Second Opinion (16 page)

Our tongues battered violently against each other, desperation haunting our kiss. I hadn’t been inside of her since that morning, and it felt like far too long.

I’d always been a fairly sexually active guy, but Avery brought everything to another level. I was happy with once a day. A few times a week. But with her? I couldn’t get enough. I never wanted to leave the sanctuary I found inside of Avery Peterson.

She clawed at my clothes as my mouth continued its assault on hers, and we parted only long enough for me to tear my shirt over my head. She worked my belt furiously followed by the button of my jeans, lowering them just enough to do the job.

She pulled my dick out of my pants and began stroking it with that perfect rhythm she had. I growled out a moan, and she grinned up at me, those brown eyes gazing up demurely at me.

God, when she did that, my mind went fucking crazy with how much I wanted her. I nearly blew my load right into her hand.

I forced thoughts of baseball into my mind to hold off. I wanted to be buried deep in her pussy when I came. I grabbed her arms to halt her progress.

“You’re at my mercy, remember?” she murmured.

“I remember. But if you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to come. I don’t want to come yet. I want to fuck you for an hour before I come.”

Her eyes lit up with pleasure at my words. “I’m going to make you come with just the way I look at you?”

“Your perfect hands are all over my cock. Your gorgeous eyes are looking up at me like you want to fucking eat me alive. Sometimes I think I might come just from being in the same room as you.” My voice was strained because I was having a hard time focusing on conversation when my dick was still in her hands.

She laughed, and it was a gorgeous sound I wanted to hear more often. She gently cupped my balls. “And now I’ve got you by the nuts.”

“Babe, you’ve had me by the nuts since the engagement party.”

She laughed delightedly again. “I like it when you’re at my mercy.”

“I like being at your mercy.”

Her eyes misted over with appreciation, desire, and something else. I knew what it was. I’d seen it thrown my direction more than once, but I’d only looked back with it once.

I was too afraid to even form the word in my head, but I knew it was there.

She snaked her arms around my waist.

“Do you mean that?” she asked, her head against my chest.

I kissed the top of her head. “Yes.”

She sighed in contentment, and then she pulled back and kissed me. This time our kiss was slow. It wasn’t rushed and desperate. It was full of all of those unnamed emotions hurtling through us both at an alarming rate. Lips met lips, tongues danced erotically together, hands caressed. It was perhaps the most sensual kiss of my life, and from the way she kissed me back, the feeling was mutual.

Love.

The word finally made its appearance into my mind. I’d skirted around it. I told myself I was “falling” for Avery. I adored her. I enjoyed her company. I liked her a lot.

But that kiss held all of those things plus something deeper.

All of the events of the past few weeks hit me at once.

The reason she became a teacher, the shitty thing her high school classmates did to her, the compassion I saw in her eyes.

The way we danced to O.A.R.’s song at my sister’s wedding, the way she took charge when she felt like it, the way we fit together like two puzzle pieces.

All of it added up to love, and I poured it into our kiss as the reason why I’d been losing so much sleep over her finally dawned on me.

I lay in bed awake every night I’d been with her because I couldn’t fathom the possibility that all I wanted to do forever was hold her like that.

I was petrified of what it could do to me, but as I kissed Avery and held her body against my own, I knew she was worth the fear. She’d be worth every terrifying moment because I had fucking fallen in love with her.

She backed away from me slowly, her eyes locking on mine. I saw it in hers, too. She felt the same way I did, and as terrifying as it was to admit it was there, it provided a huge measure of comfort that I wasn’t in this alone.

“Since I’m in charge tonight,” she started with a slow grin, “I’m making the executive decision that we’re going to slow things down. We’re going to take our time tonight. Sound good?”

I nodded and pressed my lips to hers again. “Whatever you say, baby.” Truer words had never been spoken. I would do anything—
anything
—this girl wanted me to do, and now that it had hit me how deep my feelings ran for her, I couldn’t wait to tell her.

“Want a drink?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She pulled on a shirt and her panties. I made a sad face at her as she laughed and headed to the kitchen to get us each a drink.

I pulled my jeans back up around my waist. If we were taking our time I’d let her undress me again. That was half the fun. I was just about to kick off my shoes and settle into the couch when my phone dinged with a text.

I pulled my phone out of my front jeans pocket and glanced at the screen.

