57. Renee

The ride home is peaceful. Weston holds my hand the whole time. My mind is busy imagining what it would be like to be more to him than just the girl he’s sleeping with.

I want to be more. I want that a lot. But I’m not the kind of girl who asks for that kind of thing. Certainly not from a guy like Weston, who has made it clear this is a with-benefits situation and nothing else.

I lean my head back into the seat. “I had a good time tonight. Thank you.” I want to thank him for introducing me to his family, for making me feel so welcome and so at home and trusting me with the people he loves so much, but I don’t quite unload all of that because that’s too much sentiment for a guy like him.

Felix kept me as far away from his family as he could. He said I was “emotionally unavailable.” I can’t say he was wrong. What I can say is that he was the wrong guy for me to be available for.

“Renee, I…” He falls silent.

I look over at him. There’s something in the air. A crackle. A charge. “Yeah?”

He sighs. “Does this still feel casual to you? I’m getting a whole ‘nother vibe and I don’t know if it’s just me or if it’s both of us. Tell me I’m fucking crazy.”

I chew the inside of my cheek practically bloody before I answer. “It doesn’t feel casual. It… It hasn’t really felt casual in a long time.”

“Yeah.” He drums his fingers on the steering wheel again and again, the only outward sign of whatever storm is raging inside of his head.

I hold my breath waiting for the rest of it, waiting for the moment he decides to pack up his toys and sprint away from me.

“I don’t know how it happened or when.” He exhales slowly. “I don’t bring women home to meet my mom and my sister.”

“But you brought me,” I fill in.

“Exactly.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what the fuck…” He pauses and corrects himself. “I haven’t wanted to bring anyone home in a long time. You make me want more.”

He clearly doesn’t know what to say, but I can’t blame him, because neither do I. I don’t want to push, but the warm feelings are running up and down my body, making me want more, too. His fingers thread through mine and I catch him looking at me from the corner of his eyes, again when we’re in the elevator and once more as he walks me to Sutton’s door.

“Thank you for bringing me. Please tell your mom the lasagna was delicious.”

He snorts. “You told her yourself. Eleven times.”

I gasp and giggle at the same time as my skin flushes with heat. “No! I didn’t.”

“Did, too. I counted.” He smirks. “It was cute.”

I hide my face in my hands. “I made a fool of myself?”

“Not even a little bit.” He curls his finger beneath my chin and tilts it up. “It meant more to my mom than you can ever imagine.” He leans in and kisses me gently. “Renee, do you… You wanna come to my place tonight?”

He’s almost tentative, like he thinks I’m going to say no, like I’ve never been there before, like my answer matters to him more than it ever has.

And maybe it does matter more, because this feels different than all the other times. He says it like he’s inviting not just into his apartment, but into his home. Into his heart.

Into a place no one else gets to go.

I bite my lip and nod shyly. “Yeah,” I murmur. “I’d like that a lot.”

He smiles and lays his hand at the small of my back. A warmth spreads through me just from the slight pressure of his fingertips, of anticipation, as if this is our first time.

It’s not, of course. But it might be that this is the first time it really means something.

We walk across the hall together, his hand still low on my back, a slight smile playing at my lips. He opens the door and ushers me in first. I only get a step or two in before he snares me by the waist and presses me up against the foyer wall. I’m expecting a kiss, him pawing at my clothes, all the usual hot-and-heavy stuff—but to my surprise, it doesn’t come right away.

Instead of going straight for the kiss, he strokes my hair back from my face. He searches my gaze with his, smiling slowly, tracing my jawline with a single finger. Every touch is soft, every smile softer.

But the connection is real, like nothing I’ve ever felt. It’s in every gaze. Every caress.

Something new is happening.

He continues toying with my hair, not really looking at me. “Have I ever mentioned Eva to you?”

I would remember if he had. A wave of jealousy surges inside of me. His tone when he says her name—just those two short syllables—drops and it isn’t hard to hear that this Eva, whoever she is, meant something to him.

I keep my tone neutral. “I don’t think so.”

He nods. “I don’t talk about her a lot. When I first got drafted, scored a few goals, was at the top of my game…” He breathes out slowly, still brushing those strands of my hair through his fingers. “I met her. She was everything I thought I wanted. But…”

I swallow down the pang of jealousy. “What happened?”

“I thought she didn’t want my money, but I was wrong. And it all happened so fast. We were engaged after six months. And then… well, we’d only been engaged for a couple weeks when my house was broken into while I was home.”

