Page 87 of Dirty Like Seth
A oneness that I’d feared, in my darkest moments, I might never feel with anyman.
But I already knew this man in a way I’d never known anotherman.
There was just something here, between us, that I couldn’t begin to explain. A bond. A shared pain, maybe. A shared restlessness. A shared need to heal. Something that maybe only Seth and I would understand, but that was real nonetheless. So true and so powerful, tears shook in my eyes as he came… as he held me down, his hands locked with mine, and stiffened, his breath catching. As his body pulsed heat intomine.
He shuddered and groaned. Then he kissed me. I felt his heartbeat in his lips on mine. His chest rose and fell againstme.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, my arms around his back, and held him there. I couldn’t letgo.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I knewthat.
And it definitely wasn’t supposed to be thisgood.
It wasn’t supposed to become something I couldn’t walk away from. Because I had to; I had to walk away from this before it was toolate.
Before I was in so deep I couldn’t get out… and it fucked up everything between me and the rest of myband.
* * *
Istoodon one side of the bed, dressed in my sundress from yesterday. I was watching Seth, on the other side, looking for his shirt. Somehow, it had ended up under the bed. I watched his body as he fished it out. The way he moved, strong, graceful; the way his muscles flexed under his smooth skin as he pulled the shirt on. But already, I felt detached from itall.
Already, I could feel myself drawing away. Growing cold.Distant.
It was the only way I knew how to handlethis.
“I can’t start something with you,” I told him, and he looked at me. He was fully dressed now. “You know that. It was justsex.”
It was more or less the same thing I’d told Ash. But this time, it wasn’t just sex. I wasn’t the world’s biggest fool; I hadn’t just jeopardized everything that mattered to me forsex.
Maybe he knew that, but his shoulders dropped. “If that’s how you want it,” hesaid.
“That’s how I want it.” I was hugging myself, my toes curled tightly into the furry rug under myfeet.
“Can I have your number?” he asked me. “I have Joanie’s. I don’t haveyours.”
“No.”
“You don’t want me to callyou?”
“No.”
Silence. He stared at me, and for a moment I thought he might fight me on this. Then he said, “You sure aboutthat?”
“I’msure.”
He didn’t look like he believed me. He looked hurt, kind of. Angry, maybe. But mostly…resigned.
I watched him take his phone out of his jeans pocket and call a taxi. Then he looked at me again, like he was waiting for me to say somethingelse.
Ididn’t.
“You make the rules, Elle,” he said softly. “I’ll follow them.” He didn’t make any attempt to come around the bed. He didn’t make a move toward me atall.
I justnodded.
“Joanie has my cell number,” he told me, “if you change yourmind.”
Then he left. He walked out of my bedroom and I didn’t follow. I heard him downstairs, walking out the front door. He didn’t exactly slam it, but he didn’t close it softly,either.
