Page 9 of Bad Man on Campus

“They are different,” I say, slipping my dress on. “Your dad isn’t here.” Thank the lord.

“Not like that. I mean I’m older and wiser and I’m going to fight for you. I’m not a kid anymore. Dad can’t object.” He stands and I nearly drop to my knees when I see his naked magnificence, heat racing through me until I can feel myself pulsing with need all over again.

He comes to me and wraps me in his arms, pressing my breasts against his chest. I can feel his heart beating hard against mine, matching mine in intensity. Cupping my face in his hand.

“And even if he does object, I don’t care. I’m a man. I make my own choices.”

I know it’s not that easy, that he knows it’s not that easy. My gut rolls. The last thing I want to do is put a wedge between him and his father. His family is already in pieces, after his mother left. I don’t know if he talks to her.

“How’s your mom?” I have to ask, my bravery restored by only one night in Kace’s arms. Imagine how I’d be with more. I might even be able to pretend life is good again, that we could be truly happy again. The way we were before. That we might have that future we’d envisioned. Except we’d always envisioned it with Sky, with our families whole and intact.

He swipes a hand through his dark hair and lets me go. I interpret this as not good. But he surprises me.

“She seemed okay at the wedding, even managed a laugh or two though they were brittle.” He pulls on some gym shorts and I suffer a moment of disappointment at losing the magnificent view of him. But I immediately switch to the picture in my head, where I can feast on his magnificence any time. It’s a trick I’ve developed out of necessity these past years, like a starving person imagining steak dinners.

“That’s good?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. She has trouble facing us. She needed the break from the daily reminders of how things used to be as much as I did—more. And she’s never faced the fact that Sky wasn’t exactly an innocent victim, that she’d been drinking that night.” He stops, comes back to me, puts his hands on my arms, rubbing them as if to keep me warm against the cold reality of what I know he’s going to tell me.

“Mom still blames you. Still thinks of you as a murderer.” He rasps the words without any sugarcoating. I shiver in spite of his hands on me. “Sorry, sunshine.” He takes me fully in his arms for a true hug that feels like three years’ worth of consolation.

He used to call me sunshine all the time because I was. He’d say Glory Sunshine as if it was my first and last name. I would tease and ask what’s wrong with Glory Rose and he’d say he was allergic to roses. I never knew if he was kidding or not. Maybe he really is allergic. I should know this. But I don’t want to know, never did, as if his allergy to roses might be a harbinger for our relationship.

Maybe it was. But I’m no sunshine. And I desperately want to be.

Now, in his room, in his arms, I try like hell to stay in the moment with him, to not let my guilty soul encroach. I tighten my arms around him, concentrate on the hard muscles of his back under my hands, his heat, his solidness, that scent of maple, spice, and man sweat, Kace’s special brand. It swirls around and I breathe him in, losing myself in the moment, drowning in the sensual heaven of it.

Then the sound of the front door opening and closing crashes through everything. We both hear it because Kace loosens his hold and looks up.

“Fuck,” he says. “Who the hell is that?”

I’m hoping it’s the housekeeper as he slips on some sneakers and goes to his door. But the mystery is solved with the sound of her voice calling upstairs.

“Kace? Are you up yet? I want to take you to brunch, honey. We need to catch up.”

“Fucking holy hell,” he says in a half whisper, looking at me, his face a shade paler than it was a second ago.

His mom is here. The reality vibrates through me, turning me numb against the impending onslaught of horror. Because she’s the last person on the planet I want to see. The one who I can never even think of begging forgiveness from. The one who will never forgive me no matter what.

She hates me.

“Kace?” She calls again and the sound of her steps on the stairs causes a quake to go through me like a prelude to the big one coming.

“Fuck.” Kace gives me a warning look and goes out his bedroom door, shutting it behind him, leaving me here like some dirty secret, a skeleton hidden in a closet. I try to be okay with it, with being his deep, dark secret, because if the shoe fits, right? I don’t want to face his mom right now, do I? What else is he supposed to do?

Shove the murderer of her daughter in his mom’s face? I listen to their conversation as she reaches the hallway outside the door. Too close to being exposed for comfort.

“I didn’t expect you this morning,” he says. There’s a pause and I imagine him giving his mom a hug, the kind of warm consolation he’d given me, and I take a deep breath, trying to unfreeze my emotions, to sort through them, to make sense of the here and now.

“I know. Sorry if I woke you, honey, but it’s been too long. How about if we go to Coaly’s for brunch? I hear—”

“Mom, I can’t . . . I’m busy. I have plans. I wish you—”

“Plans?”

I hear the disappointed pause, the distress permeating through the door, catching up with me, strangling me. Damn. Kace should be going to brunch with his mom, not . . . staying with me. Trying to send him a telepathic message to let him know I’m okay with him throwing me aside, I’m startled by their next exchange.

“What plans?”