Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (32 page)

From
the top of their narrow street he watched her enter the apartment complex. He
couldn’t follow her there. She wouldn’t want to see him, not now, maybe not
ever again. He stood outside the apartment entrance and tried to breathe
without it hurting, smelling the smoke before he saw the man. Cigar. Its smoker
stood in the shadows, but stepped forward as he spoke.

“You
have romantic problems?” It was the man from the window, from the apartment
opposite. He grinned, white teeth in the dark. “You fight like lovers.”

“We. Yes.”
No point hiding it, not with him.

“She is
bomb, your woman. She put big hole in your life? Like all beautiful women she
is dangerous material. Must be handled carefully.”

“Too
late. Boom.” Reid made the motion with his hands. “I fucked it up. I’m out of
my depth.” He appealed to the older man. “What do I do? Do I stay in a hotel
tonight?”

“Eh,
only if you have had enough of her. But a woman like that.” He took a drag on
the cigar and laughed.

“There’s
never enough.”

“So, so,
my friend. You are not married, I think.”

“No. Oh,
man, we’re only just beginning. Was that your wife?” He meant in the woman in
the window sucking cock and taking it from behind and they both knew it.

“For
ten years. She drew,” the man made a heart in the air with the glowing tip of
the cigar, “for you.”

“We
saw.”

“We are
very different. She is a princess and I am a pig. She does not remember why she
married me. She tells me this every day.”

“That
was the first real fight we’ve had.” The first to make him think he could do
something desperate.

“You
feel like you’re choking,” the man made a fake coughing sound.

“Yes. I
am a pig too.”

That
got an arm slung over his shoulder. “You and me, comrades. Men who eat the
garnish. It’s our misfortune to love women who deserve the finest.”

That
about covered it. “How do I get her back?”

“You
get on your belly and crawl because she is worth it. No matter what you did. No
matter she is right or wrong, you crawl over glass and shit, you eat your pride,
and you make her see you are the wrong one and she is the right one.”

Would
that even be enough? Reid moved out of the other man’s hold. “What if she did
something and I can’t get past it?”

“Did
she fuck some other man?” A guttural grunt. “You know this or crazy thoughts?”

“I
don’t know.” It was making him crazy. “No, she wouldn’t, I don’t think. I just
need to hear her say it.”

“Comrade,
I watched your woman. You know this. She watched me, but she only saw you.”

That went
in like a lumbar puncture, an injection of sense to his spinal column. It’s
what he’d needed to hear.

“If she
kicks, you take it, no pain is too much. If she shouts, you are silent. If she
cries, ah, if she cries, then you know you made a proud woman break.” Reid’s neighbor
thumped his chest. “And you feel shame. This you must show her or she knows a
pig like you isn’t worth her love.”

“Jesus.”

“My
wife. We fight a lot. Fuck a lot. I hate her. I love her, it is all the same. I’d
die for her.”

It’s
how he felt about Zarley. “Let’s assume I get the crawling done. How do I keep
her?”

“Ah
comrade, I’m a pig, not a man with a couch you can lie on.” He slapped Reid on
the back. “Learn how she needs to be loved. Give her that.” He flicked the
fiery end of the cigar into the dark and they both watched it disappear. “Good
luck, my friend.”

Once
the man had gone, Reid walked on past the apartment entrance. He needed a sharp
head before he went to Zarley. He walked for thirty minutes and when he was
back outside the big blue carriage door he was no clearer about what to say. But
the lights were out in the apartment so maybe he’d let her sleep. In the
morning things might not seem so dim.

He took
his shoes off outside the apartment door, keyed it gently open and prayed he
walked on the floorboards that didn’t squeak. He’d make a bed on the sofa, not
that he expected to sleep.

“You
needn’t creep in like a thief.”

“Fuck.”
He jumped, dropping a shoe. She sat in a single chair in the far corner of the
room, her bare legs drawn up, arms wrapped around her shins. Her hair was
scraped back from her face. In the filtered light from the street he could see
her distress.

He
stayed where he was, at the furthest point from her.
Crawl
. He put his
back to the wall and slid down it till he was sitting with his legs
outstretched.

