Read Online Pulled Within by Marni Mann - Free Book Online Page B

the only one feeling that way. For someone who had left me so easily before, he seemed to be having difficulty doing it this time.
    I didn’t understand it. But I guess I didn’t have to.
    I reached around him and grabbed the two trash bags, leaving the suitcase for him to roll. “I have to go, Hart.”
    “Have to…or want to?”
    Instead of answering him, I turned around and began walking. I placed the bags inside my trunk and held it open so he could do the same. I avoided his gaze as I moved to the side and unlocked the driver’s door. I could feel him behind me — the heat of his silvery eyes as they examined my legs, my ass, the outline of my torso that could be seen through my jacket.
    When I tried to duck inside the car, he blocked me.
    “Look at me, Rae.”
    My lids closed and I took a deep breath. As calmly as I could, I turned. When I opened my eyes again, my vision was drawn to the spot where his jawline protruded as it met his cheekbones and angled up to his forehead. I remembered how my hands had once fit so perfectly there. I remembered too that after he was gone, my fingers still craved the feel of his skin.
    It hurt to see him.
    “What do you want from me, Hart?” I blurted out.
    “I don’t want you to leave. Just give me a few more minutes.”
    I wasn’t holding back the pain or the anger anymore. “And what will you do with those minutes that will make any difference at this point?”
    He moved closer, so I backed up. The frame of the door pressed into me…and his fingers, at the spot where we both held the window. “I won’t be able to take it back,” he admitted. “None of it. I know that. And you won’t understand why I did it, but at least hear me out.”
    I didn’t know if I wanted to hear any of it—especially today. Still, whether or not I wanted to, it felt like something he needed to say. In return for helping me, I’d give that to him. But nothing else.
    “Okay. Tell me.”
    He scanned my eyes, his irises sliding back and forth . I had to force my body not to sway in the same rhythm. “I didn’t want to go. My parents and coaches were telling me to leave because it was the best thing for my future.” He sighed, a breath that sounded painful for him. “I believed them; that’s what kids do. But I didn’t want to leave everything I knew, everyone who mattered to me: you.” His arms blocked me in. Every time he shifted, another gust of his scent filled me. He was cedar and musk, blending with the tangy smell of his skin. It only added to the other triggers that caused lightning flashes in my stomach. “When I tried to have a voice, they overpowered me. According to them, I didn’t know what was best for me.” There was a change in his tone, an underlying anger. I felt it, and felt for him because of it. “So they packed up my stuff and they sent me to a place where I could be a star. And it worked…until the injury happened in college.”
    He held my gaze as I tried to find the answer somewhere in there. The answer I’d been waiting to hear all these years. I couldn’t see anything but myself staring back. “I haven’t heard it yet.”
    “Heard what?”
    I took a gulp of the cold air and held it in my lungs. “The reason you didn’t say good-bye.”
    His fingers tightened on the window. They weren’t squeezing me, but I could sense their strength just the same. “If my parents had given me the opportunity, I wouldn’t have left at all. They knew that. I don’t blame them for waking me up in the middle of the night, packing my clothes into the car and driving me away. That was smart. Had they given me even a little space, I wouldn’t have gone.”
    I hadn’t wanted to hear anything he had to say, and now suddenly I was addicted to his answers. But that one wasn’t good enough.
    “Do they not have phones in prep school?”
    His body hadn’t moved, but somehow it felt as if he was even closer now. “You’re right. I should have called. But it was hard