New Wounds, Old Knives

I was starting to hate these walls.

They were confining. They weren't even mine. They were white, plain old white, the occasional painting or photo to break up the boring.

I'd thought about moving a million times, especially after Logan left. I had the money. I was an adult. I wanted a home of my own. Some place where I could knock down the walls if I felt like it, or paint them a different color. Some place I'd have to fix the water heater myself rather than call the landlord. I wanted the permanence. 

He hadn't. 

I threw my book on the coffee table. I couldn't focus anyway. It had been that way a lot, lately. Unable to focus. The last time that had happened, I'd gone on vacation to Grand Cayman. I'd spent quite a bit of time on the balcony of my room, staring at the ocean and feeling sorry for myself.

Maybe it was time for another vacation.

Or maybe it was time to stop putting off my plans in hopes I'd find someone to share them with. No more excuses. I'd wanted this then, and two years later, I still wanted it. 

Getting up, I headed to my office to boot up my laptop. At least looking at houses might be fun.

#

Stupid electronic leash. I should have left the thing in my purse.

I glared at the phone rattling its way across the desktop. It was Derek. Again. Three dates, and he wanted date number four. As if date number four was the magic date that opened the door to my pants. Dates one and two had been okay. He'd been funny, mostly polite, and while he'd tried to push for a much wetter good-night kiss than I'd been willing to give, he'd backed off when I'd said no. Date number three...the less said about it, the better.

I pulled out my purse and tossed the phone in, snapping it closed for good measure. "Fuck off," I muttered. Note to self: cancel Match.com membership. I'd had better luck with OKCupid. The men on that site were genuinely nice, friendly, and knew that no actually meant no. And nice and friendly went a long way when you were compensating for lack of actual chemistry.

"Jane?"

I hadn't heard that voice in a while.

Zach stood at the entrance to my cubicle, brows drawn together, mouth pulled down in a frown. "Hi?" I tucked a wayward curl behind my ear. "Um, what's up?" He hadn't said more than ten words to me in almost two years. Considering we worked in the same department, it shouldn't have been easy to do. Yet he'd succeeded.

His frown eased. "Overheard you. Client problems?"

I snorted. "More like dating problems." My teeth clacked together as my mouth snapped shut. I waved a hand dismissively, cheeks heating. "Never mind. Nothing important." My phone buzzed from the depths of my purse, vibrating off something metal. I should have shut the damn thing off. I smiled weakly. "Hungry? I need lunch."

His face blanked. Seriously? It had been two years since the last time we'd had an actual conversation. The man could not still be holding out for me. I wasn't worth it. Not to a guy who looked like he did. And we'd broken up almost ten years ago. I unsnapped my purse, found my wallet, and edged past him, out into the corridor, shaking my head. "Forget it."

If I thought the intervening years had made us mature enough to move past the mistakes and try to be friends, Zach obviously didn't agree. Not worth worrying about, not worth pursuing. We'd just keep going as we were, and he could continue executing whatever stealth moves he was making to avoid me. I hurried to the elevator and punched the button, willing the thing to open. 

He caught up to me as the doors were sliding open. "Any place in particular?"

I slid him a glance, wary. "I was thinking Thai."

The ride down was awkward, making me rethink my impromptu invitation. I knew not all exes could be friends, and from the intensity of our prior relationship, I'd put us firmly in that category. But a couple years ago, for a few short weeks, I'd thought maybe, just maybe, we could. I'd expended a hell of a lot of effort trying to forget that. I couldn't. Having someone who knew me as well as he had was something I'd been missing for a while, and because life sucked that way, I didn't realize it until it was taken away.

We stepped out into the lobby, and stopped just outside the door. Rain dripped off the awning on the front of the building. But there weren't puddles large and deep enough for ducks to swim in dotting the sidewalks. The restaurant was just down the block. We could make it.

I shot him a grin. "Last one in the restaurant buys lunch." And I took off down the block as fast as my three inch heels could carry me.

Three inch heels being what they are, Zach beat me. The rain had darkened his hair to almost black, his blue eyes bright with humor. It snuck in, unexpected and unwanted, just how attractive he was.

How attracted I still was to him.

I slammed the door on that train of thought. Attraction meant nothing, not when it came to him. He'd fucked up pretty badly a few times in the four years we'd worked together, and while I'd finally managed to forgive him for the worst of it, I wasn't keen on repeating the experience.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Don't order everything on the menu."

"Just half?" he said wryly. I tried to jab my elbow into his side and he danced away, grinning again. Attraction aside, it was nice to see him smiling. He didn't do much of it anymore. Lindsay commented on it regularly, when she wasn't whining about why he hadn't asked her out yet.

We were shown to a table near the back. "So when are you going to give poor Linds a break and ask her out? Four years, hon. She's been waiting four years."

Zach snorted. "Ah, no, she hasn't been. She asked me out a while ago. I said no. She didn't take it very well. Annnnd that's why I don't date coworkers." He took one of the menus from me and studied it.

No dating coworkers? That was a relief. It meant he'd accepted the line I'd drawn between us. "Can I ask you something?" He lowered his menu, one eyebrow quirked. "You own a house, right?"

His mouth twisted in a sour smile. "Define 'own'. Amy got the house in the divorce."

There was a story there, in that grim smile and hard eyes. I wanted to hear it; I wanted to hear about the woman Zach had cared about enough to marry and have a child with. I swallowed the barrage of questions and picked up my original thought. "I'm ready to buy a house. I just have no idea what I'm doing. I don't even know what questions to ask."

"Are you ready to order?" Our server stood next to the table, pen poised over his order pad. Zach flashed another grin at me and proceeded to order two appetizers, soup, and an entree.

Jerk.

The server left with our orders, and Zach reached for his water. "Buying a house, huh?"

I shrugged. "It's time."

He studied me for a moment, water glass in hand. "It's not hard. Frustrating, but not hard. You just pony up your down payment and closing costs and find a realtor." He set the glass down. "I can give you the name of the realtor we used. Where are you thinking of buying?"

The conversation moved from real estate to coworkers to his son, and the next thing I knew, an hour had passed, I was stuffed, and I'd enjoyed myself. A lot. A flicker of hope sparked. I wanted to shield it, give myself - and Zach - another chance to see if we could give this friendship thing a try.

Or maybe I was just more lonely than I wanted to admit.

It was raining harder as we walked out of the restaurant, takeout bags in hand. I stumbled over a crack as we hurried up the street, careening into him. He caught me around the waist, head down and gaze intent on my feet. "You okay?"

My ankle was throbbing from being twisted. I lied anyway, to get his hands off me. "Fine." I took a step away, and he dropped his arm. I tried not to limp as we covered the remaining distance to the office.

The elevator was packed with people returning from lunch, and we squished in, his hand brushing over my hip again as I shifted my weight off my injured ankle. "Sorry," he murmured, the sound entirely too close to my ear. But when we elbowed our way out of the car, he gave me a crooked smile and headed to his cubicle without a word.

I pried off my heels and walked to the break room to deposit my food in the fridge. Lindsay was at the coffee pot. She frowned at my feet. "You okay? You're limping."

"Twisted my ankle coming back from lunch." I stowed the leftovers in the fridge.

She leaned against the counter. "How did you manage to get Zach to go out with you?"

How had she seen us in the first place? The office was mostly deserted this week, and there'd been no one around when we'd left. I lifted a brow. "It was lunch. Between coworkers." And friends, I hoped.

"Right. So that has nothing to do with him being drool-worthy hot?"

In your mind, sure. "Nope. Coworkers. And he doesn't date people he works with." The linoleum was cold under my feet, and I wanted to get back to my desk and the slippers I'd hidden under it. "Sorry. I need to go sit down. Ankle's still throbbing." I limped out of the break room.

There was a can of Pepsi and a small bag of ice with a towel sitting on my desk when I entered my cubicle, and I sighed. It was kind of scary, that he knew exactly what I needed right now. And sad, that he had to sneak around to give it to me. It hit that line between friend and more, but I couldn't find it in me to push aside the offering. I cracked open the can, propped my foot up on the CPU of my computer, and settled the bag of ice on my ankle.

I didn't see him for the rest of the day. Or the day after that. The second day after our lunch, we ran into each other in the break room. He said a quick hello and strode out as Drea walked in.

She glanced over her shoulder. "Still doesn't want to be in the same room as you, huh?" There was a loud screech as she pulled out a chair. She flopped into it and looked at me expectantly.

I slumped into one across from her. "I'm not even gonna go there. You know, we went to lunch the other day and I thought maybe we'd made some progress-"

"Wait. You had lunch. The two of you. Alone." Her brown eyes gleamed as she leaned forward. 

"And it was lunch between two coworkers." I glared at her. "Anyway, lunch went well, and then nothing. So...whatever. It's a two-way street, and I made the first move. He doesn't want to reciprocate, fine." I shoved a hand through my hair. "Derek called again. I swear, that's it for Match. No more. Total waste of money."

She sat up. "Are you really serious about getting back into the dating pool?"

Serious? Serious how? When Logan moved to Munich, I'd given up. I'd thought I'd gotten extremely lucky, that I'd managed to meet two men who I'd wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Both times I'd gotten my heart ripped out. I wasn't going to let it happen a third time. "Yes," I said, wary. I was serious about dating. Dating was fine. Dating wasn't heartache disguised as commitment.

"I have this friend-"

I held up a hand. "No. We're not going there."

"Why not?" she protested. "It's not like it's any different from you going onto OKCupid or whatever the hell you're doing now."

"Actually, it is," I countered. "Say I agree to go out with this friend of yours. We might hit it off, we might not. We don't, that makes things awkward for you and me, and for you and him. Or we do hit it off, but then it ends, and we're in the same situation. Awkward Central."

She blew out a breath and folded her arms across her chest. "He's a good guy. Smart, funny, hot. Very hot."

"Sounds perfect." My tone was dry as toast. "Sounds like a shit-ton of other guys. If he's so perfect, why aren't you with him?"

She wrinkled her nose, mouth twisting in a frown. "He doesn't see me that way. And it's fine." Somehow I didn't think it was fine. "Are you sure?"

I nodded. "Nice thought, but I'll take my chances with the internet." The sort of safe, sort of anonymous internet.

#

Nope.

I clicked on to the next profile.

Nope.

More clicking.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

A message icon flashed, and I clicked on it. A personal message from RoadrunnerMeepMeep. I liked the name. Showed personality, even if it wasn't the smoothest or sexiest handle out there.

Hey.

Wow. Creative. I hovered over the X to close the conversation.

Wait. I bet you're about to delete this, aren't you?

Perceptive, was RoadrunnerMeepMeep.

I swear I'm interesting. Go on. Check out my profile.

I could. Or you could just tell me about yourself, I typed back.

The cursor blinked for a long minute, the little light green, showing he was still there. Just thinking.

I like cartoons. You could probably tell. The old school ones, Looney Toons, Tom and Jerry, shit like that. I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I grew up. I drink entirely too much coffee when I'm not drinking whiskey. Fuck. That makes me sound like I drink. I don't. I do, but I don't.

I giggled. I actually giggled. 

That's okay, I typed. I drink, too, but I don't. Mostly wine. Never really did enjoy hard liquor. Give me a bottle of syrah, or better yet, a bottle of bonarda, and I''ll be happy as a clam. I thumbed the touchpad on my laptop mouse, wondering what else to say. I wanted a pet unicorn when I was a kid. Sometimes I still do.

A pet unicorn? That'd be cool. Except for the horn part. Wouldn't want to get impaled. So I'd rather have a horse. Maybe one with wings. What are those called?

"Pegasus," I murmured, typing the word in. I wanted to check out this guy's profile, but I didn't want to leave to conversation yet. What's the last book you read? Considering how much of my free time I spent reading, if he wasn't a reader, that could be a problem.

Of course, Logan hadn't been one, and we'd gotten on just fine.

Guns, Germs, and Steel. I read a lot of nonfiction. Not big on fiction.

Zach had been the same way. I wondered if his tastes had changed. I just finished re-reading The Godfather.

Saw the movie. Never read the book. Worth it?

Worth it? Definitely worth it. So much pulpy goodness. I reached for my wineglass and swallowed the dregs, grimacing at the bitter aftertaste. Book is better. Book is almost always better. Favorite food?

Macaroni and cheese. None of that boxed crap. Last vacation you took?

I swallowed hard, remembering my time on Grand Cayman. I needed to take a trip sometime when I wasn't in emotional pain or turmoil. The Caymans. Spent a lot of time sleeping.

