Except for seeing her pain. Everything he’d ever dealt with paled in comparison to that.
“I was supposed to be a drunken abuser like him. A cheater without morals. My mother would take a belt to me, sayingif she didn’t, I’d be just like him, but it didn’t matter. Every day, she reminded me that I looked like him, sounded like him...” God, there’d been times when he’d hated her so much.
“Kam.” Glory reached for him, but then he saw her tense up.
“Shh. Just be still.” Taking her right hand, he laced his fingers with hers and rested their locked hands on her lap. Needing to be closer, he leaned in and nuzzled her cheek. Glory smelled so sweet, like a woman. Likehiswoman. Her pale hair, hanging loose, felt soft and cool against his cheek.
“Dad encouraged me to hit her back. Sometimes he’d pound on me, saying it was to toughen me up, to teach me to fight. I never understood why the two of them took out their bullshit on me instead of each other. I mean, Dad hit Mom sometimes, and she’d throw things at him, but it never felt the same.”
“You’re nothing like them.”
That fierce declaration put another smile on his mouth. “No, I’m not, but for the longest time, even recently, I’ve worried about it. Even though they are dead, I want to prove to them—”
“And to yourself?”
“That I am different. Better.” Being the bighearted person she was, he knew Glory understood.
“You are.” Her hand tightened on his. “I want to hug you so tight right now.”
“You can in a month or so.” He thought about that, then decided to test her. “We have the rest of our lives, right?”
“Do we?”
Not the answer he wanted, so he gave one of his own. “Yes.” He was sure of it.
“But your plans?”
Easy enough to explain that. “I didn’t realize it at first, but everything changed when I met you.”
“You didn’t even like me when you met me. You made that clear enough.”
“I didn’t know you. I thought you were lazy and stuck up.” Leaning back to see her, he caught her dejection. “Don’t look like that. I didn’t understand at first, but it didn’t take me long to start wondering at my own misconceptions.”
“Great. How long did you have that awful opinion of me?”
Actually, it had taken a long time before he started to really understand her. Skipping her question, he said, “You want to know the dicked-up part?”
“It’s all... dicked.” The word tripped off her tongue in a funny way. “So sure, feel free. No reason to spare me now.”
By being herself, she amused him. Turned him on. Made him feel things he’d never felt for a woman. “Even when I didn’t particularly like you, I couldn’t help wanting you, and I couldn’t stop watching you.”
Skepticism arched her brows.
“It’s true. I’d see you, think you were being snooty, and I wanted to strip you naked and kiss you all over.”
“Ha! You are such a paradox.”
“I’m as clear as water.”
Her disagreeing sidelong look was sharp enough to pierce. “Sure. Muddy water in a pond, maybe.” After a second, she added, “A pond fed by a murky river, so it’s always changing.”
Kissing her was as essential as breathing so he leaned in to take her mouth in a soft damp claiming of lips and tongue. Irked as she might be, Glory took part. She even gave him a low moan for his efforts.
Now that they both labored for air, he was able to tease again. “If I’m sometimes unclear, it’s your fault. I was fine, intent on my agenda, then bam! This hot chick—you—arrived and changed everything. I thought I did a fair job of resisting, but at the wedding, I couldn’t stop tracking you inthat sexy one-strap dress. Lethal—that’s what it was. At least to my piece of mind.”
“The strap was designed to hide my scar.”
He hadn’t realized that at the time and knowing it now was like a kick to his conscience. “All anyone saw was a gorgeous woman, constantly on the go, making it all work.”
