Page 51 of Fallen Crown

He stands up and goes to the bed to sprawl across it again on his stomach. “That’s not it, Tucker. They all have lives with other people now.”

I leave the rest of the scones on the coffee table to stand at the edge of the bed. I fight the urge to crawl in beside him. “Doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten you.”

He rolls onto his side, and he holds out his hand to me. Butterflies take flight in my stomach, and even though I shouldn’t, I give him my hand. He tugs me onto the bed beside him, so he’s half beside me, half above me. With his fingertips, he tucks my loose strands of hair behind my ears.

“I’ve always had lots of people around me. Friends, acquaintances, but I’ve never had a single person I wanted around more than any other.”

He spends a lot of time with Brent and Posey and even Nick. But I think I know what he’s saying, what he’s implying. It’s thrilling and terrifying.

“Never?” I whisper, and the air around us crackles. It would be so easy to do the wrong thing here because I’m convinced, at least in the moment, it would feel very right.

“Never.”

My heart pounds in my chest. With Enzo, I enjoyed how light and easy we were together. There was a lot of joy in our initial relationship. Nothing was ever hard between us, but with Brice, it feels like we’re earning every single inch that’s drawing us closer. The intensity between us causes me to squeeze his bicep, and I’m not sure if it’s a silent plea for more or less of whatever this is. Naked longing for something I shouldn’t desire.

“Tucker, can you tell Maren to stop overthinking it?” Brice whispers.

His comment is so unexpected, that it snaps the tension between us, and I let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry, that was silly. I thought you were saying…”

The words die on my lips because of the expression on his face, and I can’t get any more out. He was saying that.

“You need a twin,” he murmurs. “One who isn’t married.”

A flare of jealousy lights for someone who doesn’t even exist. “You probably wouldn’t have liked her either.”

“I didn’t know you. Just like you didn’t know me. Now, I think you might be my most favorite person in the whole world.”

Everything inside of me ignites, and I want to kiss him or climb him like a mountain or ride him until we both cry out in ecstasy. It’s been so long. That thought snaps me back into reality.

I’m a terrible person. Oh, God. What am I doing? I wiggle out from underneath him, and I rush toward the door to put on my shoes.

“I should go. It’s late, and—”

“Maren, wait,” Brice says. “I’ll stop teasing you or flirting with you or whatever. Okay? Just don’t go. It’s a gut instinct—I flirt with beautiful women. I can’t help myself. I’ll do an internet search right now for some sort of rehab program for shameless flirts.”

His explanation immediately deflates my panic, but it also causes my chest to ache. He didn’t mean any of that? For a moment, I’m not even sure what to say. I was contemplating cheating on my husband, and to him it was nothing.

Of course it was nothing. What was I expecting? He’s told me a million times he doesn’t do commitment or long-term relationships. He wants to have a baby with some anonymous woman so he can avoid being attached in that way. I’m not capable of being that woman, even if circumstances were different. We’d never work beyond whatever we are to each other now. Saying pretty things is a reflex for him, nothing to be taken seriously. His autocharm is switched on.

But he almost lured me out of my underwear, and I used to think I was so much better than that. I’ve become just another woman enticed by his charisma.

“Huh,” he says, and he holds up his phone. “Turns out when you type in ‘shameless flirt,’ I’m the first result. I mean, that has to be some kind of proof.”

Proof that I’m an idiot.

“Don’t go. Please. We can—we can sit in the chairs and talk about politics. Or religion. Or some other subject we’re bound to disagree on. Science, maybe? I’ll bore you to death with my unproven and unresearched hot takes on whatever you want to discuss.”

I’m tempted to tell him that if I stay, we have to talk about things that are real and meaningful, but after our last encounter, I don’t even know what that would look like. Maybe he’s not truly capable of either.

“Brice.”

“Maren.”

It annoys me that he’s used my name instead of calling me Tucker, as though I’m being unreasonable.

“Fine. But I am not getting on that bed again.”

“Noted. Nothing comfortable allowed.”