Why go all that way just to sleep?

Why, indeed. Couldn't turn my brain off if I stayed home.

Ah. Got it. Some people are like that. 

The playfulness of the moment had passed, and I wanted to retreat. This was probably a mistake. The whole dating thing. I was fine alone. I'd spent the last two years making sure I was fine alone. I was good. Content. I didn't need to upset the delicate balance I'd achieved. Gotta go. Nice talking to you. I closed the conversation box and signed out before he could respond.

I spent an hour looking through the listings my realtor had emailed, discarding almost every single one. I had the money. It just seemed like everything in my price range needed work, or was in a crappy neighborhood, or was just wrong in some way or another. I debated doing a drive by of the few I had left, glanced at my empty wineglass, and headed to the kitchen to pour myself another glass.

I paid for it the next morning. With a headache the size of Texas and some of the worst nausea I'd ever had, I sat at my desk, staring at the monitor and hoping it would automatically know what I needed. Why hadn't someone invented the mind-reading computer yet?

"You okay?"

Not a voice I wanted to hear right now. "Not really," I muttered. My stomach lurched as I eased my chair around. "What?"

Zach lifted a brow. "I know that look."

Of course he did.

"Thought we were past the age where getting drunk was the highlight of the evening." He leaned on the entrance to the cubicle, hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, well, it's still a great cure-all for what ails you. Go away. Come back when I don't want to bite your head off." He gave me a half smile, straightened, and walked away. I rolled my chair over to the cubicle entrance. "And I mean it! No Pepsi!"

He brought me a Pepsi. Then he left again. And dammit, it made me feel better. More awake, a little less anxious.

My concentration was shot for the day. I did the bare minimum to make it look like I was working. Either I did a great job pretending, or the rest of the department had wised up to my shitty mood. No one bothered me all day.

I came home to a message from RoadrunnerMeepMeep, and I wanted to cry, or scream, or throw something. Something had gone wrong, broken down, bent under pressure, between lunch with Zach and the chat with Roadrunner, and where I'd been fine before, being alone, I wasn't so fine anymore.

The little arrow hovered over the delete button. Better to delete without reading. Better not to stoke my curiosity. I'd tried. I wasn't ready for this. I'd take some more time. Buy my house, get it in order. Maybe cultivate a new hobby or two.

I clicked on the message.

Hope I didn't scare you off last night. Really hope it wasn't something I said.

It wasn't his fault. I closed the message instead of deleting it. Maybe I'd respond. After dinner. Or tomorrow. Tomorrow was just as good as today.

Since my hangover mostly gone, I changed into running clothes and headed out. I hated running. Hated it with a passion. Hated how if I didn't buy the right sports bra, my boobs bounced all over the place, making it painful. Really hated how much harder it was to run on the street than it was on a treadmill. Running outside had two advantages, though: it was less distracting than the gym, allowing me to think, and it made me go outside, something I didn't do unless provoked.

And, well, if it kept my body in better shape than it had been, ever, that wasn't such a bad thing, either.

I avoided the river, which would be crowded with other runners and walkers and people in general, and turned my brain loose, letting it drift wherever it wanted. By the time I walked into my apartment, tired and sweaty, I had plans for a shower, a salad, and bed.

Then my gaze landed on my laptop.

Shower first. Shower, then I'd respond. I hurried to my bedroom and stripped, ducking in and out of the shower in record time. My heart raced as I clicked open the message, anxiety and excitement battling it out for dominance.

You didn't. Just..I realized the last two vacations I'd taken were less than awesome. Not taken for the right reasons. 

I studied the words, debating adding more. If there was one thing I'd learned in all my years of dating, though, it was oversharing too early was a death knell. At any time, really, but especially in the beginning. Whoever he was, Roadrunner didn't need to hear about all the drama and angst. If I had my way, I'd never discuss it again. I hit send, shut the laptop, and sat back. I was not going to go on the site tonight. 

I got up, went into the kitchen, and made the salad I'd promised myself.

And made a beeline for my laptop once it was finished.

A million and one reasons not to log on ran through my head as I forked up spinach. The excitement bubbling in my chest was warning enough, that giddy anticipation that appeared whenever I met someone new. I detoured to my email first, allowing myself time to stop. No reply from Roadrunner had been forwarded from the site. Maybe he wouldn't be on. I'd probably be better off perusing other profiles. Try to meet someone who didn't have me all school-girl giggly before I'd even seen his picture.

Picture. I hadn't looked at his profile. Making a decision based on the minimal information I had could be detrimental. After all, he could be a very nice person, someone I'd enjoy spending time with on occasion. Or he could be a sociopath and I should stay far, far away.

"Argh." I pushed my hair back, stuffed more spinach in my mouth, and signed on.

He wasn't online. Relief and disappointment slid through me in equal measure. At least now I could take some time and look at his profile.

I almost wished I hadn't.

It was kind of ridiculous how much we had in common. Loved trying new restaurants, preferred warm weather versus cold, valued close friendships. He'd listed world travel as a wish, same as me. Similar taste in movies and music. On paper, he was kind of perfect, which scared me badly enough I actually jumped when a message box popped up with a message from him.

You need to take better vacations.

I rolled my eyes. Tell me something I don't know.

Unicorns really do exist. So do leprechauns.

I grinned. Right. And the moon is made of cheese.

I couldn't type fast enough. My salad sat abandoned on the coffee table, salad dressing pooling at the bottom of the bowl as we traded quips and snippets of information. I hadn't been this engrossing a conversation over messenger since I was in college. So I was pretty surprised when another box popped up, jerking me out of my conversation with Roadrunner, and noticed the time.

We'd been chatting for over an hour. No wonder my shoulders were stiff.

I ignored the new chat box and typed in a reply to Roadrunner. Did you notice what time it was?

Green blinking light, seconds slipping into minutes. Shit. No. Hate to run, but I have to.

Understood. I wanted to meet him. I wanted to talk to him, face to face. See if this ease and banter could hold up under in person contact.

You want to move this to Gchat?

Not quite what I'd had in mind. Maybe he was shy. I could give him a little more time. It'd probably be good for me, too. I gave him the username for the email account I'd set up to field messages from the dating sites I went through, and he promised to get in touch soon. 

It wasn't until after we'd logged out I realized I didn't know what he looked like. Or his name.

#

I avoided Drea the next day, because I wasn't ready to talk about a guy that gave me stomach flutters and I didn't even know his name. Instead, I kept my head down and caught up on some of the work I'd neglected yesterday, startled out of my zone when a can of Pepsi appeared in front of me, along with a bag of Cheetos.

Zach.

He gave me a quick smile and walked off.

The can dripped condensation onto my desk. My fingers would be covered in bright orange powder before I'd gotten a quarter of the way through the bag. My go-to crunch time snack. Hell, my anytime snack. The stomach flutters kicked in.

Two days and one amazing conversation with Roadrunner later, it was a funny cat picture.

Another conversation, where Roadrunner and I talked about our holdovers from childhood, the stupid fears and the secret pleasures we still indulged in. Like jumping in puddles and making paper airplanes out of any scrap of paper we could find. That was a Zach habit, the paper airplanes. He'd empty packets of sugar onto the table top at Denny's and make me the smallest airplanes imaginable. They never flew.

The day after that conversation, I joined some coworkers for happy hour, and Zach bought my drink. We teased each other the way we used to, smirked at old shared jokes, and all the drinks in the world couldn't calm the damn flutters in my belly.

Twice was a nice thing. Three times was a pattern, and I had to stop it. 

Zach looked up in surprise when I stopped at the entrance to his cubicle. "Jane?"

I studied him a moment, hoping for a little bit of calm so I wouldn't come off sounding bitchy. All I wanted was to know why. "I'm confused," I said quietly.

His expression changed to wary. "About what?"

I lifted a hand, let it drop, useless, to my side. "Why are you doing this?"

The fluorescent light over the next cubicle buzzed, sputtered, and went out, sending our little corner into gloom. "Trying to be your friend, I guess. Hard, because I know the old you. You don't want me to know who you are now."

I bit my lip, chewed on it. Chewed over what he'd said. He was right. I'd wanted to try being friends with him, two years ago, back when I thought that's what he wanted, too. "If we were friends," I said slowly, "you'd let me reciprocate." It had to be the one-sideness that had my stomach jumping. Not hope and attraction. "And you're right. You know the old me, and I know the old you." My stomach rumbled. "Maybe..." I glanced up. "Maybe we should work on that? Are you hungry?"

His mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Would it matter? I could probably hear your stomach from a mile away."

I stuck my tongue out at him, and he laughed, the sound slipping through me like whiskey, warm and a little rough. Stop that. I worked up a return grin. "Have you tried the new sandwich place? The one a few blocks over?" 

"Heard of it. Haven't been." He stood, and I backed out of his cubicle. "Ready?"

"Almost. Need to grab my wallet." We detoured by my desk and I grabbed my purse. I slung it over my shoulder, and we headed for the elevator.

"How's the househunting going?" he asked, once we were on the street.

I fished my sunglasses out of my purse and slid them on. "Frustrating. There's less out there than I thought. At least in my price range. I'm looking at a place tonight, but after the last couple of places, I'm not hopeful." Traffic rolled past, and I jumped as a car honked its horn right next to us. "Jesus!"

He caught my elbow before I could stumble, releasing me almost as quickly. "You okay?" His brow wrinkled with concern as he studied my feet. "Dude, why do you wear those shoes if you end up hurting yourself?"

The "dude" broke through some internal barrier, and I allowed myself a cautious trickle of hope. We could do this, this friend thing. "Because I like them." I nudged him out of the way. "I'm fine. Just got scared by the big, bad car horn."

We made it the rest of the way to the sandwich shop without being disturbed by any more car horns. It was small, almost a hole in the wall, brightly lit and squeaky clean. There were only a handful of customers in the shop, and hardly anyone sitting at one of the few tables scattered around. After ordering our sandwiches, we found a table and settled in to eat.

"How's Dylan?" I asked around a mouthful of turkey sandwich. "Is he ready for school to start?"

Zach gave me a weird look before answering. "He was excited until Amy reminded him it would be a new school with new kids. Now he's not so sure."

"Are you taking him to school the first day?" That was what parents did, right? After second grade, my mom or dad had stopped dropping me off at school, letting me take the bus, but the first few years, they'd both been there. 

He put his sandwich down and wiped his hands, crumpling the napkin into a tight ball. "Still working that out."

From the tightness of his jaw and the hard glint in his eyes, I took that to mean his ex-wife was putting up some fuss. That wasn't fair to Dylan, his parents fighting over him like that. I laid a hand over Zach's fist. "She doesn't want you there?"

He stared at our hands for a minute, then turned his over and clasped mine, his hold loose. "The divorce wasn't exactly amicable."

I held my tongue. It wasn't my place to criticize Amy for her choices any more than it was for me to pry the story out of him. "Doesn't seem all that fair to Dylan," was what I said.

He squeezed my hand and let go, picking up his sandwich once more. "It's not," he agreed. "She'll see that, eventually. Just have to wait for her to realize it." He shrugged. "Had years of experience fighting with her. I know how it goes by now."

That sounded awful. For someone to harbor so much negativity, even years later...did the woman even have a heart anymore? I rifled through my mental databank for a safer topic, a happier one, because curiosity was clawing at the door, and now was not the time to ask personal questions I wasn't sure I wanted the answers to.

Zach spoke first. "You remember when you threatened to report me to human resources?"

Oh, god. Were we going to talk about that? Because I so did not want to. "Yes." Anxiety was a cold wash over my skin, forming a ball of ice in the pit of my stomach.

"Can you actually do shit like that? Report someone for something done outside of work?"

I swallowed hard. "Yeah." I set my sandwich down. "Zach, you're kind of scaring me."

His eyes widened. "Shit. No. Not you. Lindsay."

Lindsay? "What did she do now? I mean, you said she'd asked you out a few months ago."

He grimaced. "She did it again. After you left happy hour last week, she had a few too many martinis, and proceeded to drape herself all over me."

I bit off a sigh. Why Lindsay continued to chase a man who had never shown any interest in her was beyond me. "I think that counts. Unless she wasn't making you uncomfortable." That was key; if Zach was okay with the overture, there was nothing to report.

His laugh was short and humorless. "Right. Because a drunk woman propositioning me is fun." He shoved his chair back from the table and pushed a hand through his hair. "What the hell did I do that made her so crazy?" His eyes widened with bewilderment.

