She laid her head against his upper arm and finally let her red-rimmed, weary eyes meet his. “Today’s your lucky day, Dean. Want another super-special double-bonus secret?”
“Always.”
Whatever she’d give him, he’d take. Because this was what trust—enough to undergird their future, enough to either keep her in Harlot’s Bay or bring her back here—looked like. Had to be. Right?
When he smoothed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, she tried to smile at him. “That summer after high school, I cut things off with you because I thought you had a girlfriend and were looking to cheat on her with me.”
He sighed. “You thought I was a two-timing asshole. Like your father.”
That was the part he hadn’t understood before. The missing piece of Dearborn’s confusing-as-hell puzzle.
“I also thought I was feeling far too much for a guy who’d already committed to someone else.” She tapped his chest, right over his stupid besotted heart. “And yeah, that reminded me of my dad. Which is why cutting you off was such a knee-jerk reaction and why I couldn’t bring myself to ask for the truth.” She hesitated. “I wasn’t sure I could bear to hear it, Karl. Not then.”
He’d known she was attracted to him back in high school. Hadn’t realized her feelings had run deep enough, even then, to scare her. Just like his own emotions had terrified him.
He pressed a fierce kiss to her palm. “Understood.”
When she exhaled slowly, he cuddled her closer and rubbed her back some more. After a minute, her breathing slowed, her arms looped around his chest, and she looked more asleep than awake. But her lips were still pressed thin. Still downturned.
Finally, he shifted beneath her. “Any other secrets to share?”
“No.” She snorted faintly. “Thank heavens.”
“Hurt to talk about all this shit?”
Another faint sigh. “Yes.”
“Help if I make you come?”
She straightened in his lap, suddenly looking way less tired. “Obviously.”
Gently, he tumbled her to the side, onto the sofa cushions. By the time she regained her equilibrium, he was already tugging off her boy shorts, pushing her knees apart, and kneeling between them on the floor.
She gazed down at him, eyes bright, lips tipped in a pleasedsmile. “If I’d known talking about my quasi-bigamous father would earn me head, I’d have confessed twenty years ago.”
“Wasn’t as good at this back then.”
Enthusiasm, he’d had. Experience? Not a whole hell of a lot.
Her hand flicked, a graceful gesture he could’ve watched a million times over. “I’d have taught you what felt good for me.”
“Yeah.” He lifted that strong hand. Placed it on his head, a silent demand for guidance. “You can teach me now too.”
Her fingers slowly curled into a fist, and his dick twitched at the tug on his scalp. “It would be my pleasure.”
Yeah. It would.
He’d make damn sure of that.
21
“That twist toward the end?” Karl sat back in his kitchen chair, shaking his head. “Fucking bananas.”
Molly dabbed at her mouth with a paper towel. “You should’ve known Sadie Brazen wouldn’t dabble in dubcon, Dean. There was no way on this green Earth she’d give a happy ending to a kickboxer-kangaroo shifter who’d just shoved a human woman into his pouch and hopped off without her permission.”
He threw his hands in the air, outraged. “How the hell was I supposed to know Riley and Jack were married already? And that they were re-creating key scenes from the shitty-ass movie they watched on their first date together to cure her amnesia from being kicked in the damn head by the asshole wallaby-shifter crime boss determined to force Jack to bend the knee to him?”
“The clues were all there if you paid attention.” Her expression turned infuriatingly lofty. “Which you clearly didn’t.”
