What He Really Feels (He Feels Trilogy) (7 page)

After we both came hard into each other, we stayed in bed for a few minutes, neither of us wanting to end our time together. I had to get to the U-Haul place; my pickup time was 11:00, but I didn’t want her to leave.

That was a definite first.

I’d never spent the night with a woman that I picked up at a bar.

I know that seems odd given my colorful history, but any time I had taken a woman home, I made sure she left before morning. I drove her home or I invented an excuse or I packed her up in a cab. And if I had gone to her place, I did the same.

The phrase “one night stand” had the word “night” in it for a purpose.

Most of the time, I didn’t want to see the woman the next morning. It may have been a douche bag thing for me to admit, but usually the women didn’t look as good to me in the light of day.

But something about this woman had me holding on.

And she looked even more gorgeous in the light of day than she had the night before in my drunken fog.

“Shower with me,” I said, my voice low and gruff, and she nodded. I carried her to the bathroom much like we’d fucked the first time, her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms curled around my body, my hands firm under her beautiful ass, and we took a steamy shower where she lathered soap all over my body and I did the same to her. I massaged shampoo into her scalp, and she whimpered like she did right before she came. I was fucking hard again for her, not quite sure how that was happening, but she was different than any girl I’d ever been with. I was obsessed with the way she made me feel. I was obsessed with
her warmth wrapped around me as I was inside of her. I was obsessed with the little moans that escaped her, with the way she held me against her, with her exotic eyes and her enticing body and pretty much everything about her.

And clearly the feeling was mutual, because before I knew it, she was down on her knees in the shower getting me off with her mouth for the second time in less than twelve hours.

Did I mention that this woman was perfect?

I took care of her, making sure our orgasms were evenly matched where in the past I hadn’t really cared if I was evenly matched with a woman I had met at a bar. And then we washed again and stepped out of the shower. I wrapped her up in a fluffy towel, and she found my bathrobe, cuddling into it as she wrapped a towel around her hair. I shaved, brushed my teeth, and threw some gel into my hair, and when I emerged from the bathroom, I found her on my bed. I pulled on a pair of shorts and checked the clock. I needed to get a move on to make it to the U-Haul place by 11:00.

“You know how I told you I’m moving?” I started the conversation, realizing that I knew nothing about this woman. We really hadn’t spent much time talking.

She nodded.

“I have to pick up the moving truck by 11:00. Stay here, and I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“I need to get going.”

I can’t explain the depth of my disappointment hearing those words out of her mouth.

“No, you don’t,” I said, walking over to the bed and covering her body with mine.

She smiled, and I was lost in the depths of those eyes. “Yeah, I do. I’m actually in town visiting a friend, and she’s got to be wondering where I am.”

I nuzzled her neck and bit softly. She moaned. “So text your friend and let her know you’ll be back later this afternoon.”

“No can do, Tiger.”

“Tiger?”
I leaned back to study her, my body still poised over hers.

“Yeah.
Seems fitting. You’re ferocious and wild and at the same time playful and adorable.”

My heart skipped a beat in my chest at her words. “I could say the same about you, Gorgeous.”

Her eyes lit up at my compliment.

Good God, how the hell was I ever going to let her go?

She leaned into me for a kiss and then she pressed her hands against my chest. “If we start this again, I’ll never get out of here. And you’ll be late picking up your truck.”

“Fuck the truck,” I said, leaning into her for another one of her kisses.

She laughed beneath me.

“We both need to go.” Her voice was firm, but I could sense her hesitation. She didn’t want to leave as much as I didn’t want her to go.

“Can I see you again tonight?” I murmured against her lips.

She froze beneath me. “I… um, I…” I kept kissing her neck while she tried unsuccessfully to form a coherent thought. Her hands met my chest again. She was trying to be strong, but she was having a hard time.
A real hard time.

“I don’t know if that would be a good idea. You’re moving, you’ve got stuff going on, and I told you last night, I’m not looking to start anything.”

I pulled back, disappointed with her answer. I sat on the edge of the bed, and she sat up and laced arms around my waist from behind.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft as she cuddled her face into my back. She kissed the
spot between my shoulder blades as she held me.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“But I am. I really like you.”

“I really like you, too.”

“This has been… amazing. Really. Outrageous. Cathartic in some ways.”

It was like everything she said echoed my thoughts. “I agree. Spectacular.”

“I’ll get dressed so you can go get your truck.”

“Stay. Please.”

“I can’t. But thanks for the offer.”

I just looked at her blankly. I didn’t want her to go, but I didn’t know what to do to get her to stay.

She stood up and started putting on her clothes from the night before. “I feel stupid asking this, but where are we?”

“Tempe.” I gave her the cross streets and she typed it into her phone, presumably into a text to her friend.

“Is there a Starbucks around here?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I’ll just hang there until my friend can pick me up.” She put on her shirt, and I was sad to see her fully clothed after the hours of naked we had spent together.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I will take you wherever you need to go.”

“You’ve got packing to do. I'm not here to interrupt your life.”

“It’s not an interruption. I want to spend more time with you.”

She glanced at me with sadness in her beautiful brown eyes. “I do, too. And that’s why I have to go.” She looked more than sad. She looked miserable.

And I felt it hit me.