Oh. Oh, crap. I had no defense against that look, the wounded innocence of it. I sucked my upper lip into my mouth. "She cornered me in the break room. The day we went out to lunch? She was in there when I went to put the leftovers in the fridge. I guess she saw us at some point, going, coming back, whenever. Wanted to know how I'd gotten you to go to lunch with me."

His expression turned thoughtful. "Any ideas on how to get her to back off? Already told her I was seeing someone. She didn't care."

Jealousy spurted, hot and bright, and I wrestled it into submission. Why did I care if he was seeing someone? I didn't care. He deserved happiness, the same as I did. "Hate to break it to you, but if that doesn't get her to back off, and you've already told her it'll never happen, she's not going to stop making a fool out of herself. Of course, you could always blame it on alcohol."

We ate in silence, the bustle of the shop filling the void. "Just seems stupid. Little embarrassing, to be honest. Men don't get harassed." He tossed the crust of his sandwich down.

Sandwiches finished, lunch over, we cleared away our trash and tossed it in the garbage can near the door, shuffling off to the side to wait out the rush of people pushing into the shop. We squeezed out the door ahead of the next crush of diners, the heat of Zach's body behind mine tumbling through me.

It disappeared quickly as he moved to my side, a careful few inches of space between us, and I fought the urge to reach for his hand. To lace my fingers through his, like I'd done so many times before. 

Those were very unfriend-like thoughts. I stomped them out. No second chances. He was seeing someone. I had the first blush of a flirtation happening. I piled up all the nos and used them like a wall. By the time we reached the office, a uncomfortably charged silence had descended, and we went our separate ways without so much as a backward glance.

He sent me an interoffice IM a half hour later. Don't know if this will work.

I played dumb. Think what won't work?

Not cute, Janey-girl. Don't know if we can be friends. Why do you want it in the first place? Thought you didn't want anything to do with me.

Did I say that? I couldn't remember. Just that even after his last colossal fuck up, I still couldn't hate him, still couldn't walk away completely. You screwed up. A lot. But I can't hate you. I never could. 

Thanks for that. I think. Still doesn't change anything. This won't work.

So what do we do?

Same thing we've been doing for the last few years. Just be co-workers.

I don't get it. I took my frustration out on my keyboard. Why is it so much harder now? Couple years ago, it seemed natural. I thought it was real. I don't want to lose you.

Oh. Oh shit. I shouldn't have said that. It wasn't true.

Was it?

I ignored his response and signed out of messenger. I'd lost him already, years ago. Never got him back. I rolled my shoulders and got back to work.

#

The house looks good. Enough space, cosmetic fixes, right price. Closing in another few weeks.

Excited?

Not really. Yeah. I mean, I wanted this for a while, so it's nice that it's actually happening.

Roadrunner was quiet for a few minutes, then his response popped up. Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.

I snorted. I'm sure I'll be even more excited when I make my first mortgage payment.

The conversation moved on to moving expenses and the best place to get a pizza in that part of town. I rubbed a hand over my mouth. I was excited about the house. It was just buried under some melancholy. This was a big step, me showing the world I wasn't going to wait for my happily ever after. If I couldn't find someone who wanted to share it with me, I'd make my own.

You ever hate doing the right thing?

I sipped my wine and considered the question. Yeah. Hurts sometimes. Accepting Logan's choice had been the right thing. Sometimes, in those early months, I'd kicked myself, that if I'd backed off a little, I'd still have him. But I wouldn't have been satisfied.

We should create a perfect world. You know, where there are fuzzy bunnies and the moon is made of cheese, and doing the right thing wouldn't look so much like the wrong thing.

I smiled, a little taken aback at the turn in the conversation. Sure, we'd broached serious topics before. Nothing like this.

Will there be chocolate? And wine? I demand wine.

Sure. 

The wine was bitter on my tongue as I remembered Zach's last words. I hadn't seen or heard from him in any way, shape, or form since we had lunch two weeks ago, and I ached. Just a little. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn the old wound had split open. 

Distraction. I needed a distraction. So, when did you want to meet? We'd been doing this Gchat thing for too long. I didn't want a pen pal, or another anonymous "friend". I wanted real.

I waited for his response. One minute became five, five became ten, and when it hit fifteen minutes, I got up and went to the kitchen for more wine. No new message when I returned, and Roadrunner had left Gchat.

There was a new email waiting for me, though. Subject: Doing the right thing.

I should have never done this. I should have ignored your profile when it popped up on my list. I can't tell you why I didn't. Or I could. Any chance I might have to win you back, Janey-girl. Any. Chance. But I shouldn't have taken this one, and I'm sorry. Glad you let me get to know who you are now, and I'll never regret that.

It wasn't signed. None was needed. I knew who it was. Zach. Anger burned and hissed, coiled around me like a snake. He'd done it at every turn, tried to get me to take him back, ignored my wishes. He'd given me hope, that maybe I was wrong, maybe there was someone out there for me. He'd taken the giddy joy I'd felt every time with his messages, his conversations and turned it to ash.

I snatched up my phone and called Drea. "Do you know Zach's address?" I asked when she answered.

"Yeah, why?"

"Text it to me, will you?" I shoved my feet into my shoes and stalked to the door. 

"Is everything okay?"

"No," I ground out. "And that's why I need his address. We're going to have this out, for good."

She promised to text it to me once we hung up. Thank god for mutual friends. My phone pinged with an incoming message as I jogged down the stairs to my car. He lived on the other side of town. Good. It would give me a little time to calm down. 

Zach's apartment building was small, only a few units, with a staircase on the outside leading to the second level. His unit was on the opposite end of the second floor, and he took his time answering my knock. And I did knock. Not pound.

He also didn't look surprised to see me. "Did Drea text you?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

"No. Just figured after you read that email you'd be over here." He looked so low, so damn defeated, that it was hard to hold onto my anger. "Come on in. If it's all right with you, I don't need my neighbors to hear this."

He stepped back, and I followed him inside. "Why? Why do you keep doing this?"

Gaze trained on the floor, he shrugged. "Because I like making an ass out of myself? Because I like fucking things up?" He raised his head. "I keep fucking it up, Janey. It's a compulsion. I was a fucking idiot to let you get away the first time, and every time I saw a chance to get you back, I took it. I just kept ignoring the fact you didn't want it. So I spent the last two years trying to do what you did: move on. It worked. I was okay. Another couple years, I could work myself up to fine, maybe good. Then you asked me to lunch, and everything went to shit."

He slumped against the far wall. "I'm done. I start a new job in two weeks. Tomorrow's my last day. You'll never have to see me again."

Gone. Zach out of my life, permanently. It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. I licked my lips, awareness spiking when his eyes tracked the movement with tightly controlled hunger. "Why did you respond to my profile?"

His bark of laughter was mirthless. "Why do I do anything when it comes to you? Fuckin' A. A chance to get to know you, I guess. See if I was justified in this craziness." He scuffed a hand over his face. "Go home, Jane."

All I could do was stare at him.

"Jane."

It didn't make sense. The man had carried a fucking torch for me for close to a decade. He'd screwed up multiple times, destroyed every last shred of empathy I had for him, and he was worse than most women. "Was it really that bad? Being married to Amy?"

Surprised flashed over his face. "Not at first," he said slowly. "Shit. You want words, don't you? You want to understand this? I don't know if I do.

"I broke up with you because you were the strong one. You'd survive; I wasn't sure if I would. I couldn't see anything but you, and it fucking scared me. I wasn't ready for that, and I needed space. I got it in the worst way possible. If I'd been smarter, calmer, you might not have hated me so much and we wouldn't be here."

"But we'd still have broken up." 

"But we'd still have broken up. Don't tell me you were ready for something that intense," he said, the truth of his words reflected in his tone. Our relationship had been intense. It was why I'd been so ripped up when it ended. "I met Amy. Thought I loved her. We got married, had Dylan. Everything was great until he was about a year old. I'd had doubts over the years, thought I ought to go looking for you, and every time I'd talk myself out of it. It was the fucking right thing, leaving you alone. But those doubts started picking away at me more after Dylan was born, and I did the next right thing and filed for divorce. Wasn't fair to her that I kept thinking of someone else."

I couldn't feel my hands anymore. "And the office?" That first time, the two of us alone, his arms around me and no commitment in sight from Logan. Letting him taste the tears on my skin, getting to scream at him, finally, finally telling him off and still wanting him to hold me.

"Didn't mean for it to happen. Saw you, and I stopped thinking. I just had to have you in my arms again. And that was my second screw up. All I've done is screw up since then. I'm done. I can't be your friend and not screw up." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Go home, Jane. There's nothing more here."

I wasn't sure I could move. He wasn't budging from his story. Insane, to want someone for that long, to long for them. "I wouldn't call it moving on," I said quietly. "More like moving past." 

He cocked his head to the side. "Same thing."

"No. Not really. You remember what I told you when you first started?" I love you. A part of myself still belonged to him, and if I was being honest, would always belong to him. I'd just found room for Logan, too. And Logan had taken that piece with him when he'd left. I'd grown used to the emptiness, same as I had with Zach.

Only Zach occupied a much, much bigger piece of real estate.

"I loved you. It was the you I'd known, but it was still love. You still claimed a part of me. But there was room for Logan. I never denied myself the knowledge I'd never forgotten you, never stopped caring about you. I just learned how to live with it and find happiness without you." I sucked in a breath, let it out. "And I think you did, too. Otherwise you wouldn't have married Amy, had a kid with her."

The last few weeks, those epic conversations over Gchat, that had been the new Zach. The Zach he was now. A man I could laugh with, that stirred those dormant flutters in my belly and made me wish things could be different, that I hadn't committed myself to a life of going it alone. And however deceptive he'd been, I'd still fallen for it. For him. A lump formed in my throat. "Dammit. Why did you have to do it?" 

The first tear spilled over unbidden, and I wiped it away, the second one falling faster than the first. My vision blurred as I struggled to hold them back. Last time I'd cried, he'd held me. Not this time. He stared at me from across the room, pain and longing on his face. And he'd stay there until I left, I realized, because he meant it this time. He was done screwing up when it came to me. He was done with me. Permanently. 

I was across the room and his face was in my hands before I knew what I was doing. "Why did you have to make me fall for you again?" I whispered, sobs choking me. 

His mouth was inches away, familiar and warm. Need for it, for him, swept through me. I pressed my lips to his, swallowing another sob. 

He pushed me away. It was a gentle push, but it was a rejection. "I can't do this," he rasped. "I ignored everything you'd said. No second chances, remember? I fuckin' don't deserve one anymore, that's for sure. Go home, Janey, before you regret it."

I was pretty sure I'd regret it more if I left. I kissed him again, winding my fingers through his hair and holding on tight. On a groan, he opened for me, and I took his mouth, took everything he'd taken from me all those years ago.

It wasn't pretty. It was close, and wet, salty with my tears and laden with the angst of years past. I wanted to crawl inside him and claim it all. Tongues pressing and stroking, advancing and retreating, I kissed him until the tight pinch of pain in my chest eased and I was draped over him, pliant under his hands.

We tripped and fumbled our way to the couch, hands seeking skin, sliding under shirts, nails digging into flesh. I hit the couch and fell backward, taking him with me, and the weight of him settling between my thighs brought on a fresh moan. 

"Janey. Sweetheart, tell me you want this." He pushed himself up, fear lighting his face. 

In answer, I licked up the side of his throat and nipped into his jaw. "I want you." 

His mouth came down with a vengeance, licking and biting his way across my lips to my jaw, his hands roaming over any part of me he could touch. I knew this, and I didn't. I'd felt his fumbling advances before, all those years ago, and these were not them. He moved with a certainty I'd only experienced over time.

But his hands remembered me, and they'd learned new tricks in their absence. Skimmed along my sides, palming my breast, squeezing it oh so gently. I wound my legs around his hips and bucked against him. "Zach." I dug my fingers into his lower back, seeking traction.

He stopped. He stopped, and tipped his forehead down to meet mine. "You need to go," he whispered. "I don't want you to regret this any more than you will."

Tears threatened again. "Why are you so sure I'll regret this?" I sniffed.

To my surprise, he smiled, a small, sad lifting of lips. "How many times did I fuck up? And that night at Drea's party..."

I stilled. He'd been drunk, and kissed me, minutes after he'd seen me kissing Logan. He'd made a play even though I hadn't been free.

He shifted off me and got to his feet. "Yeah. That. That's why you need to leave. That's why you're going to regret this tomorrow." He straightened his shirt and crouched in front of me, his face inches from mine as I lay there on his couch. "Of all the things I've done to you, that's the one I regret the most. Not respecting the boundaries you'd set."