The words that had come from somewhere far away, floated through space, and landed on my phone had me reeling back against the door.

I hadn’t heard from her in four years.

It was better off that way, really.

We couldn’t go back to what we had. She’d done too much damage. She’d fucked me up, and I had no desire whatsoever to see her, especially not after I’d finally had a breakthrough.

I’d finally wanted to spend more than two consecutive nights with one woman. I’d finally made a decision in my mind I wanted more with Avery.

And then that text sent everything I thought I was feeling into complete fucking chaos.

It brought me back in time. Four years earlier.

I didn’t want to hear from her. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to breathe in her vanilla scent and I didn’t want to feel her silky hair between my fingers and I didn’t want to hover over her, my mouth on hers seconds before I shoved my cock inside of her.

I didn’t want to kiss her and make love to her and hold her in my arms.

I hated her.

I loved her.

She loved me.

She hated me.

But her text most definitely indicated she wanted to see me.

I glanced up at the kitchen toward Avery, the woman who had just started to tear down the walls I’d built around my heart. The woman who had the potential to knock those walls down completely. I thought about those brown eyes that had become a security to me, those eyes I sought out in every room I entered. Those eyes that heated over with lust toward me, the same eyes that had reflected love back at me just seconds earlier.

I averted my eyes back down to my phone, to the woman who was the one who’d caused me to build up those walls in the first place.

Ten little words. Two short sentences. Forty-one characters. Short enough to be a tweet.

Yet those ten words packed such a punch I found myself pulling my shirt back on, yelling out a hasty excuse to Avery, and walking out the door to my car.

CHAPTER 12

Isn’t it funny what the right words from the wrong person can do to another person?

Or maybe they were the wrong words from the right person.

The wrong words from the wrong person?

Whatever the case, I panicked. I wasn’t an anxious person. I didn’t suffer from the same sorts of panic attacks that plagued my sister ever since the horrible car accident she’d been in that had changed her life.

Ten little words. Two short sentences. Forty-one characters. Short enough to be a tweet.

The anxiety hit me at full force as I read the ten words in the text message:
I’m in town for two days. Let me see you.

She’d sent it at exactly 11:12 PM. She was making a statement, and I was well aware of exactly what she was trying to say.

I stared at the words that lit up my screen in the quiet dark of my car. I hadn’t started the engine. I just needed to be alone for a minute with that text. I needed the quiet silence of solitude. No running motor. No music. No laughter or breathing or whispers.

Just those ten words had the wheels of my mind turning my brain back four years even after everything I’d been through with Avery.

CHAPTER 13

FOUR YEARS EARLIER

“We can’t go back, Rachelle.”

“I know we can’t. But we can start over. It’ll be better this time. Different. I swear.”

I wished we’d met anywhere other than a fucking restaurant. In my head, it was a good idea. It was a public place where I wouldn’t be tempted to hold her in my arms the way I’d craved since the day she’d told me she didn’t want to marry me.

Her eyes pleaded with me, and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to deny her. I hadn’t seen her since she had broken my heart when she had denied my proposal three years earlier, but it was like no time had passed.

I wanted her to be my best friend again. I missed her. I missed everything about her, but I especially missed the way she somehow knew exactly what I needed even before I did. I missed the curve of her naked back, the way her eyes met mine and her lips turned up at all of our inside jokes, and how she would text me every single day at exactly 11:12 – one of our inside jokes, in fact.

But all that had been gone for three years, and I’d been struggling to move on from her. I’d started self-medicating stupidly with alcohol and sex after her denial. She’d left town shortly after, so at least I didn’t have the risk of running into her. I was making stupid decisions and living recklessly, but I hadn’t seen it that way. It wasn’t until my dad sat me down for a heart-to-heart that I saw the light. He saw the path I was heading down, and he called me out on it. I couldn’t think of anything worse than disappointing my parents, so I reigned it in.

Even at twenty-eight years old, I still didn’t want to disappoint them. Maybe it was childish, but I liked to think it was respectful. My sister was the same way, and I figured it was because of the way they’d raised us.

My own dreams of raising kids with those same values had vanished when Rachelle had left me. That random thought entered my mind as we sat at dinner. I took a sip of my ice water, knowing mixing alcohol with Rachelle would only lead me down a path I’d never return from.