“I
thought you might’ve been asleep.” He was clumsy and his voice sounded too damn
loud when he needed to be gentle and soft. She turned her face away. There was
no comfort in the silence, or in being in the room with her and having stripped
himself of the right to touch her. There were silver tear tracks on her face,
but she was dry-eyed.

He’d
already done the worst. He felt the shame like the weight of a truck on his
shoulders. He might never be able to get off the floor.

“I
didn’t understand how much it would hurt to hurt you.”

She
kept her face turned away. This was the shit and the glass and the false pride
he had to drag his belly through. He wanted to ask about the feedback she’d
gotten, but not if it meant hearing what the Master thought. He wanted to ask how
she felt about her performance, but he hadn’t earned that knowledge.

“You
were so naked and so fucking beautiful, I thought every man in that place
deserved you more than I did. I wasn’t ready to see you like that. The first
time I watched you dance I didn’t even know your name. Lux. For deluxe, for the
best. Now I’m in love with you and it fucking messed me up to see you on that
stage, to know other men wanted you like I do.”

God, he
was pathetic. “It was the longest two minutes forty-five of my life. And when
you came out to the bar and you were still in costume. I wasn’t ready for that
either. I saw you too, and he was touching you. I thought you’d decided to cut
me out.” He ripped at his hair. “I know, I know. I’m an idiot teenager, but the
feeling was real to me.”

Nothing
from Zarley, but she had to be listening and all he had was the truth.

“That
woman, her name was Marja. She told me all the contest girls fuck the Master if
they wanted to win.”

That
scored a hiss from Zarley that felt like a kick to his soul.

“Knew
you’d never want to win like that, but the way he touched you, the way you were
tonight. You belonged to every man in that room and not to me.” He stopped to
catch his breath, rubbed his hand over his chest where the pain was vague but
constant.

“Marja
put my hands on her body. She kissed me. But I let it happen. I could’ve
stopped it and I didn’t. Everything I did tonight was wrong.”

“Why?”

He
started at the sharp retort.

If he
understood why, it wouldn’t have happened. “I don’t know.”

“Did
you want to fuck her?”

He was
glad of the distance and the lack of light. He could look at her, but not meet
her eyes. “Not for a second. Zarley, not for a second.”

She
unfolded her legs and sat forward in the chair. “But you wanted to kiss her.”

“I
wanted to kiss you. I wanted to bring you back here and tell you how incredible
you were tonight, but I thought you’d rejected me.”

“You
thought I’d fucked another man.”

No
denying it. “Yes.”

“Because
I couldn’t win without doing that.”

“No,
because he could give you what you needed and I can’t.”

They
lapsed into a silence so heavy with the sense of ending it hammered him into
the floor.

“I have
nothing you need, and in my heart I figure you’ll realize I’m hard work and
move on. I’m terrified of that. I thought you’d done it tonight.”

She
went to her knees in front of the chair. “Why would you think that?” Her voice
wobbled and that shame was on him too. “What have I done to make you trust me
so little?”

She’d
done nothing except be the woman he’d fallen for. This was all on him. He got
to his knees and crawled closer to her. Not close enough to touch. He sat
cross-legged so he wouldn’t spook her.

“Look
at me, Zarley.” The pain in his chest wasn’t vague anymore. He waited till she
met his eyes. Hers were wet. “I’m the weird, loner guy. All you’ve seen of me
since we met is failure. I was an unemployed drunk, I vomited all over you. I
drive a ten-year-old bike and didn’t bother furnishing my place. I dragged you
into unfinished business, lost control and acted like an entitled asshole. I thought
if I told you I loved you, you’d run so far your dust would be cosmic. All I
have to offer you is financial security and you want to go get that for
yourself. I fucking love you more for that. But what the hell chance does an
asshole like me have with a goddess like you?”

She wiped
her face with the back of her hand. “I’m so angry with you.” She stood up, her
breathing was as unsteady as his.

Were
they done, was this it? He closed his eyes, his body was heavy with this next
failure. It would end with him on his ass at her mercy, the way it had begun
between them.

But she
wasn’t done with him. She speared her hand into his hair and jerked his head
back. “I don’t do assholes. You were an asshole tonight. But you weren’t one
yesterday, or the day before that, and you won’t be one tomorrow.”