I sat up, and he helped me to my feet, tucking my hair behind my ear. "I will always care about you. But I'm done hurting you, sweetheart." He kissed my forehead, and I shut my eyes. Dammit. Again. He was right. He'd scared me that night, something I'd so easily forgotten. I shouldn't have.

I still didn't want to leave. That was all kinds of fucked up. "Could I...maybe call you? This weekend, after I've had some time to think?"

The pain in his eyes shot straight through me. "I've got Dylan this weekend."

Ice formed under my skin. Dylan. How could I have forgotten about his kid? Why would I want to get involved with Zach, knowing what we meant to each other, knowing he had a kid? I didn't want children. He probably wanted more.

From the way the pain fractured and shadowed his eyes, he knew. He kissed me softly and nudged me toward the door, and I went, moving on autopilot. I don't remember the drive home. I don't remember changing out of my clothes. The next thing I remembered was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, confused and hurt and still craving release. My hand snuck between my legs, shame washing over me, but I couldn't stop. The feel of his lips on mine, the weight of him over me, the warmth and texture of his skin, all things I'd welcomed and needed, wreaked havoc on me and I came hard, crying out his name.

Coming down, trembling with the release and pain, I curled into a ball and hoped the pain would go away. Because if it didn't, I was just as crazy as Zach, and two crazy people, two sick, crazy people, couldn't work in a way that was healthy.

#

I took my profile down the next day. How could I even entertain the thought of a date when thoughts of Zach crowded my brain? I didn't see him at all in the office and left early to avoid the push of well-wishers streaming through the department to his desk. 

But I couldn't stop myself from sending him a text after I left. I miss you.

He didn't respond.

It was for the best, him ignoring me. I might think now I could put aside all the douchey moves he'd made in the past, or that I was okay with kids. But I might not feel that way in a week. Or a month. Or a year. 

At least he'd stopped us before the clothes had come off.

I spent the weekend tracking down boxes and driving by the house I'd purchased, wandering around the yard, trying to come up with ideas for landscaping and failing. Pretty much the only thing I knew I wanted to do was paint the interior. I'd planned to con some friends into helping, so I wouldn't have to hire painters. Sticking to it would be a great distraction, even though spending time with anyone was the last thing I wanted to do. The ache would fade with time. I just had to wait it out.

The next few weeks were a blur of packing boxes, trips to Goodwill, and restless nights where every time my thoughts drifted to Zach, I'd force myself to think of something else. What color I wanted the living room to be. Making plans with friends I hadn't seen in a while. The beginning French class I was considering signing up for at the community center.

Actually, that class sounded like a fabulous idea.

I got out of bed and padded into the living room, where I'd left my laptop. I booted up, wrapping a throw around my shoulders as I waited. A class would be a fantastic way to get out of the house, do something new, and I wouldn't have to worry about dating or men or Zach.

Or it would have been a fantastic idea if Zach hadn't had the same one.

The look on his face when he saw me was one I'd never expected: anger. The man looked absolutely furious as he stood at the front of the room, staring at me. I wanted to shrink away. He stayed at the front, and I fumbled my way through the first class, sneaking glances at him the whole time. A muscle jumped in his jaw for most of the hour long session, and as soon as we were dismissed he strode from the room without a backward glance.

I ran after him. He was just about to get into his car when I entered the parking lot. "Zach!"

Relief weakened my knees when he paused, standing next to his car, keys in hand. I jogged over and didn't think. Just reacted. Just felt.

I threw my arms around him and fused my mouth to his.

The heat was immediate. He tugged me closer, his body a long, hard line against mine, his hands fisting the back of my shirt, his tongue probing and desperate. I strained toward him, wishing I could crawl inside him. Stay a while. Learn him all over again and find new ways to make him mine. Each caress of his tongue, nip of his teeth, each flex of his fingers as they tried to dig into my back tore through me until I was laid before bare him, ready to beg. He couldn't push me away this time. Not after this.

"Jane," he whispered, mouth rubbing over mine. "Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

I eased back enough I could see his face, and I lifted a hand to his mouth, tracing his lips. "I can't stay away from you. I thought I could. I thought you'd be right, that I'd regret what happened. I don't. It only makes me miss you more." I let my fingers drift from his mouth to his jaw, trailing along the stubble-roughened line of it. "I want to try this again. You and me. Maybe we'll end up hating each other. Maybe we won't. But I want this. I want you."

He kissed me, softer, slower, the sweetness of it shredding the last of my doubts. Come what may, Zach was my choice. 

He tipped my head back and laced his fingers through my curls, blue eyes clouded by worry and doubt. "After all the shit I've pulled-"

I laid a finger across his lips. "Stop. I'm not saying I'm cool with that. Because I'm not. But I mean it. I can't stay away from you. I want to start over. We get a clean slate this time around, time to earn each other's trust and respect."

Relief loosened the tension in his jaw. "I can do that. Go slow." He swallowed hard. "I can't introduce you to Dylan. Not yet, not for a while. I'm not willing to push someone new into his life if I'm not certain they're going to be around for awhile."

It stung, even though I understood his reluctance. I did want to meet his son at some point. He was a huge part of his life, the most important thing in it, really, but he was still just a kid. I nodded. 

He wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my hair. I don't know how long we stood like that. Minutes, hours, days. It didn't matter. I was in his arms again, and a piece of me I thought I'd never get back slid into place.

#

I didn't see him again until the next class a week later. It was part of the whole going slow thing, I guess, though it drove me crazy. He called me once, on Sunday night, and we talked until my battery died two hours later. This time, when he showed up for class, he broke into a huge grin when he saw me and took the seat I'd saved him. We went out for coffee after with a couple of other people in the class and ended up making out like a pair of teenagers on the hood of my car.

The sale closed, and I was able to pick up the keys to my new house. After having the locks changed, I wandered from room to room with my paint swatches, making my final choices and imagining what my life would be like in my brand new house. Cooking in the kitchen with its butcher block countertops. Relaxing in the living room with a book. Fucking Zach in the bedroom. And in the kitchen. The dining room. Hell, the laundry room.

I didn't particularly want to see him everywhere. It was insane, how badly I wanted him, how much I would give just to sit next to him and rest my head on his shoulder. But we'd done this before, gotten so wrapped up in each other we couldn't breathe, and I couldn't go through that again.

The bedroom would look nice with grey walls.

I headed to the store to get the paint mixed and buy supplies. While I waited for the paint mixer shaker thingy to work its magic, I called Drea and the couple other friends I'd asked to help paint, to see if they were available that weekend. Fortunately, they were. With any luck, we'd get the painting done in one weekend.

My phone rang in my hand after I'd hung up with the last person. It was Zach. "Hey!"

"Hey, yourself. Where are you? You sound like you're in a stadium or something."

I glanced around the cavernous store, with its cement floors, the piped in music echoing slightly. "Close. Getting paint for my new house. Closed today. Painting this weekend. Are you free? I'm having a bunch of people over to help so I can get it done before I move in."

"Sure. Need me to bring anything?"

I grinned. "Just yourself. Maybe a paintbrush or two." The sales guy thunked the paint cans down on the counter. "My paint's done. I need to go." I didn't want to go. "Can I call you when I get home?"

He was quiet a minute. "Janey-girl, you can call me whenever you want."

Sometimes it was damn hard remembering all the horrid things he'd done.

I paid for my paint and supplies, then wrestled everything into my car. I drove back to my house, unloaded everything, and headed to my apartment.

Zach answered on the second ring. "Hey, sweetheart."

My heart flip-flopped, and I rubbed a fist over my chest. "Hey. How are you? How's your new job working out for you?" He'd started the job he'd left for, but we hadn't talked about it.

"Steep learning curve. Half the time I don't know what I'm doing, and the other half the time I pretend I know what I'm doing." His frustration rang through, and I winced. 

"Why did you take it, then?" I pulled out some leftover spaghetti and dumped it in a bowl to reheat.

"Higher pay, for one."

I leaned against the counter, wondering if I should go there or if I should let it lie. Curiosity won out. "Can I ask you something?"

"Depends on what the something is," he said warily.

Well, now that I'd brought it up, I couldn't not ask. "How big a part did I play in you taking that job?" When he didn't answer right away, I rushed on. "I hate the thought I made it so uncomfortable for you, working there. I know how much you needed the job." The microwave dinged, and I pulled the bowl out, hissing as the ceramic burned my fingertips.

He sighed. "You were part of it," he admitted. "With what's happened over the past two months, I doubt we'd be talking to each other now if I'd stayed, so it's hard to regret that. But the higher salary was the deciding factor. Amy's threatening to go back to court to up the child support payments, since she's not working at the moment."

I paused with the fork halfway to my mouth. "Can she do that?"

"Better to just pay what she's asking than get our attorneys involved. Legal fees are not cheap."

Point to him. Anger simmered in my gut over what his ex was doing to him. First she'd tried to bar him from taking his son to school on his first day, now this? What was the bitch's problem?

The conversation shifted away from Zach's problems with his ex, and I filled him in on what Lindsay was up to now that he was gone.

He laughed when I told him about her attempts at flirting at the latest happy hour. There was a new bartender at the pub we usually went to who was pretty damn cute. Lindsay had taken it upon herself to let him know just how attractive he was. From the smirk on his face, I'd guessed he didn't need the ego boost in the least.

"She's on, oh, martini number four at this point, and tries to lean over the bar, balancing on the rail so she can reach, right? She goes to grab his shirt and ends up losing her balance and sprawling over the bar. Knocked over the plastic holder that has the lemon wedges and cherries in it, legs flailing, the works." I scraped my fork against the side of the bowl and scooped up the last of the spaghetti. 

"Classy," he chuckled.

"Oh, totally. The next day she sort of slunk around the office and made herself scarce. Anyway," I said, setting the empty bowl in the sink, "I should get going. It's going to take me a while to get through the homework. Unless..."

"Unless?"

I bit my lip. "Unless you want to come over and do it together?"

The ensuing silence was laden with enough tension to kill a yak. "Do you know what will happen if I come over?" he said at last.

"We'd converse in really bad French?"

"We'd be doing other really bad things." His voice was low and dark, a promise of sin. 

I wanted to sin with him like, yesterday. "Would that be such a bad thing?"

His exhalation was audible and shaky. "Good night, Jane. I'll see you this weekend."

I murmured a goodbye and hung up, my legs as shaky as his voice. Didn't he want to be alone with me? This was going to be a problem, since we'd have to be alone together at some point. What was he afraid of?

I found out on Sunday. 

Friday night, I went over and started cutting in around the trim, arranging drop cloths and putting bottles of water in the fridge. I covered the counters with more drop cloths and made sure the large tub in the laundry room wasn't clogged. Saturday, my friends showed up en mass, including Zach, and we got to work, voices and music echoing in the empty house. We took a break for pizza, then kept going until it got dark outside and we were forced to turn on the lights. Zach left with everyone else, but Drea stuck around to help me remove the tape from the rooms we'd finished.

"So you and Zach worked it out?" She peeled a long strip of tape from around the door.

"You could say that." Shit. The tape pulled away some of the paint. Good thing I'd had the forethought to get some trim paint for touch ups. "We're more in the talking stage than anything else. He wants to take it slow, and I can't say I blame him." I glanced over at her and caught the sad, wistful look on her face. 

Wait. Hadn't Drea said she had a friend she wanted to hook me up with? One who didn't see her the same way?

"Drea..." Was I wrong? I hoped I was wrong. "Zach isn't...he's not...is he the one you were talking about? Weeks ago?"

She shook her head. "It's fine."

I dropped the ball of tape. "No, it's not fine. Why didn't you say anything?"

Her lips twisted in a grimace. "Because it wouldn't have made a difference. All he saw was you. I wasn't about to get in the middle of that. I figured if it was ever clear he'd put it behind him, maybe I'd say something. Or maybe I'd have moved on at that point. It's no one's fault that it didn't happen."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Hey." She threw a ball of tape at me, and it bounced off my shoulder. "The man's so in love with you he went a little nuts. That's not the kind of thing you get in the middle of."

I picked up the tape ball and stuffed it in the plastic bag we were using for garbage. "Am I stupid? For letting this happen again? After all the fuck ups?"

Abandoning the clean up efforts, she plopped down on one of the drop cloths and arranged her legs lotus style. "Explain."