My heart is in my throat. I can feel a bad twist in the story coming. I stand perfectly still as he strokes my hair again and again.

“I got shot in the leg. Couldn’t move. I’ve never known pain so fucking intense in my life. The thieves took a lot of things. Anything that could be pawned without being traced back to me. Including the watch that belonged to my dad.” His voice is thick with emotion as he rubs at his wrist. “It’s all I had left of him. And they took it.”

I think back to how he held the framed photo at his mom’s house. Even when Weston doesn’t say things out loud, I feel like I can sense them in him. There’s still so much sorrow there.

“But Eva, she… she comforted me. Nursed me back to health herself, helped me through P.T,, all of it. And I got better. I needed that. The whole time, though, all I wanted was my dad’s watch back. So I went to the pawn shops looking for it.”

“You found it?”

He nods. “I went in with a picture of it. It was inscribed on the back and against all odds, the guy remembered it. He told me who had it… and showed me video of it being pawned.”

My heart plummets from my throat down into the pit of my stomach. I know what he’s going to say even before he says it.

“It was her.”

“Oh my God, Weston…”

“Her and her brother. They waltzed in there with the last piece of my dad and sold it for a couple hundred bucks.” His face twists with anger.

I hate her. I hate this woman I’ve never met, because of what she did to this man. This loving, caring man—she forced him behind a wall and taught him the lesson that if he ever came out from there, the world would just hurt him again.

“Weston, I… I don’t know what to say.”

Only then do his eyes meet mine. “You don’t have to say anything, Renee. Just… show me you’re different. I know you are. I want to know you are, at least. Prove me right.”

Nodding with tears in my eyes, I reach up and brush my lips against his. It’s barely a touch, and yet somehow, it’s the most important kiss we’ve ever shared.

He pulls away, then comes back in for another kiss that makes my blood burn. My hands work through his hair as the kisses deepen. His tongue urges my lips apart as he leans into me, sandwiching me between his body and the wall, each thing harder than the next.

Usually, we strip in a hurry. But this is slower, more leisurely. I’m surprised it’s not any less exciting as it is when we can’t wait.

“Renee…” He lifts his head and smiles. “I want you so fucking bad I can’t breathe sometimes.”

“I want you, too,” I whisper back.

He pulls away and holds out his hand. When I take it, he walks me to his bedroom and shuts the door behind him.

I linger at the side of his bed, caught in no-man’s-land. He crosses the distance over to me and lets his hand rest on my hip. Shimmying one shoulder strap of my dress off, then the next, as he presses a thousand fluttering kisses to the slope of my collarbone.

“I’ve looked at you a thousand times and I never get sick of it.” He tap-dances his fingertips across my bare shoulder. “I don’t think I ever will.” He unfastens my bra and slides it down my arms. “I’ve seen you. I’ve always known you were beautiful. But you are so much more than I deserve.”

I clutch at his arms desperately. “I want to be close to you. Weston.”

My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt but he doesn’t make a move to help. Eventually, I get it undone. He lets me smooth my hands over his chest, down his belly, and back up to his shoulders so I can push his shirt away.

How can it be real, that this man feels something for me that matches what I feel for him? That neither of us have ever done anything like this before, but that we found each other to do it with?

I don’t understand. It feels too good to be true. Like any second, reality will come crashing through the bedroom window and cackle in my face for ever being dumb enough to believe that something as pure as Weston Scott could be mine.

But until that happens, I’m going to enjoy this.

He slides the side zipper of my dress down and it falls in a pool around my ankles. When I’m naked, he lowers me to the mattress. He stands there for a moment to watch me splayed out unclothed before him, moonlight drenching my body in ivory glow.

Then, with a frustrated sigh, he crawls up to cover my body with his. For a while, he only kisses me. Softly. Languidly. Like I’m not on fire. Like I don’t want more and more and more.

Our skin rubbing together is perfect friction. He’s rough and hairy and soft and silky in all the right places. I love being dwarfed by him. It’s like I can lower myself into the ocean of Weston and let him consume all of me.

When he pushes inside me and his eyes close, I know exactly how he feels. This connection is about more than our bodies; it’s about emotion and feeling. And it scares the fuck out of me, when he kisses me, when he holds my gaze while he thrusts softly then harder and faster, then slower again and faster again. The entire time, he stares into my eyes and the passion flames between us.

My body splits apart. I cry out, cling to him, accept his kiss, give one back. Dear God, I’ve never felt so connected to another person.

And it scares me to death.

But not enough to stop. Never, ever enough to stop.