Tomorrow
.

“I need
to sleep. I need to see how I feel in the morning.” She took her hand away.

He
scrambled upright, one foot turned to cement from pins and needles and pointed
at the couch. “I’ll stay here.”

“No,
you sleep in the bed with me. Because that’s what people who love each other do
when they’ve ripped one another apart.”

“Zarley.”
Her name drawn from the pain in his body like it was a balm.

“Come
to bed, Reid.”

He followed
her to the bedroom. The weight of all he’d gotten wrong still making it hard to
pick up his feet. He washed up and climbed into the bed opposite her.

“Don’t
even think about touching me.” She huddled on her side, facing away from him. It
was a warm night but she had the covers up over her shoulders and she wore a t-shirt
and panties. It was a warm night and he felt cold.

They’d
never gone to bed wearing clothing before.

It took
a long time for Zarley’s breathing to slow but for him, the agony of being so
close to her and yet so very far was more than he could handle. Though he
willed it, sleep didn’t come. When he was sure she was deep under, he took a
pillow to the sofa where he could practice being alone again.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Zarley woke with sunlight streaming into the bedroom and for a
moment forgot to be angry. That was Paris sunlight heating her face. And last
night she’d danced at Madame Amour. That had to be credential enough to get a
job in any decent club back home. Even if she didn’t win, she was more
confident about finding work and negotiating the fine line between artist and
stripper.

No
Reid, not exactly a surprise; the place beside her held no warmth. She kicked
the covers off and stretched. But she couldn’t shrug off the anger. Of course,
in being so hopelessly wrong, Reid was also right. If she discovered him for an
asshole through and through, there was no amount of pole wax would make them
stick.

He’d
ruined what was meant to be an incredible one-time experience with his ridiculous
jealousy and that alone was unforgivable. And then there was the nagging worry
he would want sex with more than one person. That kind of monogamy was as old-fashioned
as cigarettes. Once he’d woken up to what his body could feel he’d become an
incredible lover.

Did he
kiss Marja because she trapped him? Was he turned on by the woman in the
window, had he wanted her? Did he want other things with other people? Did she?
Why was this so confusing? Press Reid for his sexual fantasy and he claimed to
have found it in her. That had to be a lie because he wasn’t a man with a quiet
mind. He was a man with obsessions.

She lay
looking up at the net canopy above the bed. She couldn’t hear a sound in the
apartment, but the rebound of her own fury sent her in search of Reid. She
didn’t have to go far. He was stretched out on the sofa, an arm slung over his
eyes. He wore the tee and boxer briefs he’d come to bed in.

And he
wasn’t asleep.

He
lifted his arm away when she stood over him. Dark smudges under his eyes. Had
he slept at all? Why did she care?

“Tell
me what to do, Zarley.” He sat and swung his feet to the floor. “Whatever you
want from me.”

Like
contrite was enough to cut it. Like his husky, hurting tone was supposed to fix
things. If he’d understood the game he’d have organized breakfast, flowers, a
freaking choir. But this was Reid who didn’t understand the playoffs in a
relationship. This was Reid whose reactions were raw and untempered, who didn’t
see the point in lying.

She
stood in front of him, arms folded, trying not to give a fuck that he looked
terrible. “What was with you last night?”

He
looked up and locked on. “I lay awake for hours thinking about it. I don’t want
to lose you, but I need to get a handle on how I feel about you, it’s not
healthy.”

“That’s
it then, you want to break up?” Oh, that made her heart pulse in her ears.

Both
hands to his hair, already a tousled, spiked up mess. “Oh shit, no. No. I
thought you did.”

Hell,
no. She wasn’t finished with this man. She’d have been long gone from the
apartment if she had.

“Last
night,” he shifted, uncomfortable with her scrutiny. “When you came inside, I
waited on the street. Our neighbor,” his eyes went up to the window, “was out
there smoking a cigar. The woman was his wife and they’ve been married years. He
said he’d die for her.” Reid’s eyes found hers again. “That’s how I feel about
you.”

How do
you finish with a man who says something like that and hands you all the power?