I joined her on the floor. "When he started at work, I let him kiss me. Multiple times. I was sort of with Logan at the time, but nothing had been laid out, you know? I finally got my shit together enough to tell Logan I wasn't interested in a hook up anymore, and I told Zach we didn't have another chance. Logan pulled his head out of his ass, Zach left me alone, and Logan and I were happy. Then he gets this chance to move to Germany, it starts stressing me out, and Zach picks up on it. Whether he saw that as a chance to widen the crack already forming or if he just wanted to make me feel better, I don't know. Maybe it was both." It was probably both. 

"Why didn't you go with Logan?" she asked softly.

Two years later the memory wasn't painful anymore, just bittersweet. "I wanted to get married. He didn't. As much as he loved me, he was still afraid of commitment." I'd understood where he was coming from. I had. Maybe I wasn't his first serious relationship, but I knew I was one of the first ones he'd had as an adult, with all the adult things left to do in his future. He'd been twenty three when he left. I'd been almost thirty. Not every twenty three year old is willing to believe they'd met their it so young. Logan hadn't. I couldn't fault him for it.

"Zach and I, when we were together the first time, it wasn't healthy. We were too wrapped up in each other. I didn't want anyone but him. Every time I imagined my life without him, I saw a black hole. I was wrecked when he left." I tipped over onto my back. "And now I'm willingly letting him back into my life."

Drea was quiet for a minute. "For what it's worth, you're both older now. You have the distance to figure out what went wrong the first time and not make the same mistakes."

That didn't make me feel any better. 

Seeing him the next day did, though. I arrived early and started in on the bathroom, the worst room in any house to paint. All those cupboards and toilets and things to get in the way. I had the window open to let the paint smell escape, and the radio off. I wanted to hear my thoughts for a while.

I'd been at it for almost an hour when the first car pulled up. Someone got out and walked up to the front door, knocking on it. I stuck my head out the window and hollered, "It's open!" and went back to work.

"Janey-girl, don't tell me you've been working here alone with the doors unlocked." Zach leaned on the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest.

I rolled my eyes and went back to painting the wall behind the toilet. "I knew everyone was coming, and I didn't want to constantly have to go back and forth to open the door."

"I could have been anyone."

"But you're not. Besides, it's Sunday. I think serial killer rapists take Sundays off."

The brush was plucked from my hand and I was hauled to my feet, Zach's mouth insistent on on mine. He had me up on the edge of the sink before I could process what was happening, and by the time I did, I didn't want him to stop.

He did instead. "Stop me. Tell me to stop. Show me what you'd do if you were attacked." His blue eyes were hard and glinting with lust and desperation. I searched his face, needing a clue or four about what was going on in that head of his.

Zach wanted me to stop him, all right. Stop him from himself. Stopping Zach was the last thing I wanted.

I pulled his mouth back to mine, wound my legs around his waist, and begged him with my tongue. Rubbing wetly, slickly, finding all the hidden places of his mouth, mimicking what I wanted from him.

He shoved his hands under my shirt and yanked the cups of my bra down, going back to palm my breasts. Our hips rocked together as his fingers pinched my nipples, rolling them into hardened points. Then he pinched them hard enough the shock of pain drew a whimper from me. 

Need, hot and frantic, poured through me. I didn't want a slow seduction. I no longer cared that I'd imagined our first time after so many years would be this long, drawn out affair, taking place in a bedroom shadowed by candles. I had to have him inside me or I'd die.

Scrabbling at the waistband of his pants, I managed to open his belt and undo the fly. He growled and went to work on my pants as I pushed his to his knees, curling my hand around his cock. The weight of it, the heat, the texture, everything about it was at once familiar and foreign. I thumbed the head and spread the slickness around, swallowing his hiss of pleasure.

And groaning into his mouth when he thrust two fingers inside me.

He groaned, too. "God, sweetheart. You're ready, aren't you?" I nodded, shifting as he yanked my pants down to my ankles. I squeezed him, guided him to me, using the head to tease myself.

Not for long. One minute I was using his dick as a toy, rubbing it over my clit, the next he was buried to the root, his face pressed into my neck as he twitched and throbbed. "Fuck," he gasped. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."

After eight years, Zach was inside me. Eight years where I'd fucked too many guys to count, eight years where we'd both met other people and fallen in love. Eight long years, and I knew I'd been waiting for this moment since the day he'd walked out of my life.

I tightened my inner muscles, urging him to move. He withdrew, then snapped his hips forward, setting the pace for a brutal, and brutally short, fucking. "Touch yourself," he growled. "Because I'm not going to last, and I want you there with me."

I brought my fingers to his mouth, and he sucked on them, heedless of any paint collected on my skin. I reached between us and found the aching bundle of nerves screaming for attention and began manipulating it, bringing myself closer and closer to the edge as he plunged in and out. The small room filled with the sounds of our harsh breathing, the scent of sex and paint mingling with the fresh dampness of the air outside. 

It came out of nowhere. The gathering tension reached a breaking point, building to a release so bright and painful my entire body felt like it was bursting at the seams. "Zach!" I sank my teeth into his shoulder and shuddered, barely aware of his answering curse as he pulsed inside me.

Wrapped around each other, hard, cold porcelain under my ass, I breathed in Zach's scent, my brain slowly unscrambling. I'd gotten exactly what I wanted. I had Zach. Only now, in the aftermath, I wasn't so sure I had him.

He proved me right as he withdrew, reaching for his pants and pulling them up. He stopped me from sliding off the counter, though, and tore off a handful of toilet paper, silently cleaning up the mess we'd made. He pulled my pants up and I buttoned them, adjusting the rest of my clothing.

He wouldn't look at me. His touch was sweet and hesitant, and he wouldn't look at me.

"Was it so bad?" I whispered. "Was it so bad to just give in like that?"

He gathered me in his arms in a fierce hug. "No. But that shouldn't have happened." He drew back enough to look at me. "This was supposed to be slow. God knows I hurt you often enough to necessitate that. Why didn't you stop me?"

I shook my head. "I couldn't. Whenever you put your mouth on me, I have to have you. It was true before, and it's still true. I might have imagined it happening...differently, but I'd needed that for a long, long time." 

His expression was anything but reassuring. He looked tormented. Like that one time was the last time. The for good last time.

I couldn't do this anymore. I'd chased him, time and again, and while he'd always capitulated, I needed more than his reluctant eagerness. 

I needed him to come to me.

I pushed at his shoulders. "You were afraid to be alone with me because of that, weren't you?" The accusatory note in my voice stung, but I couldn't keep it out. We'd rammed headfirst into a vortex of need, and instead of coming out the other side stronger for it, we'd cracked apart. This sucked. "I need to finish in here," I said tightly.

He left without a word, and I listened for the sound of the front door opening. It didn't. A moment later, the radio came on, and I picked up my paintbrush and got back to work.

The rest of my painting crew showed up shortly after, and Zach and I managed to ignore each other the rest of the day. He stuck around to help clean up, and I kept on ignoring him, picking up drop cloths, pounding lids onto paint cans, rinsing rollers and brushes in the tub in the laundry room.

Sex, apparently, screws everything up.

#

The phone rang as I was running tape over the box of linens. The movers were due soon, and I hoped it wasn't them, calling to say they'd be late.

It wasn't. It was Zach. Almost a week after we'd had sex, he finally called. "Hey."

"Hi."

This conversation was so not going to go well. Not if one of us didn't start talking. "What's up?" I asked, then cursed as the tape twisted.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to tape up the last of my boxes. The movers will be here soon, and I've still got a few things left to do."

"Shit. Sorry. I forgot you were moving soon. I'll let you go."

Will you? Will you let me go? For good? I hadn't had time to call him this past week; whenever I thought about it, I was too worn out to handle the conversation we'd likely end up having, so I was content to let the silence stretch.

My phone beeped, pulling me from the funk before I really had a chance to step into it. "Hold on a minute." I switched calls - the movers were downstairs. I buzzed them in as I switched back to Zach. "The movers are here."

"I'm coming over." He hung up before I had a chance to process what he'd said, and once I did, the movers were banging on the door and I didn't have time to worry about it.

Except I did. The last thing I needed was Zach clouding my brain while I was trying to direct a bunch of burly guys carrying boxes and furniture down several flights of stairs. 

He arrived about ten minutes later, a rueful smile on his face. "What do you need?"

I pointed him to the kitchen. "The last of the food needs to be bagged and the pots need to be boxed up." The kitchen seemed like the safest place for him right now, since the movers hadn't started in there yet. 

The rest of the morning was a blur of sweat and hurrying back and forth. The moving truck drove off, empty, several hours later, and I stood on my back porch, procrastinating. I needed to get the bed made and the food put away and most of the kitchen unpacked tonight so I could use it, and all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and stare into space.

Zach joined me on the porch. He slid an arm around my waist and pressed a kiss to my temple, heedless of the sweat dampening my hair. "Where do you want me?"

Right here. "Could you make the bed? I'm going to start on the kitchen. There should be a box of linens in the bedroom." 

We worked in our separate parts of the house for a little while, Zach in my bedroom, me in the kitchen. Once he was finished, he joined me, but he kept his mouth shut, only speaking to ask me where I wanted something to go.

When the kitchen was unpacked and the boxes broken down and carted out to the garage, I opened my fridge and stared at the contents, trying to find something to make for dinner. 

Strong hands clasped my hips, nudging me aside, the refrigerator door swinging closed. "Let me buy you dinner," he murmured.

I sighed. "I don't have the energy to go out."

"That's why delivery was invented. Chinese okay?"

It was food I didn't have to make myself. I didn't care what it was. I nodded, and he released me to call the restaurant and place an order.

After he'd hung up, he turned to me. "Why don't you go shower? I'll wait for the delivery guy."

Why was he being so nice? Too worn out to argue, I headed for the bathroom. He'd put out clean towels and opened the box of bathroom stuff, setting out my body wash and shampoo, along with my toothbrush and toothpaste. Everything I'd need for the next day or so until I could get around to unpacking the rest.

I dawdled in the shower. The hot water was soothing, making me sleepy. But I couldn't stay in it forever, so I climbed out and dried off, padding to the bedroom to find some clothes.

He'd made the bed, like I'd asked. He'd also hung up my clothes, since they'd been lying on the bed. And plugged in my alarm and my bedside lamp. I found my favorite fleece pants, pulled them on, added a sweatshirt and stepped into my slippers, which Zach had dug out of the suitcase full of shoes.

He was in the kitchen, opening cartons of steaming food, and I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head on his back. "Thank you," I murmured. 

"No problem." He tried to turn around, and I released him. "I'm sorry about last weekend."

And here was the difficult conversation. "Me, too."

We filled plates and carried them into the living room. I curled up on the couch and balanced my plate on my lap. "Last weekend was a mistake." It was the conclusion I'd come to when I allowed myself to think about what had happened. 

He finished chewing a mouthful of sweet and sour chicken before answering. "It was too soon. I knew if I got you alone, I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off you. That's not slow, Jane. That was skipping a couple of steps. Important ones."

He was right, of course. The whole going slow thing was supposed to ease us into this, give us both an out if it wasn't working. Instead, we'd let our hormones get the better of us. "So we stick to public places for a while."

"If we don't want to regret anything, yeah."

We stared at each other, Zach's face likely a mirror of mine, full of wishes and anger and fuck it all, let's do this anyway. We'd done crazy. We still were. We weren't going to give in to it again.

We were going to be responsible and when this was over, we'd walk away, stronger for it because we hadn't destroyed each other in the process.

I broke first, and lowered my gaze to my plate. "How's Dylan liking school?"

"Pretty typical of a kindergartner. Excited about seeing his new friends, not as excited about having to get up early to go to school in the morning."

I swallowed a mouthful of fried rice. "Do you want more kids?"

He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, and I stilled. The question had been at the back of my mind all along, but I'd never meant to ask it. I was pretty sure the answer would be yes, and that would put an end to all of this - kids weren't on my agenda. 

"Why do you ask?" His face had gone blank, and he set his fork down.

I opened this can of worms. "Because I can see how much you love your kid, Zach. I know how much you wanted kids when we were together the first time, and I'm thinking that hasn't changed."

He was quiet for a long time, and I went back to my food, not tasting it. "I do," he said quietly. "Amy and I had planned for two." I looked up, and he was studying with a painful intensity. "You never wanted kids, did you."

It wasn't a question. I shook my head. "Marriage, yeah. But not kids. I like them. I'm just not sure I can handle the responsibility. I'm too selfish." And immature. Even at 32, I was immature.

