Pulled Within (7 page)

There was a knock at the window. I took a deep breath, slowly turning toward the glass and rolled it down.

“I think you’re out of gas,” Shane said.

Hart had followed him, and was already lifting my hood. It
blocked
my view of him, but I could hear him checking whatever was
underneath.
He closed it and walked over to my window. “Shane’s right,” he
said. “Everything else looks fine.”

I felt so stupid. I knew I needed gas, but I had left Bangor in such a hurry that I’d forgotten to get some. My eyes automatically closed;
my head leaned into the seat. I needed to think
—
again
—
and
knowing Hart’s eyes were all over me wasn’t helping.

“Shane,” Hart said, “I know your guys need you right now. I’ve got some time before my next meeting. I can take her to the gas station.”

My lids burst open and my head lifted. The spot in my stomach was boiling. I wrapped my arms around it and squeezed.

“Are you okay with Hart taking you?” Shane asked. He knew
about my past with Hart. But we were adults now, and all of that had happened years ago. There was no reason for Shane to think I
couldn’t
be in a car with him. But he didn’t know what was going on inside
me.

And there was plenty of reason for
me
to think I couldn’t do it.

I had no choice. I had to get to the apartment. “I’m…” I glanced at Hart. The flirtatious grin on his lips, the way his long, harmless-yet-demanding fingers ran through the scruffy stubble on his face. It was too much. I couldn’t do it. “I’m good, thanks. I’ll just call a taxi so I can get my stuff.”

My car door opened. “No need,” Hart said. “I’ll take you there. Come on.”

There was no way he was taking me to Brady’s. This whole
situation was embarrassing enough.

“No, Hart, it’s okay…really.”

He just kept holding the door open, and I just kept sitting there, waiting for him to close it again. Finally, he reached for my hand. “Let me help you.” It was an order, though a soft one that came from a sincere, helpful place.

“The man’s offering to move you out,” Shane said. “I’d do it if I could, but I’m stuck

here.”

They obviously weren’t going to ease up on Hart’s offer, which didn’t surprise me. I grabbed my purse and got out of the car. Hart’s hand dropped when he realized I wasn’t going to take it.

“Give him a real good workout, Rae,” Shane laughed. “Maybe he won’t ride my ass so hard this afternoon.”

What the hell did that mean?

I didn’t have time to think about it. I smiled at Shane, but it
wasn’t
real. I was just trying to hide everything that stirred inside me.
“Don’t worry…I won’t be easy on him.”

“Good,” Shane said. “We’ll talk later.”

I nodded as he walked away.

“Does that mean you’re going to ride
me
really hard at Brady’s?”
Hart’s lids narrowed again, and he gazed at me through his long
lashes.
“You know how much I liked it when you did that. And you know how much I liked to return the favor.” His words could have been
taken as
an attempt at humor, but his tone told me he wasn’t entirely
kidding.

Goose bumps covered my skin.

“Where’s your car?” I asked, breaking my stare away from him.

He laughed and held out his arm. “This way. After you.”

I moved in front of him and headed down the long driveway. After a few steps, he caught up with me and led me to the black Range Rover that was parked in the street. I should have known he’d be driving something like that. Money wasn’t something Hart or his family had ever lacked.

“Where are we going?” he asked once he got in.

“Turn around and go straight until you hit Main Street.” I ran my fingers over the stitching of the leather seat, rubbed my knuckles
—
anything to keep my hands busy and my mind off him. I
knew both were
impossible. I had too many questions. I just didn’t know why I
couldn’t bring myself to ask them.

He’d left Maine while were still dating—abruptly, with no
warning,
and no good-bye. It was the summer of his junior year. He just
disappeared one day, and I hadn’t heard much about him since. But that was my doing; whenever someone started talking about him, I walked away. It hurt too much to hear it. Eventually, I’d heard that
Bar Harbor wasn’t enough for him. His dream was to play
professional
baseball, but college scouts weren’t exactly rushing to our town to find athletes. So he moved away and went to the best prep school in
New England. Knowing he’d chosen sports over me and hadn’t bothered to tell me hadn’t exactly left the best impression.

I stared at his profile as he looked over his shoulder to back out of his spot on the street. I knew his face so well, but the years we’d been apart had only made him more attractive. More mature. His features were so sharp, so angled. He’d always been sexual, more so than anyone I had ever dated, but now it felt like there was a grown-up confidence that enhanced his physicality.

Sex poured from him.

He wasn’t all tatted up like Saint—not that I could see, anyway.
He didn’t have Saint’s rugged appearance, or a bad boy exterior
hiding an interior so battered and damaged that he was nearly impossible to heal. Hart was bold and smooth instead.

He was refreshing.

The only badness about him was the way he’d pleasured my body with his hands…and tongue.

I made myself not think about it.

He put the SUV back in drive and slowly turned around again, stopping when he found my eyes. I hated riding in the passenger seat. It positioned my scarred cheek closest to whoever was driving. He may not have been staring at it, but I could feel his questions
regardless. I’d been so whole the last time he’d seen me. Now my
skin was cracked, so thick and jagged that it barely looked like skin at all. But the memories inside me had made scars even worse than this,
even worse than how I’d felt when Hart left without saying good-
bye.

The countdown was still ticking away.

Twenty-nine days
.

I made myself not think about that either, though it wasn’t easy.
I looked at Hart again. His eyes hadn’t left me. He was looking
beyond
my scar, beneath the surface, trying to read my thoughts. I had no
doubt
he could do it, too. He’d always had the ability to hear the things I
didn’t say. Sometimes he’d tell me what he’d seen, but I had usually gotten the feeling that he kept most of it to himself.

His vision returned to the road. “I take a left onto Main Street?”

“Yeah, then a right onto Hancock. It’s the third house on the left.”

