No Surrender (5 page)

He knew better.

He knew better than to believe that this would do anything but crash and burn. He knew better than to take what was happening between them at face value, especially when he knew what was on the other side of the coin. He knew better than to think this wasn’t going to end them.

But he would follow her down that primrose path to hell anyway.

6

“S
O
,
YOU
AND
Dryden a thing?” Billy asked when he found her outside Eddie’s.

Sean was still inside talking with Rachel and Eric, but she needed some room to breathe. Space to think. Perhaps talk some sense into herself.

She inhaled the warm summer air and looked up at the sky. It was different now; the stars were different. The way they hung, burning and oblivious to the travails of the tiny creatures below. The sky wasn’t different, she supposed. She was.

This was the same sky she’d looked up at the night before she’d been with Sean. The same sky after.

But everything was different.

“No,” she finally answered him.

“You’re not the type to go into storerooms with guys on a whim,” he said.

“How would you know? Just because I’ve never been in a storeroom with you?” she tossed back, defensive. She didn’t want to be prey for the rumor mill. Especially not for all the women who’d been practically foaming at the mouth at Lynnie’s funeral to get a piece of Sean.

She turned to look at Billy. “We just had some things to talk through. That’s all.”

“There wasn’t any talking. Some moaning, maybe. But no talking.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She pursed her lips and met his eyes evenly, trying to stare him down. Some part of her hoped if she stared long enough, her ire would melt that memory from his brain and they’d never need speak of it again.

“I guess it’s none of my business.”

“Nope,” she agreed easily.

“But you know, there are more guys walking the earth than Sean Dryden.”

“What do you mean?”

“Me, that’s what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know you’re a guy.” She teased him because she didn’t want to have this discussion. Billy was a sweet country boy who’d been her friend for a long time. But she never had any interest in him.

It made her think of her situation with Sean. She tried to imagine a scenario where she turned to Billy for comfort the way Sean had turned to her. The idea of his hands on her, while it wasn’t repulsive, did nothing for her at all.

She wondered if that was the way Sean thought about her.

No, no. It couldn’t be. Not after what had just happened in the storeroom. She’d just told him not to overanalyze it, so she wasn’t going to do that either. She wasn’t going to pick apart each interaction and try to make it more or less than it was.

“Kentucky, you know what I mean. No man has ever been able to make any headway with you since you first laid eyes on Dryden. His halo is blinding you to everything else.”

“You can’t help who you love.”

“I guess that’s true.” Billy nudged her. “Because, girl, even though I wish I didn’t feel this way, you’re it for me.”

“I was trying to save you the confession.”

“Words like that aren’t meant to be saved. To be hidden. You got to speak them to the world and let them breathe.”

“Well, that’s nothing short of terrifying.” She laughed, unsure of what else to say to him. How to comfort him without hurting him.

“Not so much. I lose nothing by telling you I care about you. A wild thing like you should know that.”

But she could lose everything—especially the fantasy that someday Sean Dryden would be in love with her. She liked having someday. She liked being able to hold that close and hope.

Sean knew how she felt. She wasn’t going to tell him, beat that dead horse into the ground. Neither was she going to deny herself these days with him. She could practice recrimination and regret after he was gone, although she’d never been a big fan of either.

“Billy, you’re a sweet guy.”

“Oh, hell, we don’t need to go there. I don’t need the nice-guy talk.” Billy grinned. “I just wanted you to know when whatever’s going on with you is done, I’ll be here.” He patted her back in an oddly platonic gesture and went back inside.

“What are you doing out here?” Rachel asked her as she pushed her way past Billy.

“Man, y’all keep filling up my dance card. I just wanted some quiet. Too many people inside, too much noise. You know me. I’m kind of a loner sometimes.”

“Sean is inside getting hammered. What did you say to him?”

“Nothing.” She brushed her hands on her skirt. “Look, I’m going to go. I’m tired.”

“Are you sure? I can have Eric drive you home.”

“No, no. Stay. I’m good. I’ll call you later.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “I know I don’t have to tell you, but...”