We finished the rest of our meal in silence, the weight of it settling over our conversation like that final death knell. Now that we both understood this would end eventually, it was like we had no desire to continue and see how far we could go before our different needs pulled us apart.

Or so I thought.

Zach cleaned up the food and put it in the fridge while I rinsed our plates. After I dried my hands, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me softly. "You doing any more unpacking tonight?"

"Nah. I've got the week off. I'll probably go to bed and read for a while."

He should go. I had to lock up after him. We spoke at the same time.

"I don't want you to leave."

"I don't want to leave."

This was not a public place. Definitely not taking it slow. But we didn't have to have sex. He could stay. Sleep in my bed. Just sleep. Right?

Who was I kidding. If he stayed, we'd end up fucking. Maybe not tonight - I really was tired - but before he left the next day for sure. 

"If I stay," he said slowly, "we'd be doing exactly what we said we wouldn't."

"I know." I snuggled in and rested my head on his shoulder, and a wave of fatigue washed over me. "Though given how tired I am right now, it's unlikely anything will happen."

He chuckled, his hands moving over my back in soft, restless circles. "Let's get you tucked in." We made sure the house was locked up and all the lights were turned off, and we walked into my bedroom. I stripped and climbed under the covers, exhaustion spreading through my body. 

Zach kissed me on the forehead. "Mind if I use your shower?"

"Go ahead. I think there's a bar of soap in the box in the bathroom." I snuggled into my pillow.

He left, and I drifted into twilight sleep, vaguely aware when he crawled into bed and spooned me. The heat of his body, the shape of him, the weight of his arm around me, sank into my skin and I fell asleep with an ache in my throat.

#

Where was I?

I was in my bed. The familiar form wrapped around me was Zach. Even in my disoriented state, I knew it was him. I just didn't know where I was. Was I dreaming? It would explain the bed and Zach.

As my brain woke up, I remembered moving. My new house, and Zach was staying the night. And he'd woken, as well.

I twisted around in his arms, our faces less than an inch apart. It was still dark. He was naked, I was in my panties. There was only one way this would end.

In the dark, we could do anything. We could pretend it was nothing more than filling a need. Tomorrow was for regrets that might not come. Here, in this bed, we could do this the way we should have that first time.

Our mouths came together slowly, carefully, lips parting and tongues gliding and rubbing. His hands found my waist and he walked his fingers down to the waistband of my panties, slipping under and tugging it down. I broke the kiss, and he stilled. "Too quick?" he whispered against my lips.

No. I wanted this to last, wanted to draw it out, but I could still do that with my underwear off. "Take them off," I whispered back.

He responded by gripping the sides and pulling them down, inch by inch, his body moving along mine, dropping kisses as he went. He stopped when he reached my breasts, my panties around my knees, and he sucked a nipple into his mouth.

The suction was amazing. He tongued the tightening point, scraping his teeth over it. He palmed my other breast, capturing my nipple between his fingers and pinching it. The shock went straight to my clit, and I gasped. He sucked and nibbled and licked, switching from one to the other, until my hips shifted in restless circles. Only then did he resume his downward progress, grasping my panties and pulling them off as he dipped his tongue into my belly button.

He nudged my legs apart, and I lifted the blankets to peer at him. "I've been waiting too long for this," he murmured, and stuck his tongue out and licked. A slow, flat swipe of his tongue over the seam of my sex, ending with a flick over the bundle of nerves aching for touch.

I moaned. Loudly.

Our first time together had been about learning. He'd been more experienced, sure, but there'd been so much he didn't know, so much for us to discover together. Our first attempts at oral sex were wet and fumbling, but he'd never made me feel embarrassed about telling him what felt good.

Now...now I didn't need to.

It might have been almost ten years, but he hadn't forgotten how to read me. He remembered what I liked, yet he wasn't afraid to try something new. The first time he let me feel the edge of his teeth, my hips jerked. So he did it again, following it up with a long pull. The answering throb of my cunt had a flood of words tumbling out, most of them of the more and oh god variety.

He plunged two fingers inside, and everything changed, from slow and sweet and mostly dreaming to the keen edge of need, hot and fierce and slicing through the fog of sleep. Release was fast approaching, but I was so empty, my sex clenching around his fingers. When the first wave hit, he rose up and thrust forward, shoving his way into my body.

The move was unexpected and pushed me higher. He held still as I rode out my orgasm, his face buried in my neck. As the last of the aftershocks rippled outward, he began to move. Braced on his forearms, his hips rocking against mine, the thrusts were shallow and drawn out, giving me time to come down and rejoin him on Earth.

When I nudged my hips against his, he picked up the pace, pumping steadily, rubbing my clit with his pubic bone on every stroke. He dipped his head and took my mouth, kissing me like he needed it to survive.

And maybe he did.

Tongues stroking and seeking, bodies undulating against each other, the dark faded and so did the rest of the world. It was just me and Zach and my bed, no pasts, no futures. Just now. Fucking like we'd never get another chance.

No.

Making love.

This was more than sex. It had always been that way, even in the beginning. How he'd made me wait for it when our hormones could have gotten the better of us, all those years ago. How it had always been about more than a physical act. It was a connection, one that snapped into place the moment he thrust inside for the first time. The intervening years hadn't changed that. And if after all we'd gone through, together and apart, hadn't broken it, nothing would.

Desperate for him to feel it, I tightened my hold, squeezed him with my inner muscles, begging him to fall with me. As the tension coiled to the breaking point, his thrusts sped up, turning erratic as I fell apart around him. His long, low groan was muffled by my skin as he dropped his head to the crook of my neck, his hips losing their rhythm.

That was it. I was done for. If he didn't feel it, too, I was fucked, and not in a pleasant way. I sought his mouth, holding his head as I kissed him.

He broke the kiss and brushed my hair from my forehead. "I know, Janey-girl," he whispered. "I know."

And there was no need for words.

#

It was disconcerting, seeing Zach's face in miniature, only with blond hair. Dylan bounced around the playground, trying to climb up the slide like the other kids, racing after a little girl in pigtails as she wound through the swings.

This was our second meeting. Zach had invited me over for dinner two weeks ago, on a Saturday. It hadn't gone well, but it hadn't gone badly, either. Mostly Dylan just stared at me and chewed. 

If I had to pick a word to describe the meal, it would be awkward. I mean, what the fuck did I know about five year olds? What were they interested in? Did Amy let him watch TV, or was she a TV nazi like my parents had been? So I mostly sat there and ate my dinner. 

Zach slid an arm around my waist, and I startled, brought back to the present. It was gorgeous out, the sky a sharp blue, the air cool enough for a jacket and the cup of cider my hands were clamped around.

"I'm sorry. I totally suck at this," I admitted.

He stole my cup and took a sip. "Suck at what?"

I waved a hand toward the kids racing around the play structures. "Kids. Talking to them. Engaging with them. Just...kids in general. What do you talk about?"

"Sesame Street," he said wryly. "Kids still love Sesame Street. Especially Oscar." He handed the cup back. "Would it make you feel better if I told you I don't know what I'm doing most of the time?"

"No." But I cuddled in a little closer. "I guess I've forgotten what it's like to have an imagination. Books lay out the designs for me, sorta, and all I have to do is follow the lines. Kids, young kids who can't escape into books yet because they don't have the skills? What do they do all day? How do you keep from getting frustrated when all he wants to do is play with his trucks?"

"He hasn't wanted to do that for at least a year." I groaned and nudged him with my elbow. "Seriously? I don't really know. Amy, as much as she loves Dylan, looks forward to the weekends when she can drop him off at my place. It's frustrating to have to spend so much of your time entertaining this little person because they're either too young to look after themselves or they'll annoy the shit out of you if you're not paying attention to them."

A snort of surprised laughter escaped. Zach certainly didn't sound like he wanted more kids. In fact, he'd just given a pretty good argument for not having more kids. I turned into him. "So why have them at all?"

He glanced over at the screaming horde of children. "Because watching them learn new things, getting to experience that with them, having this little person love you with all the fierceness that only a kid can, is probably the coolest feeling in the world."

Dylan ran over and skidded to a stop. "Dad! Come push me on the swing!"

Zach glanced at me, one side of his mouth quirked up. "How about Jane? She's really good at it."

Dylan squinted at me. "Really? Is she better than Mom?"

What was I supposed to say to that? I handed my cup of cider over to Zach before I crushed it. "No, because moms are always the best swing pushers. But I bet I'm better than your dad."

The kid actually crossed his arms over his chest. "Prove it."

With an encouraging nod from Zach, Dylan and I headed over to the swings, and he climbed onto an empty one. "Hold on tight." His little hands gripped the chains, and I pulled him back and let go.

I started him out slow, darting glances at Zach to try and figure out how high I could push him. When he didn't rush over to stop me, I started pushing him harder. He swung higher, and higher, until I had to back up so I wouldn't get kicked in the head. He yelled, and I reached up to tap his lower back to slow him down.

It was a gradual descent, and finally I was able to catch the swing and bring him to a full stop. He jumped off and turned around, grinning. "That was cool!"

I held up a hand. "High five?"

Dylan smacked his hand against mine and ran off to the slide again. And damn if I wasn't grinning myself.

Zach wandered over. "I don't think he's ever gone that high."

I frowned, worry sneaking in. "Should I have gone slower?" Horror overtook the worry. "Shit. He could have fallen off. He could have broken something." Like his neck.

He laughed. The bastard actually laughed. "Sweetheart, he was fine. You couldn't see his face, but he was loving every second of it. I doubt Amy pushes him that high."

My frown deepened. I didn't want Dylan saying anything to his mom, because I didn't want her to rag on Zach for bringing me around her child. 

"Hey." He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger. "What is it?"

I blew out a breath. "Does Amy know Dylan's met me?"

He dropped his hand. "Yeah. I told her before you came over for dinner."

His expression cooled, and he turned to look out over the playground. Hands tucked in his pockets, shoulders set, I knew everything I needed to know. Still, confirmation was always good. "It didn't go well."

He laughed again, though the sound was harsh. "Understatement. I won't repeat what she called you, but no, she doesn't want you spending time with Dylan."

Amy had him stuck. He wanted me, and he wanted his son, and he wanted to spend time with the two of us together. "Is she going to make it harder for you to see Dylan?"

"Legally? She can't. But she can do little things. Try to change the dates and times, bring him late, that sort of thing."

A gust of wind rushed past, sneaking cold fingers of air under my jacket, and I shivered. I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth and watched the kids bouncing all over the play equipment, grimacing when one of them started wailing.

We left the park shortly after that. Rather than stay for dinner, like I'd planned, I decided to go home, and Zach didn't try to talk me out of it. Dylan actually said goodbye to me when I left. I figured that was progress.

Zach and I spent the next few days missing each other by inches. He'd call, and I'd miss it, or I'd text him and he wouldn't reply for hours. We made a half-hearted attempt to make plans for dinner on Thursday, and he cancelled that morning, citing a project at work.

Saturday morning, I was cleaning up my breakfast dishes when there was a knock on my door. Zach pushed his way in the moment I opened it, kicking the door shut behind him and pinned me to the wall, fingers tangled in my hair and his mouth a brand on mine.

"Fuck it," he rasped when we broke for air. "Now that I've got you again, the only people who get to screw this up is us. No one else."

I would have laughed, except he kissed me again, all heat and possession and desperation, the need and desire of it invading my blood. I wanted him over me, under me, surrounding me. 

He pulled at my robe with trembling hands, pushing it from my shoulders, laying a trail of kisses up my neck to my jaw. Teeth scraping over the delicate skin, he suckled a kiss at the pulse point under my ear, drawing a whimper from me. "Bed, Janey-girl. I'm not taking you against the wall."

I didn't care where we did it, as long as we fucked soon. But Zach had other ideas, ones I soon learned.

My first clue was when he set me on my feet next to the bed and gathered me in his arms, his mouth finding mine sweetly, tenderly. Oh. I melted, softening against him. This wasn't going to be sweat and speed and lust. This would be classic Zach, who kept me on edge until I begged him to let me tumble over. No one had quite measured up in the sensual torment department. He was in a league of his own, and I shivered in anticipation. Because when the man set out to break me down into a quivering mess, he didn't stop until he'd succeeded.

He fitted his mouth to mine, making those minute adjustments that would bring the most pleasure. Lips firming and softening, tongues gliding together, easing apart long enough to place tiny kisses at the corners of my mouth or suck my lower lip to fullness. His hands were restless, roaming over my back, and I threaded my fingers through his hair. I could spend hours kissing him. Kiss him until my lips were swollen and numb, until I was so blind with need it would take a single flick of his finger over my clit to send me into orbit. 

