The Girl of Diamonds and Rust (The Half Shell Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

being with him so much harder.
    “You owe me nothing, Neil.”
    His eyes burn into me. “Then let me be here for you because I love you.”
    “Neil, please…”
    “I won’t pretend I don’t love you when I do.”
    He reaches up and wipes away a tear from my cheek with his finger, those callused fingers that touch with their own sweet type of velvet care.
    “I love you and I’m going to keep loving you even if it’s just only as your friend,” Neil whispers.
    The tears come harder; I can’t stop them. The sensation of Neil’s rough fingertips brushing my flesh floods my heart with the memory of Alan. When Neil touches me this way, it is Alan I think of and feel, and I don’t want to.
    Why can’t life be as kind as Neil is? Why can’t I love Neil the way I love Alan?
    I don’t pull back when Neil takes my body against him and wraps his arms around me. I know this is wrong, dishonest and unkind, but it feels so good to be held. Really, really good to let Neil hold me.
    ~~~
    I wake in the wrap of Neil’s limbs. My bedroom is filled with faint light, and it feels like early morning. I don’t know if I should stir and let Neil see that I’m awake. His breath teasing my ear has the shallowness of sleep, but I’m not sure if he is asleep. I can’t tell by the way his arms are holding me, and I can’t see his face.
    Somehow last night, we ended up in my bed together. I’m not exactly sure how it happened. It just happened.
    I shift my head and my hair falls across my face. Unfocused moments slip by. I know why it happened; last night Neil was exactly what I need from a guy right now. For hours he just sat with me on the couch, holding me, caressing me, saying nothing, not probing into my fucked-up life with a whole bunch of questions, and by the time we went to bed everything about my predicament felt a little less scary.
    It’s no big deal. It was a fuck. Nothing more. No harm, no foul to either of us.
    More snippets of the night come to me. The way Neil looked at me. The words he spoke. The expression in his eyes as he made love to me.
    Oh God, why did I let it happen? I try to console myself with the thought that it was just one of those things girls do when they are overwhelmed by their worries, when the guy they love will not love them, and there is a different guy, giving and wonderful, ready to be what you need him to be.
    I cringe. That’s a pitiful rationalization. Well, there’s no point in panicking over this now, it’s done, and I really don’t need another thing to feel badly about.
    I look down at Neil’s arms and try to figure out a way to slip out of bed without waking him. I need some alone time to get my emotions back in check. I’ve got to get the right amount of distance between us again.
    Jeez, I don’t even know if that’s possible after last night. The temptation to tell him everything was painfully strong, even before we went to bed together. But I can’t do it. I can’t dump my shit on him. It wouldn’t be right, not on any level.
    Having sex with Neil and waking with his flesh all around me reminds me that, as good as we are together, he is only almost everything I want and I won’t ever be in that place emotionally with Neil where he is everything that I want. Neil deserves that from a girl—for him to be everything that she wants—because he’s an amazing guy. I can’t give him that, and it would be wrong not to make that clear to him today.
    Why did I take him to bed and fuck him?
    I feel Neil move behind me, and then he starts kissing against the back of my neck and I tense. I can tell by how he is kissing me, touching me, that he is definitely in the mood for a repeat of last night.
    I untangle myself from his arms and turn onto my other side, facing him.
    Neil’s sleepy eyes hold me like an embrace as he reaches out to lightly touch my cheek. “Hi.”
    My heart leaps against my chest since he says a single word— hi —in a way that tells me this wasn’t just