“I’ll make sure Sean gets home okay.”

Kentucky gave her a half smile. “Good.”

He wasn’t doing well, but he’d made it clear what he wanted from her. It wasn’t her friendship or a shoulder to lean on. It was sex.

So she’d done what she could for the night.

She started walking back to the garage and she’d made it about a block when the sound of a truck’s engine caused her to turn and look.

Billy rolled down the window. “You want a ride?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Are you sure? Let me drop you at the garage.”

“Okay.” She climbed up into his truck and they drove the short distance to her garage in silence.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said when they pulled up to the parking lot.

“You can make it up to me.”

“Oh, can I?” She waited for him to say something that would make her regret thinking he was such a nice guy.

“Yeah. Get me in for transmission service on this next week.” He patted the door of the truck.

“Sure thing. Bring it by and I’ll get it done.” She went inside and locked the door, watching through the window to see that Billy was on his way before turning out the light.

She wandered over to Betty, the sleek red ’57, and leaned against the familiar metal of the door, running her fingers over the exterior. Yeah, she was still the embodiment of a dream. Of freedom.

Of hope.

But in a different way. She didn’t need to escape herself anymore. For a long time, she hadn’t realized that was what cars meant to her—a way to hide from everything she didn’t have and all the things she thought she wasn’t supposed to want.

“Why’d you leave with him?” A voice from the other side of the car scared the crap out of her.

“God Almighty, Sean. What the hell are you doing?”

“I need to know.”

“So you broke into my garage? How did you even get here before me?”

“I ran.”

“But you’ve been drinking like a fish.”

“I’ve been drinking. Trying to keep numbing my guilt, but I’m not numb. I’m not drunk.”

“So you broke into my garage and scared ten years off my life?” She studied him. “Because why? I got a ride home from Billy Doniphan?”

“You sure as hell didn’t leave with me. So yeah, why him?”

“Because he offered me a ride.” She put her hands on her hips. “What’s with the inquisition here?”

“I looked up and you were just gone, Kentucky.”

He sounded so wounded. “What do you want from me?”

“I thought I knew.”

“Do you want to crash on my couch tonight?” She wanted to offer him the bed with her, but that was too much like the relationship he said he didn’t want.

Hell, maybe she didn’t want it either.

The Sean Dryden she’d fallen for would never have shown up at her house blitzed or broken into her garage. This, more than anything else, showcased that he wasn’t the same guy who’d left Winchester.

She couldn’t let herself forget that he’d been to war. He was a spec ops pilot with all the duties, honor and horror that entailed. He wasn’t the golden boy anymore. He was a man who’d been through hell.

“I want to sleep with you. When I touch you, nothing hurts. So maybe if I sleep next to you, nothing will hurt in my dreams either. I won’t see her. She won’t tell me over and over again how her death was my fault.”

She hadn’t thought her heart could break for him any more, but just then she realized how wrong she’d been.

“Lynnie would never say that to you, Sean. Never.”

“I know that. But it doesn’t stop me from hearing her voice in my dreams.”

“I don’t think anyone can help you with that but you.” She reached out a hand to touch his face.

“I’ll go.”

“No.” She took his hand. “Stay.”

He pulled her against him carefully and rested his chin on her head, as if comforting her. Only she knew it was he who needed the comfort. She took his hand and led him up into her apartment toward the bedroom.

This was intimacy. This was the part of a relationship he didn’t want. It wasn’t just being beholden to another person; it was sharing this deeper part of himself.

She didn’t need him to tell her that to know.

Kentucky left the lights off, almost as if that would keep all the things she was feeling in the dark, too.

He sat down on the side of the bed, facing away from her, and took off his shoes and his shirt.

She stripped down to only her panties and slid between the sheets.

He stayed seated for a long time before he joined her, but he still had his back to her.

“It’s my fault, you know.”

“Lynnie?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“How?” She wasn’t going to shoot him some reassurance just to placate him. He’d come to confess and she’d let him.

“The night she died, I called her.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I broke it off.”