His scent drifted under my nose as I nibbled and licked my way along his jaw. He shuddered when I caught his earlobe with my teeth, fingers flexing on my back. He grasped the hem of my sleep shirt and drew it up, then nudged me onto the bed. 

Memories bombarded me, his mouth on my skin, his fingers dancing over ticklish spots, stroking and teasing and gliding. He trailed his mouth down my sternum, blowing on the damp flesh. I lay there quivering, wondering where he'd go next. Tits? Pussy?

Nope. Back to my mouth. I should have figured.

I wrapped myself around him, mostly naked to his fully clothed, and rocked my needy pussy on the hard muscle of his thigh. "No cheating," he murmured against my lips, and shifted away. I didn't grumble for long; he pulled his shirt off and shifted onto his back, holding out his arms for me. I took the opportunity to divest him of his belt before I straddled him. 

God, I'd missed this. The slow climb toward oblivion, where I was so mindless with pleasure and Zach and greed that I forgot the world existed. I'd forgotten how his hands couldn't decide which part to touch first, so he'd skip around, plucking my nipples, follow the line of my back, slip and slide through my soaked folds. 

He worked his fingers under the elastic of my panties, but I scooted back before he could get too far. I grinned. "My turn."

I undid the fly of his jeans, and he lifted his hips as I tugged everything down, his cock springing free of its cotton prison. Like him, I'd picked up a few new tricks in the intervening years, and I couldn't wait to try them out. 

I dragged my tongue up his length, popping the head in my mouth and sucking. That earned me a groan. I licked all around his shaft, getting it good and wet, then fisted the base. I wasn't going to finish him off. Not this way. Just show him I wasn't going to take his torture lying down. 

I licked and pumped and placed wet kisses all over his dick, never taking the full length in my mouth, tickling his frenulum with my tongue. When his hips began to jerk in earnest, I slipped a hand behind his balls and pressed down, swirling my tongue around the head.

"Jesus." His hips shot up, and his hands latched onto my hair, pulling me off his cock. "Enough. Sit on my face. Now."

I shed my panties and crawled up to straddle him. For once, he didn't tease. He dove right in, literally. He thrust his tongue into my sopping pussy and strummed my swollen clit with his thumb, and the first warning spasm weakened my legs. I went down on my hands, and he did it again. Another spasm, harder this time, tension building to that fantastic explosion. 

He groaned. "Fuck, Jane. C'mon. You're close, aren't you?" He switched tactics, sealing his lips around my clit and sucking, two fingers plunging into my greedy cunt and twisting. Another long pull, fingers scissoring and curling, and I came hard, stifling my cries with the bedspread.

He coaxed me down with soft licks and sweet kisses on the insides of my thighs, and I found the strength to move backward. Trapping his cock between his belly and my cunt, I rested my head at the crook of his neck, needing another moment. He rocked his hips, dick sliding along my slit, the head bumping my clit on every thrust, sending more shocks through me.

"Need something?" I mumbled.

"You," he breathed. "Always you."

I lifted my hips and took him inside, moaning long and low as his thick length slid into me. Sitting up, I rocked forward, and he hissed. 

He let me set the pace. He didn't try to urge me into a faster rhythm, didn't try to take control. He sat up and wrapped me in his arms. In this position, neither of us could move much. I didn't care. I squeezed him with my inner muscles, smiling when he groaned. Mouths meeting in a languid, molten kiss, we rocked each other higher, higher, that delicious ache building with each passing second.

I was dying. I was being pulled apart at the seams, each aborted thrust of his cock ratcheting the tension higher. One quick rub of my clit, and I'd break. He fastened his mouth on the base of my throat and I squeezed hard.

I started to shake. Everything went supernova, and I clamped down on him hard, dimly aware of his strangled shout. Pulse after pulse spread through me, stealing the strength from my muscles. 

He fell backward, still clasping me to him, and we panted for air. That was some potent sex, the pleasure and the closeness and the driving need to take and give and spur each other on. Any more orgasms like those, and I'd be ruined for any other man.

"I think I love you," I murmured. I'd said those exact words to him once before, ten years ago, the first time we'd had sex.

He chuckled. "I think I love you, too."

Eventually we disentangled ourselves and shuffled into the bathroom to clean up. Need reared up as we soaped each other, suds dripping everywhere as he picked me up and braced me against the cool tile. This one was fast and brutal, his hands bruising my hips, his cock pistoning in and out. The orgasm was sharp enough to hurt, one bright, keen burst as he thrust into me and held himself still, shaking with the force of his release.

We dried off and shuffled out of the bathroom. He stopped me before I could make my way to the dresser for clean clothes, kissing me hungrily. "Stay naked," he murmured. "Makes it easier to have sex all day."

My heart stuttered. That was entirely too close to a sex marathon. I'd had a few of those with Logan, and only one had gone well, when he'd decided to give dating a shot. The others? I moved out and he moved away, respectively. 

Logan had faded to a warm, fuzzy memory, one tinged with regret. But the idea of doing what I'd done with him with someone else, even if that someone was Zach? I wasn't ready for that. I might never be.

I nuzzled his jaw, trying to find a way to turn him down. There wasn't an easy way to do it, not without prompting questions. "Actually, I thought maybe we could watch a movie or something." It would require a minimum of clothing, since I didn't exactly go around sitting naked on my furniture.

He drew back, a slight frown on his face. I had to laugh. "Oh, come on. You're not going to pout on me because I'm saying no sex, are you?"

"No," he grumbled, and I kissed his scowl away.

"Put yer clothes on, buddy. We've got a movie to watch." A movie or two might undo the hitch in my stride.

But I was entitled, wasn't I, to hang on to a few holdovers? Hadn't Zach intruded on my thoughts often enough when I was with Logan? It was only fair he get the same courtesy.

We curled up on the couch and snorted and laughed our way through Sharknado, and Zach talked me into taking off my clothes again. Sinking down onto his cock, gasping as he tweaked my nipples, my whimpers growing louder with each thrust. I imploded on a low, keening moan, Zach bruising my hips as he ground into me.

We stumbled for the bedroom and wound around each other, drifting off to sleep, waking a few hours later. But this time, there was no rush. We talked. We stroked and teased but mostly we just were, remembering everything that had been amazing between us, dancing around the aching bitterness of the last few years.

The first time he'd kissed me after four years away.

How certain I'd been that I didn't want him anymore since my body wasn't begging his for release.

The worst one of all, when he'd kissed me at Drea's birthday party...and I didn't have any desire to kiss him back.

How had I gotten past that? Was I supremely stupid, going back to a man who had all but stalked me?

"I know that look." He tucked a stray curl behind my ear. "What's going on?"

"Thinking of Drea's party," I admitted.

He stilled, then rolled away, leaving me cool. He folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "I wondered about that, too."

We'd been over it. He didn't have much of an explanation other than he was crazy for me. Given his behavior, it was a perfectly acceptable one. I didn't need more. I guess I just needed more time to process how I'd put something that had scared and offended me so much behind me.

"How could you forgive me for something like that? I knew you were with Logan. Fuck, I hated seeing how happy he made you."

I propped my head up on my hand. "Honestly? I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe because you finally realized you pushed it too far and backed off? Maybe because I'm just as crazy as you, only I didn't know it then?"

He reached out and pulled me to him, and I settled my head on his shoulder. "You're going to leave me, aren't you." The quiet statement, full of certainty and sadness, stunned me. 

I had no plans to leave Zach. Not now, that my head and my heart and my body were finally aligned. Not now that I'd moved past the pain he'd caused me and gotten to know him, fallen in love with him all over again.

But.

Zach wanted more kids. He'd said so. While Dylan was turning out to be a pretty neat little boy, I was glad he wasn't my responsibility. My heart sank, going down, down, down, until it reached my feet. I still couldn't see myself having kids. 

"It's okay," Zach whispered. "Whatever I can get with you, Janey-girl, I'll take, even though I know I'll have to let you go again."

His declaration broke me, and instead of engaging in a round of sweaty, intense denial sex, we climbed out of bed, pulled on our clothes, and went and made dinner. Then we had intense denial sex. So intense he knocked me out.

He plunged two fingers inside, and everything changed, from slow and sweet and mostly dreaming to the keen edge of need, hot and fierce and slicing through the fog of sleep. Release was fast approaching, but I was so empty, my sex clenching around his fingers. When the first wave hit, he rose up and thrust forward, shoving his way into my body.

The move was unexpected and pushed me higher. He held still as I rode out my orgasm, his face buried in my neck. As the last of the aftershocks rippled outward, he began to move. Braced on his forearms, his hips rocking against mine, the thrusts were shallow and drawn out, giving me time to come down and rejoin him on Earth.

When I nudged my hips against his, he picked up the pace, pumping steadily, rubbing my clit with his pubic bone on every stroke. He dipped his head and took my mouth, kissing me like he needed it to survive.

And maybe he did.

Tongues stroking and seeking, bodies undulating against each other, the dark faded and so did the rest of the world. It was just me and Zach and my bed, no pasts, no futures. Just now. Fucking like we'd never get another chance.

No.

Making love.

This was more than sex. It had always been that way, even in the beginning. How he'd made me wait for it when our hormones could have gotten the better of us, all those years ago. How it had always been about more than a physical act. It was a connection, one that snapped into place the moment he thrust inside for the first time. The intervening years hadn't changed that. And if after all we'd gone through, together and apart, hadn't broken it, nothing would.

Desperate for him to feel it, I tightened my hold, squeezed him with my inner muscles, begging him to fall with me. As the tension coiled to the breaking point, his thrusts sped up, turning erratic as I fell apart around him. His long, low groan was muffled by my skin as he dropped his head to the crook of my neck, his hips losing their rhythm.

That was it. I was done for. If he didn't feel it, too, I was fucked, and not in a pleasant way. I sought his mouth, holding his head as I kissed him.

He broke the kiss and brushed my hair from my forehead. "I know, Janey-girl," he whispered. "I know."

And there was no need for words.

#

It was disconcerting, seeing Zach's face in miniature, only with blond hair. Dylan bounced around the playground, trying to climb up the slide like the other kids, racing after a little girl in pigtails as she wound through the swings.

This was our second meeting. Zach had invited me over for dinner two weeks ago, on a Saturday. It hadn't gone well, but it hadn't gone badly, either. Mostly Dylan just stared at me and chewed. 

If I had to pick a word to describe the meal, it would be awkward. I mean, what the fuck did I know about five year olds? What were they interested in? Did Amy let him watch TV, or was she a TV nazi like my parents had been? So I mostly sat there and ate my dinner. 

Zach slid an arm around my waist, and I startled, brought back to the present. It was gorgeous out, the sky a sharp blue, the air cool enough for a jacket and the cup of cider my hands were clamped around.

"I'm sorry. I totally suck at this," I admitted.

He stole my cup and took a sip. "Suck at what?"

I waved a hand toward the kids racing around the play structures. "Kids. Talking to them. Engaging with them. Just...kids in general. What do you talk about?"

"Sesame Street," he said wryly. "Kids still love Sesame Street. Especially Oscar." He handed the cup back. "Would it make you feel better if I told you I don't know what I'm doing most of the time?"

"No." But I cuddled in a little closer. "I guess I've forgotten what it's like to have an imagination. Books lay out the designs for me, sorta, and all I have to do is follow the lines. Kids, young kids who can't escape into books yet because they don't have the skills? What do they do all day? How do you keep from getting frustrated when all he wants to do is play with his trucks?"

"He hasn't wanted to do that for at least a year." I groaned and nudged him with my elbow. "Seriously? I don't really know. Amy, as much as she loves Dylan, looks forward to the weekends when she can drop him off at my place. It's frustrating to have to spend so much of your time entertaining this little person because they're either too young to look after themselves or they'll annoy the shit out of you if you're not paying attention to them."

A snort of surprised laughter escaped. Zach certainly didn't sound like he wanted more kids. In fact, he'd just given a pretty good argument for not having more kids. I turned into him. "So why have them at all?"

He glanced over at the screaming horde of children. "Because watching them learn new things, getting to experience that with them, having this little person love you with all the fierceness that only a kid can, is probably the coolest feeling in the world."

Dylan ran over and skidded to a stop. "Dad! Come push me on the swing!"

Zach glanced at me, one side of his mouth quirked up. "How about Jane? She's really good at it."

Dylan squinted at me. "Really? Is she better than Mom?"