I was fully aware getting involved with Rachelle could easily end the same way again, and I could fall back into the hole I’d resided in since she had left. But seeing her sitting across the table from me really made me sentimental for old times. We were different people. We’d both grown. Crossing paths this way had surely been meant to be, and maybe Rachelle had changed her mind. Maybe she saw me in her future now, and perhaps that was why she’d looked me up.

The night before the dinner date where I currently sat, I’d gotten a text at exactly 11:12. I knew who it was from before I opened it, although I hadn’t heard from her even one time since I had dropped her at home after I’d proposed to her at the zoo.

The only way I knew about her life was through conversation with mutual friends. I had heard she left town, but I didn’t ask any more than that. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. She’d shattered my heart, and it took a good six months before I could even look at another woman. It was another six months before I worked up the nerve to talk to one.

And it had been one hell of a good time ever since.

I’d slowed it down a bit after my talk with my dad, but I still knew how to have a good time.

When I’d gotten Rachelle’s text, in fact, I was in Sara’s bed. I’d seen her a few times at the gym, the place I had turned to work off my excess energy since I wasn’t sleeping with a different girl every night and wasn’t drinking like it was going out of style anymore. She had a sweet body, and I’d spotted her on the treadmill a few times when I was lifting. We got to talking, and I somehow ended up at her place and then in her bed. She happened to be cleaning up in her restroom after a fairly raunchy night together when I heard my phone buzz.

In town this week. One biggest wish is seeing you.

It came through right at 11:12. I remembered how our 11:12 joke started. Rachelle wished on the clock whenever the digits showed all of the same numbers. 1:11, 2:22. Her favorite time was 11:11, and for some reason, she particularly liked 11:11 at night.

One night, we’d just finished having sex. It had left me totally and completely worn out.

I had been sprawled across her naked body as she stroked her fingernails lightly across my back. Back and forth, back and forth. She had set a rhythmic pattern that was sexy and sensual, much like everything about her.

“I wish I never had to move from this spot. Ever. For the rest of my life.” Her voice had been a hoarse whisper.

I had glanced up at her, catching the number on the clock on my way. “You should have said that about thirty seconds ago,” I had said.

She had glanced over at the clock and giggled. “Wishes made at 11:12 can come true, too.”

After that, 11:12 became our special time. She called me every night at 11:12 before texting became popular. If we happened to be together, I would kiss her. It was just one of those things between the two of us that made us special as a couple. It was one of those things no one could ever take away from us, but when she had left me, it became a haunting reminder of her rejection.

“You don’t believe me,” she said, pulling me out of my thoughts and back into our dinner conversation.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Rachelle. You didn’t want to marry me before. I don’t want to get into something with you only to see it come to an end again.”

She fidgeted nervously in her seat. “Things are different now. I’m different. I want different things.”

“You want to marry me now?” I asked, laying my heart on the line. “Am I suddenly ‘marriage material’?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice pleading and desperate. “Maybe I’m here for a second opinion. All I know is that not a single day has gone by in the last three years where I haven’t thought of you.”

“So you admit you made a mistake?”

She shrugged. It was the simplest things about her that made her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, and her little shrug reminded me of so much of our history. Confusion plagued her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she wanted; that much I could tell. But the way her lips swelled and her cheeks bloomed with color and her silky hair swayed in her gentle shrug brought back so many memories of our past.

“I don’t know. All I know is what I feel, and I knew I had to see you. And now that I’m sitting here with you, I have to wonder if I made the wrong choice all those years ago.”

“Have you wondered since?”

“Every goddamn day.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t know. I needed to get my head straight. I was focused on building my career. I didn’t know what to do when you wanted marriage, so I freaked. We were too young.”

Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. She stared at the table.

“I immediately doubted my decision,” she said, finally looking up at me. “And that doubt was followed by regret. But I was so scared to call you. I didn’t know how to apologize. I didn’t know if you’d take me back.”

“So you let three goddamn years pass?”

She averted her eyes again. “If only I could do it all over again.”

As much as I wanted to be mad at her for putting me through hell for the past three years, I couldn’t help but think that she was here with me now. Wasn’t that what really mattered?

She was trying to fix her mistake.

“So what’s this about?” I finally asked, taking a bite of my pecan crusted trout.

“It’s about us.”

“There is no ‘us’ anymore, Rachelle.”

“I know you want to believe that, but it isn’t true. There will always be an ‘us.’” She took a sip of her wine.

