Page 36 of Control (Everyday Heroes 3.50)
“Because nothing good ever lasts, that’s why.”
Chapter Fourteen
Reznor
Her words are soft but resolute when she says them, but the defeated look in her eyes betrays the conviction and defiance of her posture.
“I dis…” I disagree, I want to add but know she’ll push back harder the other way to prove her point.
What is it, Desi, that makes you push me away when clearly you want me to stay?
At first I thought it had to do with the prowler—that she was closing herself off from men to protect herself and the vulnerability he’d made her feel—but it’s so much more than that.
“Maybe you haven’t found anything good enough that you’re willing to work to make it last,” I finally say.
Her eyes soften briefly—the door opening to reveal her thoughts—but as she realizes she was about to let me in, she turns her back to me and looks out the window. She stares at the silhouette of the hills beyond. They’re dark against the setting sun’s bright colors lighting up the sky. Pretty, but the woman standing with her hands on her hips and her head held high is much more attractive to me.
Attractive when I wasn’t coming to Sunnyville to complicate my life, but damn it to hell, I like her kind of complication.
“Maybe I don’t look at things that way,” she explains. “Maybe I know I’m not the marrying kind and so why lead someone into thinking I am when in the end, they’re just going to be pissed?”
“Why would they be pissed?” I ask but her back remains to me.
“Because it doesn’t matter if you tell someone there will not be anything else, they still hope for more.”
More. That damn word defines so much and not enough, and fuck if I’m not suddenly curious what more could be with a woman like Desi.
A woman like Desi?
How about, just Desi.
“Okay.” I say the word, draw it out, and try to buy myself some time to figure out what the fuck is going on in my head. The same what the fuck that has me thinking about Desi more than I should when I know it goes well beyond being attracted to the hard to get vibe she gives off.
“I’m selfish with my time. I’m stubborn in my ways—hardheaded—and will fight you on it just to say I can. I love having fun. I love having great sex. But I also love my alone time and space too.”
Music to my fucking ears.
I chuckle. Not because I’m making fun of her—which is what she must think given the expression on her face when she whirls around at the sound of it—but rather because I get
it. I get her.
“You sound like me.”
She stares at me, trying to figure out if she should believe me or not and for a split second, I think she does. But then I see the doubt creep in as her expression changes. “How? What do you mean?”
“I mean I have a job that requires me to be selfish. Every call could be my last. That doesn’t exactly make me the stable, marrying kind either. I have to be able to breach a house and not worry that I could be leaving kids behind. That causes hesitation. That’s a split second that could cost my team or me our lives…” I take a step toward her, hear her breath hitch when I reach out and tuck a loose piece of hair behind her ear. She shakes her head to avoid my touch. She’s flustered. Cheeks are flushed. Pulse is racing in that spot beneath the angle of her jaw.
I want her right now.
“This can’t happen,” she murmurs, her chin lifting a smidge so her eyes can meet mine.
“I didn’t ask for it to.”
My fingers itch to touch her.
“But you were going to,” she says.
My lips want to taste her.
