In the shot she was looking up at me while my face was turned, with a very telling look on her face. I’d missed it that day but it was hard to miss now. I looked toward the closed door with my gut in knots and my mind on autopilot. But Zeta’s screeching brought me back to the here and now.
“Zeta cut the bullshit. You and I both know we don’t have that kind of relationship, you don’t get to question me and neither does anyone else. We could end this on a good note or you can stay on this shit.”
I kept my voice down low and tried to rein it in. I didn’t want Tara to hear me and neither did I want this to deteriorate into something ugly. I was more pissed off at her shot that Tara wouldn’t want me than anything else, and it bothered me that I would even care.
I’ve seen the men who swarm around her like bees. All Hollywood types or businessmen with enough money to buy half the known world. I was nowhere near that league, not yet anyway. But she wasn’t looking at any of them like she wanted to climb under their skin and live.
I ran my thumb over her face through the screen. Now instead of that look of sadness that has been plaguing me for days, I had this to take its place. I wasn’t sure which was worst. But I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to ignore both.
In that moment I knew that I’d just been kidding myself that I could walk away. I realized that subconsciously I’d already made the leap, even though I refused to accept it. But the clues were all there.
It’s why in the last few days I’d grown more possessive of her time. Not letting anyone get too close. Killing any ideas she had about going out to meet friends. I see now that I’d been laying the groundwork for when I finally made my move; when I finally staked my claim.
I’d convinced her and myself that it was for her safety, until we figured out where the danger came from, but now I have to face the truth. Seeing the evidence with my own eyes, the way she was looking at me, explained why she hadn’t complained, not once. But just accepted my word for it.
Now I’m thinking that maybe there was more to her capitulation. I’d become such a sap in the last few days, that even though she spent most of her time locked away in her room while we were alone here, I preferred that to sharing her with her millions of fans and the people who always seemed to show up wherever she went.
She never gave anything away, same as I. She’d kept that shit well hidden. But now some asshole with a camera had put it out there for all the world to see. I couldn’t look away. It was as if I were trying to see into her head by staring at that shot.
What did it mean? Her expression was raw, open. And when I went back to mine I saw that same open need written on my face. I felt the first blip of hope and my mind ran away with maybes and what-ifs, before I caught myself.
Dammit Hunter, what the fuck! You’re too old for this middle school bullshit. I went through all the reasons it wouldn’t work in my head, but the thought that I could have her wouldn’t let up.
It had been a long fucking time since I’d let myself feel. I wasn’t afraid of it, of the emotion that I’d been keeping at bay ever since I allowed myself to really look at her. But not being afraid did not necessarily mean that I wanted to jump into the pool.
Still I kept going back to that shot of her. The look on her face said that maybe I wasn’t the only one questioning what could be. That maybe there was more interest on her part than she let on when we were together.
I looked towards the door again, wondering what she was doing this very minute before looking away, my attention drawn time and again to that picture, that said so much.
I’m no expert but I know lust when I see it. And therein laid the problem. What I saw written so plainly on her face was a hell of a lot more than lust. If that was all there was, it would be an easy write-off.
I could fuck her, get her out of my system and move the fuck on once the job was done. But there was something else in that look. Something that made my dick hard and my heart soft. Fuck!
5
I stared at that shot while Zeta finally got around to being honest enough to tell me what she’d been after all along. A noose around my neck, and a diamond on her finger! I was only half cognizant when I told her it wasn’t going to happen and hung up. All my attention was focused on Tara’s face in that picture.