What was I supposed to say to that? I handed my cup of cider over to Zach before I crushed it. "No, because moms are always the best swing pushers. But I bet I'm better than your dad."

The kid actually crossed his arms over his chest. "Prove it."

With an encouraging nod from Zach, Dylan and I headed over to the swings, and he climbed onto an empty one. "Hold on tight." His little hands gripped the chains, and I pulled him back and let go.

I started him out slow, darting glances at Zach to try and figure out how high I could push him. When he didn't rush over to stop me, I started pushing him harder. He swung higher, and higher, until I had to back up so I wouldn't get kicked in the head. He yelled, and I reached up to tap his lower back to slow him down.

It was a gradual descent, and finally I was able to catch the swing and bring him to a full stop. He jumped off and turned around, grinning. "That was cool!"

I held up a hand. "High five?"

Dylan smacked his hand against mine and ran off to the slide again. And damn if I wasn't grinning myself.

Zach wandered over. "I don't think he's ever gone that high."

I frowned, worry sneaking in. "Should I have gone slower?" Horror overtook the worry. "Shit. He could have fallen off. He could have broken something." Like his neck.

He laughed. The bastard actually laughed. "Sweetheart, he was fine. You couldn't see his face, but he was loving every second of it. I doubt Amy pushes him that high."

My frown deepened. I didn't want Dylan saying anything to his mom, because I didn't want her to rag on Zach for bringing me around her child. 

"Hey." He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger. "What is it?"

I blew out a breath. "Does Amy know Dylan's met me?"

He dropped his hand. "Yeah. I told her before you came over for dinner."

His expression cooled, and he turned to look out over the playground. Hands tucked in his pockets, shoulders set, I knew everything I needed to know. Still, confirmation was always good. "It didn't go well."

He laughed again, though the sound was harsh. "Understatement. I won't repeat what she called you, but no, she doesn't want you spending time with Dylan."

Amy had him stuck. He wanted me, and he wanted his son, and he wanted to spend time with the two of us together. "Is she going to make it harder for you to see Dylan?"

"Legally? She can't. But she can do little things. Try to change the dates and times, bring him late, that sort of thing."

A gust of wind rushed past, sneaking cold fingers of air under my jacket, and I shivered. I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth and watched the kids bouncing all over the play equipment, grimacing when one of them started wailing.

We left the park shortly after that. Rather than stay for dinner, like I'd planned, I decided to go home, and Zach didn't try to talk me out of it. Dylan actually said goodbye to me when I left. I figured that was progress.

Zach and I spent the next few days missing each other by inches. He'd call, and I'd miss it, or I'd text him and he wouldn't reply for hours. We made a half-hearted attempt to make plans for dinner on Thursday, and he cancelled that morning, citing a project at work.

Saturday morning, I was cleaning up my breakfast dishes when there was a knock on my door. Zach pushed his way in the moment I opened it, kicking the door shut behind him and pinned me to the wall, fingers tangled in my hair and his mouth a brand on mine.

"Fuck it," he rasped when we broke for air. "Now that I've got you again, the only people who get to screw this up is us. No one else."

I would have laughed, except he kissed me again, all heat and possession and desperation, the need and desire of it invading my blood. I wanted him over me, under me, surrounding me. 

He pulled at my robe with trembling hands, pushing it from my shoulders, laying a trail of kisses up my neck to my jaw. Teeth scraping over the delicate skin, he suckled a kiss at the pulse point under my ear, drawing a whimper from me. "Bed, Janey-girl. I'm not taking you against the wall."

I didn't care where we did it, as long as we fucked soon. But Zach had other ideas, ones I soon learned.

My first clue was when he set me on my feet next to the bed and gathered me in his arms, his mouth finding mine sweetly, tenderly. Oh. I melted, softening against him. This wasn't going to be sweat and speed and lust. This would be classic Zach, who kept me on edge until I begged him to let me tumble over. No one had quite measured up in the sensual torment department. He was in a league of his own, and I shivered in anticipation. Because when the man set out to break me down into a quivering mess, he didn't stop until he'd succeeded.

He fitted his mouth to mine, making those minute adjustments that would bring the most pleasure. Lips firming and softening, tongues gliding together, easing apart long enough to place tiny kisses at the corners of my mouth or suck my lower lip to fullness. His hands were restless, roaming over my back, and I threaded my fingers through his hair. I could spend hours kissing him. Kiss him until my lips were swollen and numb, until I was so blind with need it would take a single flick of his finger over my clit to send me into orbit. 

His scent drifted under my nose as I nibbled and licked my way along his jaw. He shuddered when I caught his earlobe with my teeth, fingers flexing on my back. He grasped the hem of my sleep shirt and drew it up, then nudged me onto the bed. 

Memories bombarded me, his mouth on my skin, his fingers dancing over ticklish spots, stroking and teasing and gliding. He trailed his mouth down my sternum, blowing on the damp flesh. I lay there quivering, wondering where he'd go next. Tits? Pussy?

Nope. Back to my mouth. I should have figured.

I wrapped myself around him, mostly naked to his fully clothed, and rocked my needy pussy on the hard muscle of his thigh. "No cheating," he murmured against my lips, and shifted away. I didn't grumble for long; he pulled his shirt off and shifted onto his back, holding out his arms for me. I took the opportunity to divest him of his belt before I straddled him. 

God, I'd missed this. The slow climb toward oblivion, where I was so mindless with pleasure and Zach and greed that I forgot the world existed. I'd forgotten how his hands couldn't decide which part to touch first, so he'd skip around, plucking my nipples, follow the line of my back, slip and slide through my soaked folds. 

He worked his fingers under the elastic of my panties, but I scooted back before he could get too far. I grinned. "My turn."

I undid the fly of his jeans, and he lifted his hips as I tugged everything down, his cock springing free of its cotton prison. Like him, I'd picked up a few new tricks in the intervening years, and I couldn't wait to try them out. 

I dragged my tongue up his length, popping the head in my mouth and sucking. That earned me a groan. I licked all around his shaft, getting it good and wet, then fisted the base. I wasn't going to finish him off. Not this way. Just show him I wasn't going to take his torture lying down. 

I licked and pumped and placed wet kisses all over his dick, never taking the full length in my mouth, tickling his frenulum with my tongue. When his hips began to jerk in earnest, I slipped a hand behind his balls and pressed down, swirling my tongue around the head.

"Jesus." His hips shot up, and his hands latched onto my hair, pulling me off his cock. "Enough. Sit on my face. Now."

I shed my panties and crawled up to straddle him. For once, he didn't tease. He dove right in, literally. He thrust his tongue into my sopping pussy and strummed my swollen clit with his thumb, and the first warning spasm weakened my legs. I went down on my hands, and he did it again. Another spasm, harder this time, tension building to that fantastic explosion. 

He groaned. "Fuck, Jane. C'mon. You're close, aren't you?" He switched tactics, sealing his lips around my clit and sucking, two fingers plunging into my greedy cunt and twisting. Another long pull, fingers scissoring and curling, and I came hard, stifling my cries with the bedspread.

He coaxed me down with soft licks and sweet kisses on the insides of my thighs, and I found the strength to move backward. Trapping his cock between his belly and my cunt, I rested my head at the crook of his neck, needing another moment. He rocked his hips, dick sliding along my slit, the head bumping my clit on every thrust, sending more shocks through me.

"Need something?" I mumbled.

"You," he breathed. "Always you."

I lifted my hips and took him inside, moaning long and low as his thick length slid into me. Sitting up, I rocked forward, and he hissed. 

He let me set the pace. He didn't try to urge me into a faster rhythm, didn't try to take control. He sat up and wrapped me in his arms. In this position, neither of us could move much. I didn't care. I squeezed him with my inner muscles, smiling when he groaned. Mouths meeting in a languid, molten kiss, we rocked each other higher, higher, that delicious ache building with each passing second.

I was dying. I was being pulled apart at the seams, each aborted thrust of his cock ratcheting the tension higher. One quick rub of my clit, and I'd break. He fastened his mouth on the base of my throat and I squeezed hard.

I started to shake. Everything went supernova, and I clamped down on him hard, dimly aware of his strangled shout. Pulse after pulse spread through me, stealing the strength from my muscles. 

He fell backward, still clasping me to him, and we panted for air. That was some potent sex, the pleasure and the closeness and the driving need to take and give and spur each other on. Any more orgasms like those, and I'd be ruined for any other man.

"I think I love you," I murmured. I'd said those exact words to him once before, ten years ago, the first time we'd had sex.

He chuckled. "I think I love you, too."

Eventually we disentangled ourselves and shuffled into the bathroom to clean up. Need reared up as we soaped each other, suds dripping everywhere as he picked me up and braced me against the cool tile. This one was fast and brutal, his hands bruising my hips, his cock pistoning in and out. The orgasm was sharp enough to hurt, one bright, keen burst as he thrust into me and held himself still, shaking with the force of his release.

We dried off and shuffled out of the bathroom. He stopped me before I could make my way to the dresser for clean clothes, kissing me hungrily. "Stay naked," he murmured. "Makes it easier to have sex all day."

My heart stuttered. That was entirely too close to a sex marathon. I'd had a few of those with Logan, and only one had gone well, when he'd decided to give dating a shot. The others? I moved out and he moved away, respectively. 

Logan had faded to a warm, fuzzy memory, one tinged with regret. But the idea of doing what I'd done with him with someone else, even if that someone was Zach? I wasn't ready for that. I might never be.

I nuzzled his jaw, trying to find a way to turn him down. There wasn't an easy way to do it, not without prompting questions. "Actually, I thought maybe we could watch a movie or something." It would require a minimum of clothing, since I didn't exactly go around sitting naked on my furniture.

He drew back, a slight frown on his face. I had to laugh. "Oh, come on. You're not going to pout on me because I'm saying no sex, are you?"

"No," he grumbled, and I kissed his scowl away.

"Put yer clothes on, buddy. We've got a movie to watch." A movie or two might undo the hitch in my stride.

But I was entitled, wasn't I, to hang on to a few holdovers? Hadn't Zach intruded on my thoughts often enough when I was with Logan? It was only fair he get the same courtesy.

We curled up on the couch and snorted and laughed our way through Sharknado, and Zach talked me into taking off my clothes again. Sinking down onto his cock, gasping as he tweaked my nipples, my whimpers growing louder with each thrust. I imploded on a low, keening moan, Zach bruising my hips as he ground into me.

We stumbled for the bedroom and wound around each other, drifting off to sleep, waking a few hours later. But this time, there was no rush. We talked. We stroked and teased but mostly we just were, remembering everything that had been amazing between us, dancing around the aching bitterness of the last few years.

The first time he'd kissed me after four years away.

How certain I'd been that I didn't want him anymore since my body wasn't begging his for release.

The worst one of all, when he'd kissed me at Drea's birthday party...and I didn't have any desire to kiss him back.

How had I gotten past that? Was I supremely stupid, going back to a man who had all but stalked me?

"I know that look." He tucked a stray curl behind my ear. "What's going on?"

"Thinking of Drea's party," I admitted.

He stilled, then rolled away, leaving me cool. He folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "I wondered about that, too."

We'd been over it. He didn't have much of an explanation other than he was crazy for me. Given his behavior, it was a perfectly acceptable one. I didn't need more. I guess I just needed more time to process how I'd put something that had scared and offended me so much behind me.

"How could you forgive me for something like that? I knew you were with Logan. Fuck, I hated seeing how happy he made you."

I propped my head up on my hand. "Honestly? I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe because you finally realized you pushed it too far and backed off? Maybe because I'm just as crazy as you, only I didn't know it then?"

He reached out and pulled me to him, and I settled my head on his shoulder. "You're going to leave me, aren't you." The quiet statement, full of certainty and sadness, stunned me. 

I had no plans to leave Zach. Not now, that my head and my heart and my body were finally aligned. Not now that I'd moved past the pain he'd caused me and gotten to know him, fallen in love with him all over again.

But.

Zach wanted more kids. He'd said so. While Dylan was turning out to be a pretty neat little boy, I was glad he wasn't my responsibility. My heart sank, going down, down, down, until it reached my feet. I still couldn't see myself having kids. 

"It's okay," Zach whispered. "Whatever I can get with you, Janey-girl, I'll take, even though I know I'll have to let you go again."

His declaration broke me, and instead of engaging in a round of sweaty, intense denial sex, we climbed out of bed, pulled on our clothes, and went and made dinner. Then we had intense denial sex. So intense he knocked me out.