Tempting Love - Haley & Eddie (13 page)

“Damn, Haley, you are so damn cute,” Eddie rasped in a low sex-on-a-stick tone.

Her eyes flew to his. Had he really just said that? In
that
way? She was beginning to think that he hadn’t said anything at all, that her imagination was just on overtime.

But then he followed it up with, “What am I gonna do with you?”

Yep. He’d definitely said that. She’d seen his lips move with her own eyes. Witnessed the whole thing.

“I have a few ideas,” she said. Haley had no idea where those bold words had come from, but if she could high-five herself right now, she would—or at least give herself a pat on the back—because that was a great comeback.

Eddie’s jaw tensed and his expression grew dark. Okay. Maybe not such a great comeback. But it was the truth. She
did
have some ideas. More than some—hundreds.

Her mouth, which had been on watering overload just a few moments ago, now went bone dry. Since the banter-ball was in his court at the moment, Haley took the opportunity to take a drink of water. As she brought the plastic bottle to her lips, she noticed that her hands were shaking.

Well, at least she’d
sounded
confident a moment ago when it had really counted. That was nothing to sneeze at.

Setting the bottle back down, she forced herself to meet Eddie’s gaze. Wherever this conversation was headed, she didn’t want to miss a moment, a look, a gesture, a word. So she slowly raised her eyes to meet his.

“Don’t,” he said roughly.

“What?” Haley had no idea what he was talking about. Was she not supposed to look at him now?

“Lick your lips and look at me like that.” His gruff tone sent a tremor racing down her spine.

“I licked my lips?” Haley asked, her brow furrowing. If she had, she’d been totally unaware of it.

“Yes,” Eddie confirmed. “It makes me crazy.”

He sounded irritated, but Haley honestly couldn’t tell if he was irritated at himself or her. Either way, “crazy” seemed a little extreme.

To lighten the mood, she jokingly asked, “Crazy like I need to get you fitted for a strait jacket?”

He tilted his head as a puff of air left his mouth. “Maybe.”

“I was kidding,” Haley clarified, even though he knew full well that she hadn’t been serious.

“I’m not.” Eddie raked his fingers through his thick dark hair and leaned back in his chair. Haley studied the strong lines of his profile as he stared out into the darkness.

“What’s going on, Eddie? What’s wrong?” Haley knew that something was not right.

She’d hoped that his recent unusual behavior just meant that he was finally going to make a move. But the expression on his face and the tormented look in his faraway gaze was making her think that she might have been way off the mark on that theory.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated quietly under his breath. Then he turned to her with a tortured look in his eyes that made her heart clench. “What’s wrong is that you make me want to have things that I can’t have. You make me want to do things that I can’t do. You make me want to say things that I can’t say.”

“Who says you can’t?” she asked breathlessly. Because if it were up to her, he could say, want, and do just about anything…especially when it came to her.

She heard the desperation in her own voice and felt her chest rising and falling with short pants of breath, but Haley didn’t try to disguise her reactions, not that it would have done any good anyways. She wasn’t trying to slow her breathing or mask her arousal.

This was the talk she’d been waiting
years
to have and she wanted to get her cards on the table. No hiding. Nothing left unsaid.

“I say I can’t.” He leaned back again, his body language clearly communicating that this conversation was over.

Yeah, not so much. There was no way she was going to let this drop that easily.

“Well, I say you can.” Strength and challenge filled her tone, and once again it surprised her.

She was on fire tonight. Haley had always been the observer. Confrontation made her wildly uncomfortable. Sweeping things under the rug was her normal go-to move. Whatever came of this conversation, Haley was glad that for once she’d stood up for herself.

Sadly, Eddie did not seem as impressed with her boldness. The moonlight lit his tense expression as he was looking out over the grass, his jaw tighter than she’d ever seen it, his hands fisted at his sides.

Obviously, the head-on tactic, no matter how impressed she had been by her efforts, was not getting her very far. So, always one to reassess when thrown a curveball, she decided to use a different tactic and throw his own words back at him.

“You can tell me anything, Eddie. Just like I can tell you anything.”

That got his attention. Unable to sit back idly, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers threaded together. “Not this.”

“Yes, this,” Haley persisted. “Something is bothering you. You should talk about it. If you can’t talk to me, then who can you talk to? Your sister?”

He shook his head definitively. “No.”

“Riley?”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “Hell no.”

She shrugged her arms and smiled at him. “Well, looks like you’re stuck with me.”

“Haley.” He spoke her name in a warning tone that she’d seen men at his jobsite cower under. She wasn’t a man at his jobsite.

“Eddie,” she mimicked him.

The corners of his mouth twitched. “This isn’t funny.”

She shrugged and smiled innocently. “Well, I wouldn’t really know since you won’t tell me what we’re talking about.”

Finally, his lips parted, revealing his perfectly straight white teeth as the corners of his mouth turned up into a genuine full-blown smile. A glimmer of hope sparked in her chest as his eyes softened and he shook his head back and forth slowly.

“You’re a brat.”

“And you’re stubborn,” she shot right back.

* * *

Eddie had so many thoughts racing around in his head it felt like the Indy 500 up there. Things had shifted between himself and Haley. Maybe it had happened a long time ago and he just had been too blind and stupid to notice. Because it felt like their chemistry was a volcano that had been dormant for years but was about to explode. And as much as he would like to
explode
with Haley, he couldn’t.

So now he was left with two choices. Confront what was going on between them and address it. Or ignore it and hold it all inside. Confront. Ignore. Confront. Ignore.

