioning Hannah were still ugly, but there were fewer of them – most of the chatter was morewhere are youandwhen will you post again.
Still, enough of the ugly stuff remained that I camped out on the couch, where we did incredibly dirty things together before taking separate showers and sleeping apart.
Hannah meant what she said when she told me she could separate her feelings from sex. Where we were . . . it didn’t sit well for some reason. I wasn’t giving up the best sex of my life, but never thought I’d be insulted because she didn’t want to cuddle.
We were going to have to talk about this shit. I wasn’t looking forward to that, since the conversation would probably get me cut off, sexually and emotionally.
So, yeah. I was worried, too. About Hannah. About where we were going.
I set my water bottle aside and dropped into a lateral lunge stretch. “What’s Sara worried about?”
“Hannah isolating herself.” Trace squatted, rotating a little to settle into the stretch. “Says she’s only going to work.”
“Yeah.” I got that concern. We’d been hot and heavy physically, taking up part of the evening, but she didn’t goanywhere, didn’t engage in any of the activities I knew used to take up her time. She was simply static.
And using me as a distraction. I was okay being used, but avoidance wasn’t helping her. I needed her whole and healthy, my Hannah. I puffed out a breath, shifting to stretch my other leg. Yeah, we needed to have that talk I didn’t want to have.
I thought about it while I showered, then all the way home – Hannah’s house, not the cabin because home was wherever Hannah was. Clenching the steering wheel, I focused on what Hannah needed – to feel safe enough to live again.
She was hiding, and she was using me to numb the pain. If she was using something chemical, I’d say something, try to get her to get help. Braking to a stop behind her car, I bounced my thumb off the wheel.
No fucking way this would go well.
