Page 26 of Love.V2
Hadhe done this with some random girl from a bar? We’d been apart for half a year. Just because I hadn’t dated or had a random hookup, didn’t mean he hadn’t. The thought was a splash of ice water on my libido, and I instantly hated myself for it.
I was the one who’d left. I couldn’t complain if he had moved on, or had a fling or, or, or touched some other woman the way he was touching me now. Gripping her skin as if he wanted to imprint himself on her.
“Wait.” The image was painful enough to give me pause, even though I didn’t want us to stop. But…I needed to be sure. And safe. “Should we…do we need a condom?” I panted, my hips churning against his, reacting to the feel of him even while my mind raced.
I was here, in bed with him, but I was also imagining the worst-case scenario: Dylan, back at the condo in Nashville, making some other girl gasp and moan. I was back at the bar with Meery, months ago.
“You’ve only had sex with one guy? Ever?!” She’d gasped, seeming both delighted and horrified by the admission. “Well, whenever you’re ready to get your groove back, you need to be careful. HPV is rampant these days.Rampant.”
Dylan’s head lifted. The question in his gaze clouded some of the lust in his eyes. “A condom?”
He sounded bewildered, and the implications of those two words swept around us, like a breeze we couldn’t feel, but we knew was there.
“I…should we?” I parroted the question back to him. I was clean and safe, but was he?
He stared at me like I had just asked him to solve an advanced mathematical equation.
“I mean…yes. Yes, sure, if that’s what you want.” All at once, we were two strangers, speaking different tongues. That common language began to disintegrate. I couldn’t read his face, he couldn’t understand my question.
I hesitated for a second, heart pounding now with uncertainty. “Sorry, I know it’s—”
“No, no…we can…yes, that’s a good idea,” he panted, lips planting again and again against mine. Even as his brow crinkled.
I reached into my nightstand, fumbling in the drawer to hand him a box of condoms. He rolled to his knees.
It was weird, watching him do this. I’d been on birth control for years, and we’d been faithful. Seeing the box in his hand stole several more degrees of heat from the air in my lungs.
He must have felt it, too, pausing the second he looked down. I gulped, scooching up on the bed, putting some space between our bodies.
“This…” he trailed off, staring at it for a beat. “This is open.” His brow furrowed.
A slick, cold feeling trickled down my spine. I knew exactly what he was thinking. “I didn’t use any,” I blurted, too quickly and frantically to sound sincere. His eyes flickered to mine, then back down at the box.
“O-okayyy…”
“I swear. Meery got them for me and then grabbed some because she had a date that night. I…it’s…I’d told her I was just getting out of a long-term relationship, and she wanted to be sure I was safe.”
Dylan sat back on his heels as I babbled, unable to tear his eyes away from the gold foil packages. “Verysafe.” I thought he was attempting a joke, but his voice was off, hollow.
Yes, Meery had gotten me a value pack. I had cringed when she presented it to me, but I completely recoiled now, feet drawing up, legs folding me into a little ball.
Dylan’s hand whipped out, snaking around my ankle to hold me in place. My movements seemed to break some sort of spell, and he finally looked at me, his expression carefully blank.
“That’s good. That you have a friend like that…” He broke off, blinking down at me, naked and splayed against my pillows. A little line appeared between his brows. “Sorry, I…sorry.”
“Are you alright? I promise I didn’t use—”
“I believe you,” he interrupted, glancing back at the box before setting it aside. It was ridiculous, of course, to feel so guilty about owning a box of condoms. I was an adult. Asingle adult.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? These last couple of weeks, it had been easy to re-introduce small pieces of him back into my heart. His laugh, his smile. That hopeful look in his eyes when he handed me my coffee every morning.
Like tiny pieces of porcelain had pulled together one by one after shattering, reforming a pattern my heart knew like a beat.
Tonight, I’d sipped from the cup I thought was whole again, getting drunk off the knowledge that I could have him if I wanted. But we hadn’t been whole.
Everything we’d circled around over the last few weeks was just smoke, and icy regret pooled low in my belly, extinguishing what was left of the lust swirling inside me.
I pulled the sheet with me as I sat up, covering my chilled skin.
