Wild Sexy Hurt (Wild Sexy 3)

No.

There was no explanation for the devastation he’d caused me.

He’d pursued me from the first because he had something to prove. He had demanded my full surrender because me using him for casual sex wasn’t as much of a victory as him getting me to lower all my defenses and offer him more than I’d ever offered anyone else.

That was the only explanation.

For how long?

I heard him again, vividly, as if he was right beside me. I heard the emotion in his voice and remembered the entreaty in his eyes. My heart squeezed in agony, and I closed my eyes.

For how long?

“Go away, Jason,” I muttered under my breath, rejecting the illusion of clairaudience. I wasn’t Jane, connected with my Mr. Rochester across the vastness of betrayal, distance, and hurt. I was just some girl who had been lied to and was now suffering for it.

Listen to him.

I unlocked my phone, and without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I unblocked his number.

It only took a minute for the messages to start pouring in.

The first few were from that morning after Amy had confessed. She’d called Jason even before I left the apartment, and he’d tried to reach me. After I’d blocked his number, he’d kept sending me messages I never received.

Every day after that, he sent messages to tell me he missed me, to tell me how much I meant to him, to ask me to give him a chance, to let me know he hadn’t lied about his feelings for me.

As I listened, my resistance melted away, and I started to cry.

Jason called while I was still listening to the messages, almost as if he’d been waiting for me to unblock his number and had somehow known when I did. I stared at his name on the screen, unsure of what to do. Listening to his voice on my phone, telling me over and over how much he missed me had utterly destroyed me. I didn’t trust myself to speak to him without breaking into pieces.

The phone stopped ringing then started again almost immediately.

I swiped my finger across the screen and lifted it to my ear.

“Daphne.” He only said my name, and a sob built in my throat. I missed him. I missed him so much it hurt physically, all the way to the core of my soul.

“Hi,” I managed shakily. “Hi, Jason.”

I heard him exhale. “I wasn’t sure you would take the call,” he said, the relief in his voice palpable even on the phone.

“I wasn’t sure I would,” I replied.

There was a long pause. “Where are you?”

“On the beach.” I breathed. “Watching the sunset.”

“Tell me where.”

I told him, knowing as I did that he would come, and I wanted him to. I wanted it more than anything.

“I’m on my way,” I heard him say.

My voice was soft, almost inaudible. “You don’t have to come.”

“I do,” Jason replied, no doubt in his voice, only certainty. “I have to.”

After we hung up, I remained outside, watching the sun sink below the horizon. Any other man and I would entertain the possibility that maybe he wouldn’t really come, but Jason…Jason was the kind of man who always followed through.

Back inside the house, I took a shower to wash the sand and sea from my body then dressed in yoga pants and a ribbed vest. I waited, on edge, not sure what to do with myself as my whole being focused on his impending arrival. I paced the house. I tried to read. Finally, I put on a robe, walked out to the beach, and gazed at the water as the balmy breeze blew my clothes and hair about.