Curves & Alphas: A Paranormal Box Set: (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (13 page)

Never,
his answer ripped through my head with a violence that threw my head back, sent my threatening headache to a full-on throb.

Stay where I can see you. I need you. I need to know why you are here, what I’m to learn from it,
I let my thoughts ramble.

I’m so sorry
, gently whispered through my brain before he leaped away.

“Yeah, seems to be a lot of that going around,” I said to the darkness that remained.

Lex had written those exact words to me just a week ago. Rather than study my animal to learn from his habits what I should do better in life, maybe I should have been doing a study on the word ‘sorry’.

Chapter Eight

By the following Friday night, I’d dragged Chloe to the club again. I knew his band started at about eight o’clock, so figuring they’d have to be there earlier to set up, I’d asked her to meet me about an hour earlier. I’d no longer needed to beg. She’d been fully aware of how desperate I’d become to see him again. Poor, sweet thing had called me every night to check in. We hadn’t talked long, as I’d been more of the mind to just get through the week by working and going to bed early.

As I saw her car pull up a few parking spaces away from mine, relief in the form of a gentle persuasion to my tight muscles to take it down a notch crept through me from my head to my toes. Getting out of the car, I even did a small roll of my shoulders to force them down a tad more. My toes curled, emphasizing the fact that I’d stupidly gone with heels tonight, as I waited for her to get out of her car.

“Hay, lady,” she said, granting me a wide-eyed smile.

“Here we go, right?” I encouraged.

“Absolutely. I’m here for you,” she offered, coming up to rub her hand on my back.

I’d said the same to her in various ways this week. I’d felt lousy about last weekend each time she’d called back, all sweet, supportive and encouraging. She’d even apologized for being a crap last Saturday night, but I’d easily understood how listening to not only that horrible band all night but the lunatic ranting of your horrible friends could have set one on edge. I said as much, too, getting me a hearty laugh in return.

She’d confessed to having been there before, not after a first date, mind you, but when a relationship had ended unexpectedly, without any explanation. She knew the desperation I felt for an answer, and the heartbreak of wanting more and yet not knowing if it could ever happen. In fact, she’d welcomed me to the real world at that point. She’d counseled me before, when I’d been the one to do the running before anything meaningful could occur, that every girl needed her heart broken at least once or she’d never appreciate real love as much as she should when it showed up. That had been the point, that I’d never wanted to risk it showing up. I’d never wanted to be abandoned again. A lot of good that vigilance had gotten me.

Thinking of how Chloe had been the one person in the world to never abandon me, and I mean ever, I got misty eyed. She’d just said she’d be here for me, and she meant it. I didn’t think she knew how to
not
be there, in fact.

“I know you’re here for me. I wouldn’t doubt that for a minute. You always have been, no matter how low I’ve gotten or how horrible a friend I’ve been in return,” I confessed as tears blurred my vision.

I pulled open my handbag for the stash of tissues I’d put in there. Tissues and the necessities to touch up my make-up had been of upmost importance outside of some cash and an ID. Not much else fit in these ridiculous things girls insisted on bringing to clubs. Of course, who wanted to lug their everyday purse to go out? Mine looked like a small overnight bag.

“Oh, let’s not go there already,” she teased as she embraced me in a big hug. “Now, let’s get inside. This night air has been getting ridiculously cold for the very beginning of fall here in the city. Where is that indian summer we were promised?”

I hadn’t noticed the change in temperatures too much. I’d felt a pervasive cold alone in my apartment since two weeks ago. In my head or not, I’d been dressing for winter before the trees had even begin to turn.

As soon as we got in the door, I did my scan. The place was still pretty empty save for the stragglers from the have-a-drink-with-me-after-work crowd. We grabbed the empty table up front, and I took the seat that let me face the door and stage. Taking care to arrange myself just right, turn what I thought my best angle in this dress to the door, I let my vanity win out in my play for attention. I had to wonder what he would do if he walked in and I had another guy standing at my table flirting with me.

There wasn’t time or interest for all of that, though. Still, I wondered if it would bother him at all. That would be a true test of how he felt about me. Although, I doubted most guys got possessive over a one night stand. I knew that, if tonight I saw him talking to another girl, flirting, I’d feel jealousy, but I’d never in a million years let myself act on it. How embarrassing would that be? I already held a million different ways to possibly humiliate myself tonight. I surely didn’t need another.

“They’ve already been in to set up,” Chloe offered, nodding to the stage.

His grey, steel-like guitar, apparently made of carbon graphite, a temperature and tuning thing according to my research this week, hung from a stand by the chair and microphone center stage. My mind played tricks on me after that, making every man in the bar possibly Lex before reality set in seconds later.

“He’ll be here soon,” Chloe continued. “It won’t be long before you’ll hopefully at least have some kind of answer, some closure, good or bad. Closure is closure, though. It allows a girl to move on with her future. You’ve been stuck in spin cycle for two weeks, going nowhere and unable to get any drier.”

She laughed out loud whole-heartedly at her own joke. “Please relax. You look like you are going to jump out of that seat any second and lose it on someone. Your foot is shaking a mile a minute,” she counseled. “You’re going to have a mini stroke. Being in the hospital will not get you the chance to talk to him.”

“I know. I know. Trust me, I can no longer stand myself. Sometimes this week I’ve been so on edge, so hyper, that I went through a list of possible downers I could get my hands on. Like valerian root or something; don’t worry, nothing illegal. But then, my mood would fall on its own and I found myself looking for a way to bring it back up. The rollercoaster nearly made me sick. I have to get an answer, good or bad, one way or another. Then I just need to accept it. I’m needy, not delusional. I realize that after not hearing from him for two weeks, the answer probably will not be one I want to hear, but at least I’ll have heard it, I hope. Then I can get to moving on, like I always do,” I sighed.

