Read Online Letting Go by Maya Banks - Free Book Online

certain.
    “I won’t take long,” she said huskily. “I just need time to think. This is a lot. I mean I had no idea, Dash. Today was going to be me letting go. Not only of Carson, but of you as well. I felt like I’d been a burden to you for far too long and that it was time for me to stop leaning on you. Time to let you get on with your life. I can’t imagine you’ve had any long-term relationships. Most women wouldn’t appreciate you dropping everything to comfort your best friend’s widow. I thought I was doing you—and myself—a favor by picking up the pieces and standing on my own two feet. And now you want that even more. I can’t wrap my head around it, and as I said, I don’t want to make a snap decision that we’ll both regret. I care about you, Dash. Very much so. I don’t think I’ve ever properly thanked you for all you’ve done for me.”
    “I don’t want your thanks, Joss. I want you. Simple. Just you. And your submission. But as I said, if it turns out that this isn’t what you want, then it doesn’t have to be that way between us. I’d sacrifice a hell of a lot to have you any way I can have you.”
    Sorrow filled her eyes. “I don’t want that for you, Dash. I don’t want you to change for me. I don’t want you to be someone you aren’t. That’s as bad as if I’d expected—demanded—something from Carson I knew he wasn’t willing or able to give. I would have never asked him for that. So I can’t ask you to deny who you are for me.”
    He pulled her forward into his arms, his lips finding hers, silencing her. She melted so sweetly into his body that it was all he could do not to sweep her into his arms and carry her to his bed. But he’d waited this long. He’d wait for as long as it took for her to be ready.
    “How about you let me decide the sacrifices I make. Didn’t you make sacrifices for Carson? That’s what love is, honey. You wanted and needed something he couldn’t give you, but it didn’t make you love him any less.”
    She went still against him and then nestled even farther into his embrace, tucking her head underneath his chin. God, they fit. Like two puzzle pieces. He wrapped both arms around her, anchoring her there, simply enjoying the feel of her in his arms in a way he’d never been able to enjoy before. Because now she knew where he stood, and she was allowing it. She damn well knew he was holding and touching her not out of friendship, but as a man who very much wanted her heart and soul.
    “Now about that promise?”
    She slowly drew away and looked him in the eye. “I promise, Dash. Just give me a little time to sort through all of this. It’s been a difficult day for me, and everything I thought was going to be, didn’t turn out the way I expected at all. I need to process this.”
    He nodded and started to speak, but she continued on in a rush.
    “I don’t want to use you, Dash. And maybe I was okay with using a stranger. Someone who didn’t mean anything to me. But I won’t use you. Not you. I won’t use you as a crutch or some experiment. You mean too much to me. Your friendship means too much to me.”
    He smiled and tenderly stroked a piece of hair from her cheek to behind her ear. “But honey, I don’t mind if you use me. As long as the end result is having you. I’ve used all manner of women over the past few years. I’m not proud of that fact, but it is what it is. They were all a poor substitute for what I couldn’t have at the time. You.”
    “You pretended they were me?” she whispered in an astonished tone.
    He nodded. “Again, I’m not proud of it. But there it is. I couldn’t have you, so I slaked my hunger and desire for you with other women. And maybe it changes the way you’ll look at me. It’s a chance I have to take. But I won’t lie to you. There have certainly been other women. I thought I was in a position to never have what I most wanted, so I dealt with it.”
    “I don’t fault you for being with