“If you
told me you wanted me to drown in the Seine I would. Leap off the Eiffel Tower,
I’m there. But I get that’s not a smart way to feel and it’s more likely you’ll
tell me to piss off, and the way I die is slowly in wretched pieces from being
without you.”

She
could make a crack about being arrested before he tried to leap of the Eiffel Tower
but she had no breath to do that with.

“He
said they hate each other and they love each other and it was the same thing.” Reid
closed his eyes, visibly affected. “I can figure the most complicated
algorithms but I’ve spent all night trying to understand that. For a while last
night I hated you, even while I panicked about losing you.” Those blue-gray,
orange-flecked eyes locked onto hers again. “I almost lost my best friends
because I didn’t understand that you can love and hate at the same time. I
don’t want to break up, but I think you do.”

“I said
I’d teach you all the different ways to have sex. We’re not done yet.”

“You
and me, we can’t be just about the sex.”

“Love
and hate, sex and life. I never said one was without the other. What do you
think we’ve been doing? Every time you pour yourself over me you show me your
love.”

At that
he sagged, his body going slack.

She
climbed over his lap. “You fucked up.”

He
brought his hands to her hips. “I’ll do it again, you know it.”

“You’ll
learn not to. I’m still angry with you.” She leaned forward and caught his
bottom lip in her teeth, clamped and pulled until he sensed danger and his eyes
widened and his hands gripped. Then she soothed where she’d bitten with quick
licks, while she dug her fingers into his shoulders. The kisses she gave him
were interspersed with nips and a too hard hold on his hair. She wanted to
shake him, make him see that hurt and care, love and pain went together. He
took whatever she gave him without a sound, without a protest, accepting it as
punishment.

It was
forgiveness, the only way she could express it.

Hands
to the neck of his old Plus shirt, she yanked to bring his mouth to hers and heard
it tear, felt the shoulder seam give. It made him let go her lips and grunt in
disbelief. She’d never been rough with him, he was unsure how to take it.

She
pulled on the fabric and it ripped further, both of them watched as it exposed
his chest, the wings and flowers, the heartbeat of his plus sign with the
curling script.
It’s your road and yours alone, others may walk it with you,
but no one can walk it for you
.

She’d
walk it with him.

“You’re
confusing me.”

She
chased his mouth, spoke against his lips. “This is angry sex.” She tipped
forward, getting her lips to his neck and sucking hard enough to leave a mark,
using her teeth, making him jerk. “It’s a thing people do when they’re in
love.” She twisted her fists in his shirt and leaned back as she pulled,
knowing he had hold of her and she wouldn’t fall. The over-washed cotton
disintegrated and the shirt tore all the way to the hem with a satisfying screech.

She sat
back on his thighs and watched him take in the wreckage. He was catching on,
erect now where he hadn’t been moments before.

“Do you
love me?” A nasty tease of a question. She’d just ruined his favorite vintage
Better Together Plus shirt.

“Yes.” The
word punched out of him. He breathed erratically, his hands hovering, squeezing,
letting go, skimming over her hips, not knowing how to handle her.

“Do you
want me?”

He
cursed. All caught up now, dragging her body hard against him with a grunt,
anchoring her at the base of her spine and the nape of her neck. “Forever.”

There
were violent lip crushing, teeth crashing, tongue biting, moan sharing kisses,
bruising fingertips and pinched skin. There were shocked gasps and knocked
heads, and in the middle of it, Reid took her face in his hands and laughed.

She
rolled her hips and his eyes closed. “You like this.”

He
stood abruptly and dropped her to her feet, yanked her shirt over her head, got
rid of the tattered remains of his shirt and their underwear. “I get it.” Looping
his arm around her neck, he ravaged her mouth. “I love you. I’m never going to
be enough for you. I trust you.”

She
climbed his body and he took her down to the floor, laying out on his back
beneath her. Braced with palms to his shoulders on straightened arms, and the
tips of her toes on outstretched legs, she balanced above him. Hands to her
ass, he tried to pull her down on top of him but she resisted. He could force
it, if she toyed with him too long he would.

This
tension: his size, her strength, what they wanted from each other, what each of
them was willing to give; this is where she ached to live, because if she had
this chance with him, trying and failing and being uncertain were nothing to
fear.

