Page 23 of Redeem

She stiffened, dropped her head, and I held my breath, waiting for her response. Then, after a long moment, she squeezed back. Then she quickly let my hand go. She met my eyes, her expression soft, almost serene. But she held her shoulders tight, and I thought she was holding her breath. I could see the emotions moving through her, saw how she tried to hide them.

My reaction was just as confused. I’d reached for her hand on instinct, but I was in completely uncharted water. The alternative, though, letting her leave, wasn’t an alternative at all.

“Dana,” I said.

She looked away, balled her hands into fists. Her message couldn’t have been more clear, but I wasn’t deterred.

“Dana,” I repeated.

She turned back to me, met my eyes.

“I…” I trailed off, but Dana didn’t look away. I had felt compelled to say something, but now, I didn’t know what to say.

Now wasn’t the time to tell her who I was, and I couldn’t tell her how I felt. It wouldn’t be fair, and it wouldn’t make sense. I couldn’t leave yet, either.

Dana wanted me. I wanted her. But that didn’t change what I needed to do. It complicated the fuck out of things, though.

I reached for her hand again, held her fist in my palm. “I don’t want to go. I want to help you,” I said.

The last had come out before I had thought, but now that I’d said the words, I knew how true they were.

I did want to help her, and at least in this, I could. If I stayed, did all I could to fix her house, give her the place she wanted, that would be something. It wouldn’t be enough, there would never be enough, but staying, helping, was something I could do. Something I needed to do.

The silence that filled the truck after I stopped speaking was excruciating.

Still, I held Dana’s hand in mine, so warm, so alive. But her expression gave nothing away, told me little of how she was responding. And so I waited, ignoring the desire that told me to push, that told me to demand some response.

It was hard, almost impossible, really, but I stayed, let her make her decision.

Her eyes had drifted up, and she followed a man as he walked across the parking lot and into one of the rooms. I kept my eyes on her.

She pulled her hand from mine again, and my heart dropped. I wanted to grab it back, but I didn’t. I didn’t move mine either. I stayed exactly where I was, my hand resting against her thigh.

Dana pressed her full lips together into a thin line, the move giving away her nerves, the emotion that she was still trying to hide.

She sighed, then tilted her head to the side.

When I’d met her the first time she had been so closed off, had shown so little of herself, but I could see so much now. What I saw gave me hope that there might be a chance. Still, the seconds ticking by were brutal, each feeling longer than the one that had come before it.

Of its own volition, my mind went back to that near kiss, the breathless moments before it. The charged intensity of Dana’s lips almost touching mine.

Her surprise, hurt, when I had moved away.

In that moment, the near kiss had seemed more than what it was, but now, though I knew I shouldn’t, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. I didn’t doubt Dana’s attraction to me, but I knew it didn’t necessarily mean anything more.

There had never been a shortage of women who wanted to fuck me, and I’d had no problem giving them what they wanted. But the act had been meaningless, a simple physical action that had no more value than a cough or sneeze.

It was beyond selfish, but I didn’t want that to be true with Dana. No matter what, I couldn’t act on that desire, mine or hers. Still, though I couldn’t act, I wanted her feelings and desire for me to be real and not just a way to pass the time. Selfish, but that was what I wanted.

The way she looked now, her face thoughtful, considering, gave me hope that that wasn’t the case.

Some part of me marveled at the weight that I put on something as small as a sigh. For years, I had lived without anything resembling an emotion. Afterward, I had been singularly focused on one thing. But now, in this moment, I felt so many emotions that I didn’t know what to do with them.

I hadn’t anticipated this, reacting as strongly to her as I had, feeling anything but the satisfaction of knowing I had done what I had set out to do. But this was so much more than that. So much more meaningful.

The woman I’d found was not what I had been expecting, not what I had prepared for, and I didn’t want to leave her now, not before I helped her.

Except, I had no choice in the matter. This was completely up to Dana, and I had no guarantee that what she wanted involved me.