“Like you always do. Exactly,” she exclaimed. “For what you have had to deal with in life, you are one of the toughest people I know. You know how to bounce back.”

“Right. I do. Just wish I knew why a one night stand matters so much to me,” I stated as my brain somehow, finally, started to think more rationally than it had in weeks. “I talked to the guy a few hours, had amazing sex with the guy a few hours, and that was that. In the scheme of things, I’ve no idea why I’ve made it so important. I just can’t shake the closeness, the pull he has over me for no good reason whatsoever. Sorry for rambling, but I just hope that the answer I get, if bad, isn’t brutal.”

“No, don’t apologize, those were the sanest statements I’ve heard from you since you met the guy!” She laughed. “There, now my girl is back. We just have to make it through tonight. He’ll give you an answer or he’ll have me to deal with, too.”

“You’re great,” I offered.

“Of course,” she giggled. “I’ll go get the drinks. What’re you in the mood for?”

“Beer. Just a plain old beer will do tonight. I need to be sober.”

“You got it.”

Chloe had no sooner walked away when Lex walked through the door. Alone. I stood abruptly, and he looked my way. Rather than a smile, his face set in rigid lines. After a brief pause, he walked straight toward me.  I felt numb. No emotion caused my muscles to tense. No thought made my breathing escalate. In fact, my breath had basically just paused, or at least become so shallow I didn’t feel the rise or fall of my chest. Good thing, too, as I didn’t have a whole lot of room for expansion in this black dress I’d splurged on just for tonight.

When he got to me, our eyes locked. The amber in his burned. If he could have set me on fire with a look, I’d have been a pile of ashes right now. Willing my mouth to move, it refused as we just stared at one another. I watched his mouth twitch a few times as if he had something to say but couldn’t find the right words.

His hand grabbed my arm, then. I gasped. If we’d turned heads, gained unwanted attention, I’d not been given the chance to notice. He dragged me backstage, my heels making tiny hard clicks on the floor. Surely that had drawn some attention. At least Chloe would see my departure. Knowing I was with him, she’d give me some time before she came looking for me. When we got behind the curtain, we were only left in a hallway-sized room full of boxes and crap. He pushed me back against the wall, and released my arm as if I’d burnt him.

“You have to stop looking for me. This can’t happen,” he growled in a deep, guttural tone.

His fisted hands tightened and relaxed in rapid succession. Good thing I doubted he would hit me, but he looked ready to hit something. In his tight black t-shirt under a thin chocolate-colored jacket, I could see his abdominal muscles clench as well. Shoulders raised, he looked more like he was preparing for a fist fight than a question. I gathered my courage, straightened my spine, and spoke the words that floated into my mind.

“You knew I was looking for you and you still stayed away?” I asked, immediately deflated with the realization of the meaning of his words. I wouldn’t show it, though. I held my mouth in a tight line, revealing nothing.  Although, my now fast beating heart weighed and thumped to create an immediate ache in my chest. I swore the beat of it had to be audible. It rang in my ears.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t see you. I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not, it’s not allowed,” he grumbled.

“Why? I don’t understand. We’re not Romeo and Juliet, for heaven’s sake. No one is telling us we can’t be together. I don’t even have a family. I don’t see what prevents us from being together. Some law I’m not aware of?” I sniped.

Suddenly, anger rose up in me, making my face and chest flush with the burden of it. He’d evaded my question about how he knew I’d been looking for him. Maybe the owner, John, but the guy didn’t seem like he’d play people that way. Of course, in telling him, he may have thought he was helping.

“I can’t explain it. I can’t see you has to be enough,” he spat back at me as his hands fell to the wall on either side of my head.

“It’s not. You’ll have to do better. If you don’t like me, just say it, stop making up lame excuses,” I sniped. The words left my throat dry.

“Not like you? Shit, that’s not the problem,” he said as he shook his head. “The problem is that I should have never allowed myself even so much as a taste of you. That was selfish of me. I should have stayed away. I knew better. You can’t be with someone like me.”

“Someone like you? What are you, exactly, other than a club singer?”

“I’m forbidden to say,” he let out in a hushed roar. “Please don’t ask me again!”

“Fine. At least answer how you knew I was looking for you? Was it John?”

“John?”

“The owner of the club?”

“Him? No. I saw you, okay?”

I let my eyes fall to his denim-covered legs. He’d seen me here last weekend and he’d avoided me. What more did I need? He didn’t want to see me couldn’t be more clear.

“What? What did I say?” he asked, placing his hand gently on my cheek.

I leaned into his touch only a second before I pulled away from it. Though his skin left a warm tingling sensation on mine, I had to stay strong. This guy didn’t want me.

“It’s what you didn’t say. You see me and go the other way says it all. You don’t like me, fine. I was just an easy lay, some fun for a night, fine, say that. Be a man about it. But don’t give me some lame excuses about being someone that can’t date. That’s absurd. Even the secret service get to marry. As far as I know, only priests can’t, and you certainly aren’t one of those since they tell the truth! Just say you don’t want me, you never want to see me again. I don’t need excuses,” I raged.

I’d no idea where the stream of words had come from. I usually wasn’t so witty in a heated conversation, not that I’d really had any practice at them. Born a peacemaker, it wasn’t in my nature to incite a fight. Of course, this man didn’t bring out my typical nature. Maybe that’s where all the attraction came in.

“You think I don’t want to be with you?”

I only took in a deep breath and huffed it out. I wouldn’t dignify the stupid response with an answer. I’d gotten answer enough. Now, if my legs would just stop shaking, I’d make the best rushed exit I could in these idiot heels I’d insisted on wearing.