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CHAPTER FIVE
Doug sat, stunned.
What the hell? Pixie was lumping him in with all the lousy men she’d had the bad luck to attract over the years? He needed to put a stop to that, immediately.
“Pixie,” he began gruffly, not knowing exactly where his words would lead him. “Those guys were assholes. Never doubt that you are worthy in every way. I find you…interesting. Bright. Sincere. Hell, who wouldn’t? Those attributes are why I broke my cardinal rule regarding dating.”
“Which is what?” she asked slyly.
“Don’t ever do it,” he answered.
When she would have spoken, he held up a hand to stop her. If he didn’t divulge things right now, they weren’t going to see the light of day.
“I know I’m not a bad looking guy,” he continued, not vain in the least, but going on what ladies in bars were quick to tell him. “I’ve had a lot of very beautiful women angling for pick-ups because of my physique. But it hasn’t mattered.Looksshouldn’t matter. And those women? Other than pretty faces and bodies crammed into tight clothing to show off their assets? They’ve never done it for me. I haven’t been drawn in by their artifice.”
Pixie rolled her eyes, and Doug, inexplicably, found it damned cute.
“See there?” he pointed and actually grinned. “Fucking adorable.”
After squinching up her nose, Pixie responded. “So my arm, my plain looks, and my less-than-ample body weren’t the deal-breakers for you,” she concluded with a huff. “You took a shine to me because of my superior brain, and my…cuteness? Then what? You eventually found me…lacking?”
Doug groaned, sending a frustrated hand over his face. “That’s not even close to the truth. You are, by far, the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met.”
Pixie brushed an imaginary crumb off her shirt, took another bite and sat back primly, sighing. “You know what? I’m damned confused. You might want to start again.”
Shit, this was going to be difficult without bringing up his entire, sordid past. But he needed to spit something out so Pixie would stop questioning her own worth. “I don’t trust women. In general,” he clarified. “Even smart ones.”
“But wait,” she rebutted. “You work under my sister as your SWAT team’s LT, and you’re friends with her. Right?” Pixie looked rightfully confused.
“It’s…complicated; a work in progress,” Doug admitted. “At first, I wasn’t exactly a team player for the LT. I went off-script with ops, seeing how far I could push her. When I screwed up massively though, at your school, the big guns—”
“Mason,” Pixie supplied.
“Yup. Mason,” Doug agreed. “He wanted to can my ass but your sister went to bat for me when I should have been history. Since then, I’ve slowly come to see that she is a woman of her word. But trust? We’re still building that between us. I…actually think it’s working.” That revelation, as it left his lips, astounded him.Damn. It was the truth.
“That’s good,” Pixie nodded, but didn’t pry for more, which was why he’d found her easy to be with since the beginning. She didn’t demand answers, insist on any—even vaguely intimate—physical contact, or rush him when he needed to think things through in his own, plodding way.
Like right now. She was simply waiting, giving him time as he weighed his words; as he attempted to find the right balance between letting her know how fucked up he was, and revealing too much and scaring her away.
But… He wanted her away, didn’t he?
Yes. No. Gah!
This was so difficult. He was a grown ass man with no idea how a healthy relationship with a woman should proceed.Ifthat’s what he really wanted. And was it fair to Pixie to have her be the guinea pig?
Goddammit.I have to ask.
“I’ve never dated before. Never,” he finally spat out. “And I was trying to be kind, not a dick, stepping away from you. I didn’t want to involve you in what could be a cluster-fuck of epic proportions if I can’t find a way to navigate all the…requirements of a boyfriend. But instead of giving you the choice of trying to help me through my issues, I bailed. Which I can see now, wasn’t fair.”
Pixie’s face took on a puzzled, but tender look. One with which he was becoming familiar. She’d been gently trying to figure him out from the moment they’d met, and clearly still found him to be an enigma. Well, welcome to his fucked-up life. Doug didn’t know shit about himself, and that was after years of therapy with a damned competent doctor.
“You’ve…never dated,” she eventually stated, tentatively. “Because you don’t trust women.”
That was part of it, but he’d roll with her assumption, giving her a small glimpse of his past. “My parents divorced beforeI have any memory of them being together. My father almost single-handedly raised me from the time I was a toddler.”
Lest she think his dad, a loving, pillar of a man had anything to do with his mistrust of women, he finished that part of his discourse, quickly. “He died in a boating accident when I was ten, and I was—unfortunately—left solely to my mother’s…devices. She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, mother material. She was an artist, a bohemian, and a perpetual drug and alcohol user.”
“That’s so sad, Doug.” Pixie reached a hand across the table and laid it on top of his. He hadn’t noticed it was trembling until that moment.