She arched
her back and dipped her body, rolling her pussy and belly over his erection. He
tried to chase her with his hips, groaning in frustration. “Keep doing that
and—”

She did
it again. She could almost take him inside this way. She wasn’t angry with him
anymore. She trembled, but not from the strain of holding her position, from
the way he caressed her, as much with his eyes, bright and intense, as his
hands; from the way he waited, when he didn’t want to, for her to make the next
move.

On
another skating pass she bent her knees to the floor and they connected. She
took him inside in halting increments, holding off that moment when they’d
crash together, teaching him angry would never last if they could have this
unwinding, unwrapping, full sensory stripping of everything but their most
essential selves.

Reid
shook beneath her, drawing her knees higher against his sides, his breathing
short and hard, his head thrown back. Without warning he hauled her tight to
his chest and flipped them. On his knees and one hand, keeping them joined, he
held her body suspended off the ground while he eased out and thrust back in. Though
she clung, she could’ve slid from his grasp, though she cried out, he knew what
she wanted, more and more and more again, until everything inside her curled
tight, primed and blasting wide, when she felt him shudder through his release.
Only then did he lay her down, snatching the pillow he’d used to the floor for their
shoulders and heads, laying his body by her side, kissing her through the
comedown, till his eyes closed and he slipped toward sleep.

That’s
when she really played mean.

“No,
you don’t.” She shoved at him. He’d imprisoned her with a heavy leg. “We have
sights to see.” A new day to start to learn each other again.

He
grunted and swiped at her with a lazy paw, trying to get her to stop wriggling
about. “I’m trashed, Flygirl. Gotta give me five.”

“I’m
starving, if you don’t let me up, our naked skeletal remains could be found by
the next tenants.”

He
laughed but draped his arm over her. “Five minutes.”

Could
poke him. He was vulnerable around the ribcage. Could mess with his eyebrows,
rub the fur the wrong way, or shout-whisper in his ear or, she reached down and
wrapped her hand around him and his eyes snapped open—or that.

“Hi
there,” she quipped.

“You
want round two?”

“I’d
like to get off the hard floor.”

“Anything
else?”

That’s
when it hit her. She’d never loved a man enough to hate him so much. With
Dalton, it never turned to hate because life got hateful around them. They’d
held each up until even that was destructive. With every man between Dalton and
Reid, she never waited around long enough to feel anything worth fighting for.

“Baby,
what’s wrong?”

She
burrowed into Reid’s arms, clutching him, tucking her face into his neck. “I’m
going to need you to keep needing me.”

He
rolled her, bringing her body over his. “I need you more ways than I can count.
Thought that would make me weak. Makes me see how closed off I was, what a narrow
life I lived before you. Don’t want you to leave me when we go home. Move in
with me, Flygirl?”

Her
first thought was yes. Yes, that’s what she wanted. Her second was Cara.

“Cara
can take over the spare room. I don’t mind. Not like I’m starved for space. She
can park her sewing machine beside my desk. Would that work for you?”

It
would work if Cara wanted it to, but it worked on Zarley’s softened emotions
like a scalpel, carving Reid’s initials on her heart. She nodded into his neck,
fingers caressing his hairline.

“Is
that a yes, you’ll move in?”

It was
a yes kissed to his jaw, a yes kissed to his cheekbone, a yes to the middle of
his forehead and an absolutely, yes, yes, yes, kissed wet to his mouth.

There
was a quite a bit more fooling around before they got off the floor, showered,
ate, dressed, talked over her performance last night and got moving. They
walked along the Seine, content to hold hands and peer into the little stalls
selling books and postcards and tourist tack. Lunchtime saw them at the Eiffel
Tower.

She
made him promise not to jump. He made them take the elevator instead of the
stairs to the top deck, pleading lack of sleep and hunger, and hunted out a
corner of relative privacy where he could kiss her till her head spun.

After
that it was food and window shopping and being grateful they’d come through the
awfulness of last night.

Early
evening footsore, they staggered into a bistro for dinner. They drank white
wine, ate beef, and Zarley ate clafouti for dessert. Everything about being in
Paris made her hungry, but if they stayed too long it was possible she’d put on
weight for the first time in her life.