Page 24 of The Finish Line
But she doesn’t, and it’s all I can do to keep from jumping over the counter.
“You did all that?” Billy asks, his frown deep-set.
I nod. “I did.”
“You’re not even going to defend yourself?”
“No,” I reply as she lifts her eyes to mine. “It’s all true.”
“Well, then, do you have one reason why she should take you back?” Marissa is standing a foot behind me, and I can feel the rest of the sparsely-filled café leaning in on bated breath.
Small fucking towns.
Cecelia collects a tub of dirty dishes when I finally speak up in a shitty defense. “I stopped lying yesterday.” I barely get it out before she passes through the double doors.
Chapter Six
Tobias
Not long after Billy leaves, she immerses herself back into cleaning and making small talk with her customers. I lay low, hoping the rest of the shift will pass without incident or another public inquisition. The more I try to concentrate on the task of tying up a few loose ends for Exodus, the more I’m distracted by her presence mere feet away.
It’s the ache of wanting her. It’s the need to erase the distance, not just physically but emotionally. But on the physical side, I’m tamping down a thirst that’s been constant since the first time I thrust inside her.
Cecelia has always been beautiful. Her face a mix of innocence and incomparable natural beauty. She measures above the average woman in that respect. Still, it’s also in the way she carries herself with confidence, the way she beams when she smiles, the carefully conveyed words that come out of her mouth that express her warmth, empathy, and intelligence. In appearance, I still see some of her lingering youth, her curiosity for the world around her. She’s forever a student, and I find that appealing. Where some women seem to be convinced that they’re experts on everything after a certain age, she’s always searching for ways to understand the world around her, to both learn and grow.
It’s clear within just a few hours of being here that she has the respect and admiration of her employees and her frequent customers.
She’s impossible not to love.
And the more she matures, the more she’s become that woman, the unavoidable and irresistible woman who deserves every bit of admiration she gets.
Men have been falling for her since well before I met her.
She’s never used her sex appeal as a weapon or fully wielded its power. If she were ever to harness that, she’d be a black widow—sort of fucking lethal.
And I’d be a dead man.
I’ve barely been able to tear my eyes from her today after denying myself for so long. I’ve never known another’s body as intimately, nor mapped it as intricately as I have hers.
Instinctively, I still know it.
But she doesn’t see herself the way men do—the way predators do. Especially because for a majority of her life, she felt like she was undeserving of love. I fed into that ridiculous notion when I was at my weakest to keep us from eating each other alive, but I fucked up royally in doing so.
I refused her heart when she begged me to retrieve it, revive it.
Jealousy isn’t something I’m used to dealing with. Women have come and gone with me; my mission always taking precedence. Yet, this one woman has made it impossible to ignore that inside me lurks a heart in need of what only she can give it.
It wasn’t until the day I witnessed how they loved her, the way Sean and Dom loved her, that I became acquainted with that type of bone-deep jealousy. And in feeling that, I lost control.
Briefly, I close my eyes and shut my laptop.
I signed up for hard.
I came ready for hard, to face and deal with the impossible, but it’s the guilt that makes it the hardest.
It’s the tension that’s killing me right now. Her hesitation to even look at me.
I recall some of yesterday’s conversation in the parking lot. Fuck being okay with whatever ending we get. That’s not good enough. I want her happy. I want our ending happy. That’s what I decide as I watch her interact with the people in her café. I want her smiling about thoughts of us before she ever greets a stranger.