Neither solution would give him what he wanted more than his next breath. Haley. In bed. Naked. So the decision really boiled down to damage control. Which route would lead to the least destruction? One thing was clear. If he didn’t face this thing head-on, he was afraid that it might get out of control. Fast.

Decision made, he turned to face Haley, ready to confront this thing head-on, but instead he was stopped cold by the sight that greeted him. His breath caught in his throat. The moonlight shone off her golden hair, causing a halo effect. There was an ethereal glow surrounding her. She looked like an angel.

“You are so beautiful.” His deep voice was a barely audible whisper.

She sat, silently staring back at him. Her only visible reaction was the widening of her eyes. He saw confusion swimming in the crystal blue pools.

Which made perfect sense. Who wouldn’t be confused by his actions? He sure as hell knew he was confused by them. His mood swings around Haley were even giving him whiplash. It had to stop.

No more flirting. No more easy compliments. No more spending unnecessary time together.

“This”—his hand waved in the empty space between the two of them—“you and me, can’t happen.”

A look of hurt flashed in her eyes, followed by more confusion. Her brow furrowed as she repeated, “You and me?”

Shit
.

He knew he was screwing this up. After years of being short, to the point, sometimes even mean to women when having these ‘relationship talks,’ he had obviously lost his touch. The last thing in the world he wanted was to be an asshole to Haley. To avoid that happening, he needed to remove his head from his ass, and he needed to do it quickly.

“Listen.” He stood and walked to the railing of the deck. He always thought better on his feet. Turning towards her, he leaned back against the wooden plank that lined the rail and faced his back to the yard. “I like you, Haley. A lot more than I should. I think about you
a lot
more than I should. I want you. A lot more…”

Eddie stopped because, for one, this line of explanation was going nowhere fast, and two, Haley’s expression was completely blank. For the first time that he could ever remember, he had no idea what was running through her mind. Doubt rose up inside of him like bile as he began to think that he might have built up this whole ‘thing’ happening between them to be lot more than it really was.

What if she wasn’t interested in him at all? What if all of the times he thought they’d shared a moment, he had just seen a reflection of what he felt for her? What if these feelings he was having were all one-sided and this ‘talk’ he was about to have with her was completely unnecessary?

He needed to get back on track. “Look, I don’t know how you feel about me but—”

“I love you,” she said simply, her expression still unreadable.

What
?! Okay, he had not seen that one coming.

His face must have shown his shock because she calmly added, “I do.”

If he hadn’t been leaning against the railing, he would have fallen down. He really had no idea how to proceed with this conversation. Love?

She loved him? The bile of doubt that had just risen up inside of him felt like it was washed away from the words she spoke, like the dust on his truck on a rainy day. Calm replaced his anxiety. Calm and…peace.

Did that really change anything? Did it make any of the reasons that they couldn’t be together go away? No. In fact, it was just one more reason that they couldn’t have any kind of a relationship. He couldn’t return her feelings or give Haley what she wanted, what she deserved.

“Haley.” He gripped the railing tighter, his fingernails digging into the wood. “I wish things were different. But we can’t do this.”

“Why not?” she asked calmly.

When he’d had these talks with other women, some had yelled, some had cried, and a few even had thrown things, but never once had one sat calmly and asked him why. Of course, in all of those circumstances, he’d slept with the women he’d been engaged in this talk with. But somehow this conversation felt more personal, more intimate.

Her voice steady and smooth, she continued. “You said you want me. You think about me. You like me. What’s the problem?”

Eddie knew that she might not like or understand his reasoning, but she deserved an answer. “It’s not about just you and me. I have to think about Em—”

She flinched at his words and was up on her feet in a flash. “I
love
Emily.”

Eddie quickly jumped in. “I know. And she loves you. If we did this and things didn’t work out, she would be the one who got hurt. Who suffered.”

That wasn’t completely true. He had a feeling that if he ever let himself touch Haley, kiss Haley, make love to Haley, he’d never get enough of it. And if—or should he say
when
—it ended, he would be miserable.

“My relationship with Emily has
nothing
to do with my relationship with you.” Her baby blue eyes desperately searched his as she asked, “Do you honestly think that there would be anything you could do to me that would make me stop wanting to be a part of her life?”

Eddie knew that Haley meant the words that she was saying. But he also knew that, as sincere as she was, things happened. People with the best intentions hurt people they loved. He was proof of that. He’d wanted the best for Lacey. For Emily. A lot of good that had done. Lacey was God knows where doing God knows what. And Em was growing up motherless.

Taking a deep breath, he raked his hands through his hair, trying to stay calm. “Like I said, I wish things were different.”

So many different emotions were playing on Haley’s beautiful face. Confusion. Hurt. Anger. Where he couldn’t read a single thought or feeling just a few moments ago, now his gut clenched at the real, raw emotion he saw there.

“So if nothing can happen between us, why bring it up? Why say anything about it at all?” Her hands flew up animatedly and her voice rose as she spoke.

“You asked,” he barked. He hadn’t meant to. She didn’t deserve it, but he was tired of always being the bad guy. If she hadn’t pushed to find out what was bothering him, he might not have said anything. Or maybe he would have. He had no idea.

“Oh,” she said quietly, brushing a strand of her silky golden hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear and nodding. “Right. I did.”

Eddie waited for more. Waited for her to yell again. Waited for her to tell him why that didn’t matter and she was still right and he was still wrong.

That never happened.

Instead, she took two steps forward, stopping directly in front of him, closing the distance between them.