AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But I do understand,” she pressed. But when he shook his head, she let it go. “All right.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m only agreeing to let it go so I can talk you into more sex.”
“You really think that’s all it would take?” he asked, then laughed when she punched him. He found himself smiling against her hair, breathing in the scent of her. Yeah, this was bad. “Can you stay tonight?”
She melted into him a tiny bit more. “Yeah. I’d like that. If I can sleep. It’s been a while since I spent the night in someone else’s bed.”
He hadn’t realized he’d been tense about her answer until he heard it. When she agreed, he felt...surprised. Grateful. He would have been less shocked if she’d said, Nah, you know this isn’t like that, Walker. You’re not the kind of guy a girl cuddles with afterward.
And maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was what he’d always been. The good-time guy. The booty call. The man you cheated with, but never depended on. The man who was exactly what you needed, exactly when you needed it, but never more than that.
He’d been all those things to other women, but for her...for her he could be something totally different, if only she’d ask for it. “You didn’t have a boyfriend in Tahoe?”
Her eyes flashed up to his for a moment. “It ended a while ago. How about you? Did you have someone special before Nicole?”
He noticed that she didn’t say “before me.”
Charlie laughed when he didn’t respond. “Yeah. I figured.”
Walker wanted to tell her she was wrong, but how could he? He’d had a few girlfriends in his life, but only a few. With the hours he worked, and the weeks he was gone, it wasn’t easy. And whatever way he interacted with other women seemed to qualify as flirting, even when he tried very hard not to flirt. His relationships had always been volatile and quickly over. So yeah...how could he assure her she was wrong when she wasn’t?
“It’s okay,” she said, patting his shoulder. “I’m not very good at relationships. I’m better off being friends with a guy like you. I’m not even sure I really believe in love.”
“You don’t believe in love?” he asked. Did she think he didn’t? That he didn’t want it?
“Don’t worry. I’m not initiating a very special relationship talk.” Laughing, she leaned up to kiss him and then rolled onto her back. “You heard all the stories about my mom, I’m sure. They were all true. And lots more you didn’t hear about. My dad was just gone. Moved on. I haven’t seen a lot of good come out of love or whatever people think love is.”
He wrapped his fingers around hers and stroked his thumb over her knuckles. “No?”
“What about your parents? Were they good together?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know. They stayed together. They didn’t fight that often, which is a miracle considering my dad’s temper. Or maybe it was because of his temper. But I don’t know about the love part.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Me, neither.”
He squeezed her hand. “I think you’d be pretty easy to love, Charlie.”
“Ha.” She laughed as if he’d been joking. “Look who’s talking. Every woman loves you, Walker.”
He made himself chuckle. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“All right.” She brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed it, and Walker’s heart did a strange turn in his chest. “I’ll only believe half. And you can tell me I’m special. And I’ll even believe it while we’re here in this room. Deal?”
“Deal,” he answered. And he wished like hell he was only playing along.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HE WAS WARM under her hand. Even warmer than she’d imagined. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm that made her heart hurt for reasons she couldn’t fathom.
Charlie cuddled closer in the dark, and his arm tightened briefly around her, as if he knew she was there. But that was just his body’s memory, borne of the hundreds of times he’d held other women like this. She wouldn’t let it sneak inside her, the comfort of him. Of his heat and skin and smell and the way his mouth brushed over her hair when he held her.
She pressed her lips to his shoulder. He was asleep. He’d never know.
It was only 4:00 a.m. She should be sleeping, too, but she’d woken fifteen minutes before and her brain refused to stop working.
She wanted so badly for him to look into the Ability Ranch. Her heart beat hard every time she thought about him with those kids. He probably thought anyone could do that, but Charlie knew the truth. She turned into a nervous mess around kids. They were just odd strangers who invaded your space and were unpredictable and came with different rules depending on age and size and brattiness. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they yelled. Sometimes they stared at you as if they knew something you didn’t.
