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“Don’t forget to grovel,” he reminds me, assuming correctly that Tori is what suddenly has me so distracted.
“I won’t.” I hang up before he can say anything else, then watch as the door to my workshop swings open.
“Hey,” I say, walking over to the doorway where Tori is standing, looking a little pissed off and a lot uncertain. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” The words are hard and stilted. “And you can stop asking me that every time you see me. I’m not dying, you know. I’m just broke and suffering the consequences of my own stupidity.”
“You weren’t stupid,” I told her, gesturing for her to come in. “You just trusted the wrong guy.”
“Which makes me a clueless idiot.”
“It makes you human.” I put a hand on the small of her back, guide her farther into the room to where I have a couple of stools. Half of me is expecting her to tear my head—or my hand—off, so I keep my touch gentle as I escort her over to the closest thing I have to a seat.
She lets me—no snapping or clawing involved—and my radar goes on alert as I try to figure out what she’s up to. Either she’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security so she can go for my jugular the second I lower my guard, or she’s calmed down significantly since she stormed out of the foyer earlier. Considering I haven’t had a chance to apologize yet, I’m pretty sure it’s the former.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her as she settles onto one of the stools. “I shouldn’t have ordered all that without at least talking to you first. It bothers me to see you going without, especially when it’s something I can so easily provide. But I should have checked with you first, should have at least let you tell me how you felt about what I wanted to do.”
“You should have,” she agrees, nodding with all the regalness of a long-lost queen, even with her crazy multicolored hair. “But I’m sorry, too. You were just trying to help and I totally overreacted.”
An apology is the last thing I’m expecting from her—I’m prepared to prostrate myself, for God’s sake—and it throws me off my game. For long seconds I don’t say anything. Instead I just stand there staring at her, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, as I try to get with the new program. I’d planned on at least five more minutes of groveling before she even spoke to me.
I finally get it together enough to say, “The last thing I want is for you to feel like I expect anything just because I bought you a few things, because I don’t. Whatever happens—or doesn’t happen—between us has nothing to do with a new phone or a pair of Jimmy Choos. If you want, I can send it all back.”
She looks amused, all pursed lips and raised eyebrows. “Oh really? You’d be okay with sending it all back?”
“No,” I tell her, because it’s the truth and I’m not going to lie to her, even if she doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. “I’m not okay with sending back the phone or the laptop, because you need both. And I’m sure as shit not okay with sending back the shoes.” I still can’t believe her bastard of a father let her walk out of that condo barefoot. If Tori thinks it’s bad that I bought her all this stuff, I can only imagine how she would feel if I do what I’m dying to—which includes showing up at that son of a bitch’s office and beating him within an inch of his life.
Every time I think about how he kicked her out with nothing but a hastily packed backpack, it makes me insane. It doesn’t matter how angry or embarrassed he is by that video—though I can’t imagine ever being angry or embarrassed enough to kick someone I love out like that. It’s his job to take care of her when she needs him, not to make things harder for her.
“You really have a thing about those shoes,” she says, sliding her fingers through the belt loops on my jeans and pulling me between her suddenly spread thighs.
“I do,” I agree. “Your foot was a mess when you got here—you had no business walking two miles barefoot and he had no business letting you. Not to mention the fact that you’re still limping.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t bullshit me. You’re doing your best not to show it, but there’s a slight hesitation every time you go to put weight on that foot.”
“That’s not—”
The look I give her shuts her up before she can even finish the lie.
“It’s barely there,” she says, with an exaggerated eye roll. “How did you even notice it?”
She still hasn’t let go of my belt loops, and I choose to look at that as a good sign. Especially considering the fact that her knees are now resting on the outside of my thighs. I can feel the heat of her sex through my jeans, and it makes my dick hard and my nerve endings stand at attention. It also gives me the confidence to slide a hand up her arm and over her shoulder until I can gently grab hold of the nape of her neck.
“I notice everything about you, Tori. Which is why I shouldn’t have made such a rookie mistake with you earlier. I mean it when I say I’ll send it all back. Except for—”
“The shoes,” she tells me with a grin.
“Exactly. And—”
“The phone.”
“Yes. And—”
This time she cuts me off with a finger against my lips. “Hey, Miles,” she says, voice low and eyes seductive.
“Yeah?” Fuck. Ethan really knew what he was talking about when he said to suck it up and grovel. If it makes her look like that, sound like that, I’ll be happy to grovel for the rest of my damn life.