Slowly, the questions came. “So…you’re living with Brady?” His hand casually slid around the wheel, pausing when it reached the top.

“I was just staying with him.” The conversation he’d heard
between
me and Shane couldn’t have made a lot of sense. “The landlord
kicked us out—well…really, he kicked
me
out. I just need to get my stuff.”

“You guys have been best friends for a long time.” He was
already digging around. “Still…just friends?”

I remembered all the conversations I’d had with Hart about this subject. He’d thought Brady liked me as more than just a friend. Saint had thought the same. Neither of them understood the level of friendship I had with Brady, what the two of us had been through
together. Having been away as long as he had, Hart couldn’t have
known the half of it. I thought at least Saint would have gotten it,
since he’d experienced some of my pain. But he never understood.

“Yep. Just friends,” I said.

“I hear he’s gone into rehab.” I nodded. It felt like an interview. “Where will you be living now?”

I wondered how much more Shane had told him. I glanced out the window, tracing my fingers over the tinted glass. I wasn’t giving
him
any eye contact while I answered. “I’ve lined up a place around
here.”

It was time to get the attention off me. It never should have been on me in the first place.

“You’re living in Mass now?”

His grin was back. It was unsettling. “You’ve been looking into
me?”

I didn’t have a computer, and my phone only had features I
could afford. I wasn’t into social media…those sites were full of pictures of
people who loved looking at themselves. I hated photos of
myself
—
the old ones reminded me of someone I’d never be again, and the new ones told the truth about it. It hurt too much to look at them. “No. I saw your license plate.”

“That’s not what I was hoping you’d say.”

Our eyes met briefly, once again triggering the jolt in my stomach.

“Being in Maine is one thing,” I told him, “but what are you doing back in Bar Harbor?”

He shrugged. “I travel a lot for work.”

I had no idea what his work was. “Baseball couldn’t have brought you here.”

His brows narrowed, a small line forming between them. “Baseball?” He paused. “You really haven’t looked into me at all, have you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Baseball didn’t end up happening. I was injured pretty early on…my career ended before it really even started.”

I could relate to that, more than he probably realized. But my scar hadn’t changed only my career choices. It had changed my entire life.

“And why are you working for Shane?”

His hand moved down the wheel to hit the blinker. “Shane’s working for me, actually. He’s building the spa.”

“He’s working for you? Wait…” Hart’s mom had once owned a
spa in town; his dad was an accountant. After Hart left for prep
school,
his mom sold the spa and the family moved to Vermont. The spa
had been sold several times since then and it was now closed. But now… “So The Harbor Spa is yours?”

“I partnered with my parents after I graduated college. So yeah, it’s half mine.”

I couldn’t picture Hart working at a place like that. He’d grown into a sort of refined masculinity and was well-kept appearance-
wise, but he didn’t have the personality to be surrounded by so much vanity. I
had no doubt his mom loved having him work with her. She had always been a bit controlling and a tad mouthy; having Hart in that position meant she could watch him closely. Hart had never confirmed it, but she hadn’t been the biggest fan of me. “What do you do there?”

“I build the locations. Then I oversee the openings, making sure
they’re up and running to my standards.” Locations…openings.
There was more than one, apparently.

I turned my head toward the window again, scrunching my lids together while I waited for him to answer my next question. “So that means you’re going to be here for a little while?”

“Six months in Bar Harbor, six in Bangor. Then another six in
Portland. After that I’ll hopefully be headed to a new location.”

A year and a half in Maine.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. In two short days, it had
already become hard not to run into him. Eighteen months would only make it that much worse.

“I bet you’re good at what you do…especially the taking off part.” That slipped out. I didn’t want to have a more in-depth
conversation about it. I just couldn’t help pointing out his flaw, since he was in full view of mine.

His sigh filled the silence. “Rae, about that
—
”

“It’s that house right there,” I said, pointing just ahead of us.
Whatever the excuse was going to be, I didn’t want to hear it. It
wouldn’t
have stopped my stomach from jolting, wouldn’t have made those
memories hurt any less. I’d felt the heat return between us as soon as we were alone in the car, and even though it was tempting to climb over the seat, straddle his lap, and taste those lips I’d been missing, I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to be hurt again. Saint was a brutal reminder of how bad it could feel to be cut loose. The pain returned every time I saw Drew. I didn’t want another doomed relationship.

And casual sex would never work with Hart.

He turned into the driveway, and I saw Vince immediately. He
was leaning against the side of his car, his arms crossed, the entire
lower half of his face dropped in a frown. He looked like a pug.

He snapped like one, too.

Hart parked as Vince walked over to the SUV, stopping just a
few feet from my door. “You’re late,” he yelled.

“But I’m here now,” I replied once I opened the door.

He looked at his watch. “You have ten minutes before the
locksmith gets here.”

“Just give me a second and I’ll get all my things out. Damn.” I
shut the door and hurried toward the building without even glancing behind me to see if Hart had gotten out of the car.

“Ten minutes,” Vince yelled. “That’s all you’ve got.”

“Got it,” I shouted back. “Again.”

“Relax,” Hart said. I stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned around. He was at the bottom, standing in front of the
landlord. “We heard you the first time.”

“She was supposed to be here over thirty minutes ago.”

Hart’s back straightened, his feet spread apart, his hands
stiffened at his sides. “That’s not her fault; it’s mine. So if you’re going to yell at someone, yell at me. Or keep quiet; that would be even better.”

“But she—”

“There’s no way in hell you’re going to keep talking to her the way you have been.”

I couldn’t see Vince’s expression, but I saw the change in his
posture: the way his shoulders slouched and his weight shifted between his
feet. He slowly turned his head and looked up at me. “I’ll wait for
you out here. Let me know when you’re done.” His tone was entirely different this time.