Conflicting emotions warred within her. “Why in the world would you ever break it off with someone like her?”

“My love for her changed. I changed.
We
changed.” He was silent again for a long moment. “I guess we could’ve still found some measure of happiness. But our worlds were too different. She was the cheerleader turned kindergarten teacher. That life would’ve been a lie for me. I’ve got blood on my hands, and it wouldn’t be so bad if I felt guilty for it. But I don’t. That’s a part of me I could never let her see. A part of me that isn’t going to change.”

“She’d have loved you even if she saw it.”

“I know.” His voice was low, harsh. “It would’ve broken something in her, though. You know that, too.”

Kentucky tried not to think about gentle Lynnie trying to process the horrors of war. Of the man Sean had become. Reconciling the good man he was with the horrible things he’d had to do. He was right.

“I’m sorry.”

“So was I. So was she. We’re all sorry.” He sighed. “But you understand now, right? If I hadn’t called her and told her, she wouldn’t have been out on that road. You know how Lynnie loved to drive whenever she had something she needed to work out.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sean. I’m not going to beat you over the head with it, because it won’t matter until you decide it for yourself. But you have no control over what Lynnie chose to do or not do. She was her own person. Just like you.”

He didn’t answer her.

“She wouldn’t blame you. You know that.”

“I do, which is why I have to do it for her. She was always too forgiving for her own good.”

“Does Eric know?”

“I talked to him before I made the call.”

“And what does he say?”

“The same thing you do.”

Kentucky scooted closer to him and put her arm around his waist and rested her cheek against his back.

“I tried so hard to save her, Kentucky. But I broke her anyway.”

“You didn’t break her. You don’t give her enough credit.” She stroked her fingers down over his biceps. “Lynnie was a lot of things. She was sweet, she was kind, but she was never weak. She’d never let you break her.”

“You didn’t see the same side of her I did.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“She was so soft, so fragile, Kentucky.” He rolled over to face her. “But you’re not. You’re not soft at all.”

His hands moved down her hips, to between her thighs.

“Except here. Here—” he slipped his fingers beneath the silk of her panties and thrust up into her “—you’re soft and sweet, but you’re made to be filled with everything I can give you.”

His words were a kind of trespass; he was hiding in their lust from his pain. She wanted to tell him no. That was a lie. She wanted to be strong enough to tell him no. Kentucky wanted to make him face his pain.

She wanted him to see her as more than a temporary fix.

He said he wouldn’t treat her that way, but he already was. He was feeling so many emotions he didn’t want to feel, and instead of processing them, he’d made the situation sexual. In a strange way, he’d taken away the intimacy because this was on defined, temporary terms.

And she’d agreed to it.

He was basically telling her that he didn’t worry about breaking her, and on one hand, she loved that. On the other, she wondered if it was because he cared if he broke Lynnie but not her.

She shook the thought from her head. She wasn’t going to do this to herself. She knew what she’d signed up for with him and it was what she wanted.

Would she really want a relationship with him? Maybe the guy he was before, the high school football all-star who was a sweet kid with an earnest smile. But the man he was now? He wasn’t sweet, and while he was still earnest, he didn’t have that small-town innocence anymore.

He’d seen the darker things in the world and he’d chosen them.

And she, she was choosing him; she was choosing this moment. She was choosing to feel everything, to let it all burst within her no matter which road her feelings took. She grabbed his shoulders and shifted so that he rolled atop her. “So fill me.”

He did.

Almost as if they were in a dream, he slid her panties down her legs, never breaking eye contact. He pinned her there with his gaze, the intensity making her helpless and unwilling to move for fear of breaking this cobra-like spell. She’d never been big on being prey, until now.

Kentucky was held in complete thrall and she loved every second of it.

He hadn’t put on a condom this time, and she didn’t want him to. She wanted this connection with him. She could get the morning-after pill from the pharmacy tomorrow.

Because the intimacy between them was still there.

It made every touch more intense, every sigh more meaningful and every jolt of pleasure more electric.