Page 45 of Venus
And I’ll tell him in the morning.
But for now? I let him make love to me.
When we both grow tired and he finishes deep inside me, I lie with my head on his chest as he traces patterns up and down my back.
This silence doesn’t scare me. Not tonight.
Chapter 24 | Vulcan
I’m sitting on the edge of her bed, shirt in my hand, elbows on my knees. My heart is doing that thing where it unevenly thumps when my brain finally catches up with my reason, waiting for me to admit the hard stuff out loud.
The silence between us is thick and foreboding, like a dense fog in a zombie movie. It’s uninviting and creeping between us like a wedge.
Behind me, V wakes up, stretching and shifting against the pillows. The heat of us still lingers on the bedsheets, but somehow, nothing feels warm anymore.
“Carter?” I hear her say, her voice quiet and steady. “Are you…okay?”
I don’t answer right away, and I don’t have the strength to look at her either. My eyes stay glued to the floor, like I’m waiting for a script to write itself in the carpet.
I let out a breath. “We shouldn’t have done this again.”
She sits up, I can hear it in the rustle of the sheets and see the movement out of the corner of my eye. “What do you mean?”
I finally look at her, and it fucking hurts. She’s right there. So close. Bare skin. Tangled hair. Lips I’ve memorized a hundred times over.
Yet she couldn’t feel any further away if she tried.
“I thought…I thought I could handle this,” I explain. “The casual, no strings thing. I thought I could just be the guy you called when you wanted company and I’d learn to be okay with it. I really did, V. But I can’t do it.”
“Carter—”
“I love you,” I say, finally tearing off the bandage. “But I don’t want to love you like this.”
“Carter—”
“I know. I know this isn’t what you want, but I had to say it. I had to tell you the truth. As much as I want you, I don’t want to live in this lie anymore.”
She shifts closer, reaching for me, but I stand from the bed and take a step away, putting space between us like I’m drawing a new line in the sand she’s not allowed to cross.
“I’m not trying to shift the blame or make you feel bad,” I continue. “I knew what this was and I can’t hold you responsible for feelings that I developed on my own.”
“Carter, listen—”
“I mean, I don’t even know your name, right?” I chuckle humorlessly to myself. “I can’t keep pretending I’m okay with this when I’m not.”
“Carter!” she shouts to get my attention. “What are you trying to say?”
“That I don’t want to keep acting like this doesn’t matter to me. Like you, we,usdoesn’t matter to me. And I know I can’t flip a switch and force you to fall in love with me back.”
“It does matter to me, though,” she pleads.
“Not in the way that’s enough for me. I’ve showed up every time you asked, because I thought maybe if I gave you what you want for long enough, you’d see me as something more than a quick fuck. But you have your reasons, and you don’t, and I’m tired of pretending that doesn’t cut me open every time we say goodbye.”
Something in her face shifts, and it looks like she might actually start crying. “But I thought you said you’d stay here if I started running?”
I scoff. “Yeah, I did. But you never started, did you?”
She gives me a guilty look. She understands exactly what I’m saying.