The hours I had spent with her had been cathartic for me, too. The pain and sadness that Jules had caused were being replaced by the pain and sadness of having to part from this woman. And at that moment, the pain from leaving this woman behind felt so much stronger than leaving Jules behind.

I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to move on from her.

I don’t know how it happened, but she had clawed her way into my soul in the twelve hours I’d known her.

She walked to my door, and like a stupid puppy dog, I followed her.

“Thank you, Tiger. You’ve done more for me than you’ll ever know.” She leaned into me for a hug, and I wrapped myself around her, crushing her body to mine. I loved how she stood a foot shorter than me. Her petite frame fit perfectly against me, and all I could think about in that moment was what it had felt like to fuck her.

The most perfect feeling I’d ever experienced.

She tensed up in my arms, and when she tilted her head back, she gazed into my eyes.

“Tell me your name,” I begged.

“I like that you call me ‘Gorgeous.’”

“And I like that you call me ‘Tiger.’ But I want to know who you are.”

“Names mean strings, Tiger. Attachment.”

“Then maybe we’ve got strings.”

She opened her mouth to say something, and my lips automatically crashed down to hers. Her body remained tense at first, but then she melted into me, and I knew that this was our way of saying goodbye.

The most perfect kiss of either of our lives ended, and she looked up at me one last time. Those eyes would be burned into my memory for the rest of my life. I saw tears fill them, and before she had a chance to let them spill over, she kissed my cheek one last time and then turned, opened my door, and walked out of my life.

I stood in my entryway for a moment, gathering my wits about me as I stared at the closed door that she had disappeared through.

I wanted to run after her.

I wanted to stop her.

I wanted to tell her that I believed in love at first sight, as ridiculously cliché and foolish and absolutely stupid as that sounded.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. She had made it clear that she didn’t want that with her words, even though I didn’t believe that she had any conviction at all behind those words.

I most certainly couldn’t set myself up for
another heartbreak, and I couldn’t afford to hang around in self-pity. So I pushed it to the back of my mind, burying it and bottling it even though all I wanted to do was curl up in my bed and smell the citrus scent that she had left behind.

CHAPTER 4

A little over an hour later, I was back at my apartment. Mike and Bill had
met me at the U-Haul pickup location, and then we headed back to my apartment to load the truck. I was grateful for their help. We planned on packing from noon until 3:30, and then I had to head over to my parents’ place for dinner. Then I’d meet up again with my buddies for the last night we’d have together as three amigos out on the town, and I knew I’d miss my friends.

But not as much as I already missed the mystery woman.

I was glad for the distraction of picking up the truck. I’d been pathetic for long enough, wallowing over Jules and her betrayal for the past week and a half. My sister was right. It was time to man the fuck up, and the woman from the night before was the ticket to that. She made me realize that there was so much more out there than Julianne Becker.

And in that moment, I knew what I really felt. Julianne had been such a fixture in my life for so long that I had turned her into a woman on a pedestal. Whether she deserved to be up there or not remained to be seen, but my night with Gorgeous had me believing that there was something more out there for me. Don’t get me wrong; I was still hurt over how Julianne had handled things between us, and I still was far from being over her and what she had put me through. But I saw an opening in the darkness. If it was the light from an oncoming train, so be it; but I had to believe that it was the hope I needed that I could end up happy.

“So how was your night with that sexy little thing you brought home?” Bill asked as I stacked boxes on a handcart that he’d be taking down to the truck. Mike was in my guest bedroom taking my shelves down off the wall.

I glanced up at him and raised my eyebrows.

“That good?” he teased.

“Jesus Christ. I’m pretty sure she’s the most perfect woman who ever existed.”

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Damn.”

“And I don’t even know her fucking name.”

He whistled. “Seriously?”

“It’s fucking crazy, but I can’t get her out of my head.”

“You seem different this morning. Maybe better than you’ve been.” I knew what he was getting at; he didn’t have to say that I’d been a giant pussy since the stuff with Jules went down because I already knew. He continued, “I assumed it was because of the move, but you think it’s because of her?”

I nodded. “She made me see that maybe Julianne isn’t the end of the line for me.”

“Good for you, dude.”

“Yeah.
Good,” I muttered sarcastically.

“What’s with the cynicism?”

“I didn’t get her name or her number. All I know about her is she’s the most fucking fantastic girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. Or that I’ve ever laid. Period.”

“So track her down.”

“Did you forget that I’m moving to San Diego tomorrow?”

“So what?
If you want her, find her.”

“She didn’t want strings.”

He shot me a confused look.

“No strings attached,” I clarified.

“Ah. Sounds like the victim of a broken heart.”

“Maybe that’s why we were so well-suited to one another last night.”

“Could be.”

“Did you happen to get her friend’s number?”

Bill shook his head as I placed the last box on top of the handcart so he could take it down. “No. We danced for a bit and then parted ways.”

“Dammit.”

“Let’s hit Mahogany tonight. Maybe you’ll run into her again.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and then I went into the guest room to help Mike with the shelves while Bill headed down to the truck.

I would be sleeping on the floor that night because everything else was packed tightly on the truck. My couch, my bed, my dresser. Boxes, furniture, artwork, clothes. DVDs, video games, books. It was all on the truck, everything except my swim trunks, flip flops, clothes for that night and the next day, my toiletries, and the cheese, beer, and Dr. Pepper that was left in my fridge.