Page 19 of Promise

“You look tired.” He reaches for my face, thumb ready to swipe under my eye, but I jerk back.

His intended concern mingles with another flicker of hurt in his eyes, causing my stomach to ache once more. Then again, he doesn’t really care about me.

He left.

I do not want his concern. I do not want him looking at me like he is. Like he wants to take my burdens and carry the load a while.

“Let me fix the roof,” he says finally, softly, like he truly wants to tackle the protective layer of this house.

“Go away,” I mutter with no fight in the demand.

“Not happening.” He straightens and hooks his thumbs into his tool belt. Construction worker porn is a real thing, and once upon a time, seeing Dart in a tight tee and faded jeans with that thick belt at his waist would set my heart fluttering. Home renovations were like an aphrodisiac. He’d fix something, and I’d want him to break me in the most pleasurable ways.

But not anymore.

When the silence between us becomes too much, he turns back for the ladder. His boot-covered foot hits the first rung with a clang. The distinct sound of metal rattles against the house. The hammer at his belt swings forward, adding another clank to the symphony of noise.

And a sharp cry comes through my phone.

A baby monitor app is almost always open on the device, and I pull it from the back pocket of my shorts.

Dart freezes as the quiet wail rings like a tornado siren. He twists toward me. “Sorry,” he whispers from feet away, then hitches his thumb toward the ladder, continuing to keep his voice quiet. “I’ll get back to this later.”

Later.

A word that holds a thousand promises. Implies a future.

We had our time. It’s now the past.

“I gotta hit the hardware store anyway.” He steps closer to me again. “I’ll be about an hour.”

The nearest hardware store is almost to Huntington, the closest large city near us.

“Don’t rush,” I mutter, spinning toward the house as Mirabelle’s cry grows more insistent.

Having the strange sense Dart is watching me, I step through the screen door without a glance back at him. But before I shut the front door, I pause, finding him at the edge of the yard, looking at me.

With his hands on his hips, nostrils flaring, he looks like an eager racehorse behind a starting gate. Like he can barely contain the energy waffling around him, the need to charge. The flicker in his eyes is recognizable.

I’ve seen that look before.

When I’d tease him with a seductive taunt or an extra sway in my hips while walking away from him. Then glance at him over my shoulder. An invitation to follow. Within seconds, he’d be chasing after me.

Once, I didn’t even make it up the staircase before he caught me, tugged down my shorts with one hand, undoing his jeans with the other, and slammed into me without any foreplay.

The extra touch wasn’t necessary. I’d already been so wet, so needy, so gone for him.

He fucked me on the stairs with my knees digging into the hardwood step. One of his arms was braced on the next highest riser, the other hand between my thighs. And all the while, he whispered sweet things in my ears.

You drive me wild.

Always so wet for me.

Take me like you own me.

A neglected part of me clenches, and I force myself to ignore the deep crater of loneliness inside me. The channel of desire clashes with the hint of attraction to my ex-husband.

No, I want to scream, like I can stop the magnetism with a simple command.