“The minute I dropped you off at your place after the zoo and you didn’t contact me for three years, ‘us’ ended.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I want you to forgive me and I want to try again.”

I thought about that. Three years ago, that was all I had wanted to hear. Even two years ago. Shit, even six months ago. But I was moving forward. Even though it had been a tough climb and an extremely slow pace, I was moving on. I was getting over her.

But no woman had ever stirred feelings in me like she had.

Shit, I’d been hard since the moment I spotted her in the restaurant. We’d hugged before I sat, and I took a deep breath, recalling every happy moment we’d spent together in our relationship as I breathed in her vanilla scent.

Everything came back so easily. I knew we’d easily fall back into old habits, and that was all I had wanted for the past three years.

I remembered sweet moments in the morning when I held her body against mine in the nine minutes I had after my alarm clock buzzed and I hit the snooze button.

We’d never officially lived together, but I reminisced about all the times I came home and she was already at my house, waiting for me to get there so we could spend our nights together.

But now that it was here in front of me, I wasn’t so sure.

Something that I didn’t understand had obviously plagued her mind while we had been together. Why else would she have denied my proposal? There had to be other issues and complications at work. Otherwise we’d be married right now, celebrating an anniversary perhaps rather than talking about all we’d lost.

“You’re only in town for the week.”

She nodded. “I’m here for a work conference. But we can see what happens this week and then we can look at our options.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” I chugged down some more of my water.

She nodded. “Seeing you has stirred things in me I haven’t felt in years, Grant. If you take me back, I’d love to see where this can go.”

I gazed at her across the table from me.

Of course I’d agree to it. She was the only woman who I’d ever loved, and seeing her sit across the table was like stepping back to a time I would always think of as the best time of my life.

And hearing her tell me she wanted me back, that she’d made a mistake?

It only made me want her more.

It made me want to let go of my ego and the pain I’d felt over the past three years in order to give her a second chance.

Because in the end, what’s life if it isn’t about making up for your mistakes? What’s life if it isn’t about forgiveness and second chances?

“I guess I just need to know where you see this going.” My voice was flat. I was trying to keep my logic about me, but it was damn difficult when my dick was trying to take over my brain.

“I’m starting to see things for us I never wanted to admit to before.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything I stupidly said no to the first time around.”

I gazed at her, trying to gauge her sincerity. Was this just regret? Was it wanting something she’d let go? Was it just reminiscing for a past she’d idealized?

Or was this a sincere effort to try to get me back?

I wasn’t really sure. I finished the trout on my plate, took one more gulp of water, and worked up the courage to say what I needed to say.

Her eyes met mine again. Everything about her had always been intense, from the way she studied to achieve good grades to the way she loved me. But those eyes…

They were extraordinary. And as they gazed into my own eyes, I saw sincerity and love. I saw the things I’d missed for the past three years. I saw the closeness we shared and the love she’d once felt for me.

And my goddamn dick took over for my much weaker brain in that moment.

It wanted to be inside of her. It wanted that warm comfort that had once signified home and love and peace.

“If you’re serious about giving this another try, and if you really mean you fucked up three years ago, then yes. Let’s try this again.”

“I mean it, Grant. I want you back.”

I didn’t respond because the waitress interrupted us by asking if we wanted dessert. I declined, and then she brought the check and I took care of it. Suddenly I found myself in the parking lot standing with Rachelle next to her rental car.

“Do you want to come back to my place?” I asked. She had the driver’s side door opened, and she was standing between the door and her seat.

She nodded.

I gave her directions, and then I got in my own car. She followed me home, to the house I’d purchased just a few months earlier.

When we arrived, I pulled into the garage and she parked in the driveway. I couldn’t help the random thought that I’d love for the two of us to park in my garage side-by-side.

I knew I was getting ahead of myself. We were just seeing where things could possibly go. We were taking things slowly.

But I wanted to skip the slow. I wanted to rush right back to where we were before, back when we were in love and before she’d denied me and traumatized my world.

We walked in together through my laundry room and into my kitchen. She glanced around. “You’ve done well for yourself, Carpenter,” she said softly.

I smiled tightly. I wanted to be more welcoming toward her, but I was skeptical about her intentions. I wasn’t sure why she was here, and my solitary car ride home allowed me the chance to think through what I was doing.