Distance. She needed distance away from me. Better she know that now than getting her hopes up that this relationship would be anything more than physical.
It was survival.
Necessity.
It would never be love.
Hope
WITH EVERY STEP I took away from Alex, a tingling sensation burned down my arms, like a low-level shock to my skin. I clenched my fingers tightly and kept walking until I reached his bedroom door.
When I placed a hand on the doorknob, another jolt had me resting my head against the sturdy wood before I was finally able to turn the knob and pull the door open.
Why was I so weak?
And why did it feel like I was getting weaker?
That was why he hated me.
I represented nothing but weakness to him.
But how was that my fault?
How was any of this my fault?
The burn transformed into a slow pulsating hum as I glanced one last time over my shoulder to see Alex pull out an old-fashioned kitchen timer and turn it a few times.
“Cooking a ham?” I tried joking. It was either that or actually face the fact that I’d been completely screwed in more ways than one by one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever laid eyes on.
I’d been a loner all my life.
And yet in that moment, I’d never felt it in such a suffocating way. Maybe it was the warmth he gave off, for one split second I felt beautiful, flawless, important.
Wanted.
I gulped back tears and straightened my spine.
I might be physically weak.
But showing him my emotional weakness was out of the question.
That was mine.
And I wasn’t going to give i
t to him — even if my heart felt shaky with every breath I took.
“Sex clock.” Alex winked. I hated his wink. It made my legs turn to jelly and my body burn with desire. It would be easy to hate him if his smile wasn’t so perfect. If his scent didn’t roll off of him in waves, tempting me, teasing me with every inhale.
He would be easy to hate if he was anything but a siren.
“Sex clock,” I repeated dumbly as my body roared to life.
“I like to be punctual in all things.” He crossed his toned arms over his bronzed chest. He almost looked normal. If normal meant he had diamonds for eyes and hair with shots of shimmering rainbow colors that changed with each movement — each breath. And his lips, full, tempting, made for sin, like they had a mind of their own. How could something so normal, albeit hot, make him stand out as something far more than human? Even now my body betrayed me, but what was worse, he felt — like home. Right. Like all my life I’d been missing a piece and finally found it, only to get told I was wrong. “When the clock strikes….” His grin grew as he moved his fingers in a little come hither motion. “You come… running.” He paused. “Amongst other things.”
My body was completely in agreement with that plan.
My heart hated my body.