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Can’t be anything good.
Nothing good ever came from feeling so much. From smiling so much. If there’s one thing life has taught me it’s that the higher you fly, the harder the fall will be...
***
“I’m sticky,” she complains, getting up and padding across the bedroom, bending from time to time to gather her panties, her blouse, her short skirt, giving me a great view of that ass... “I have to go.”
That strips the grin from my face. “Why?”
“I need to go home, shower, change, reassure Dad that I’m okay, then go to work.”
Work, fuck. Me too. Kinda forgot it’s not Sunday today, forgot all about the world outside. This girl’s dangerous. When she’s here, it’s hard to remember that life goes on outside of this unexpected bubble.
I lift myself up on my elbows, following her with my gaze as she starts putting her clothes on. Damn, covering that hot body is a shame but I swallow down my comment. She won’t meet my eyes. There’s distance between us now—her life, her family, her work, her home.
She may feel like home to me but she has hers already. Doesn’t need one in me.
As if I’d be fit for such a thing. To offer anyone stability, warmth, a center to come back to at night. Isn’t that what home is? That’s not me. Fuck, I’m not even sure I’d know a home if it bit me in the ass.
She gives me a little wave and turns to go, and I’m out of the bed in a heartbeat. “Wait!”
“What is it?” She turns a smile my way.
“I...” I cast about for something to say. “Stay away from Jenner. He’s a weirdo and an asshole.”
She snickers. “Funny, coming from you.”
“What?”
“It’s like the pot calling the kettle black. Look, Ross—”
“No.” I cage her against the wall, put a finger over her lips. I don’t want to hear her say that this, what we did, was a mistake—or that I’m anything like that bastard, Jenner, even if I am. “Listen, he’s a weirdo, okay? And you’re always safe with me, I swear to God. If anyone bothers you, just call me and I’ll be there.”
I expect her to push me away, rib me, laugh in my face. The guy who bullied her once, now offering advice on assholes and how to avoid them, offering his protection services.
But she doesn’t do any of that. She looks up at me from under her dark lashes. “I know,” she whispers. “I know you’d come.”
It thaws a cold spot in me. “Gimme your phone.”
“Hey wait—”
I reach down, pull it out of her back pocket and wave it in her face. “Unlock it.”
“Ross...” She huffs in mock annoyance, but her mouth tips into a smile. She gives me a quizzical look as she does as I asked and hands the phone to me. “You should learn to ask more nicely.”
“Then teach me,” I growl, focused on the task at hand—one hand on her neck, my body pressing her into the wall, and damn if I’m not getting hard again—and the other adding my contact info to her list and sending myself a text message so I can add her number, too. “Done. Here you go.”
She receives the phone and scrolls through her contacts, a tiny frown between her brows. I know the moment she sees it because said brows go up and she giggles. “Ross The Original Hottie?”
I shrug and lean in, grinning ferally at her. “That’s me, baby. Any questions?”
Her eyes are sparkling, her cheeks are flushed and she’s like a drug, intoxicating, flooding my senses.
If there were any questions, they’re lost in a fuck-hot kiss with teeth and tongue and everything I got put into it. We break away after a long moment, breathing hard, grinning.
“See you later,” she says as she goes, the distance between us bridged, and this time as I watch her skip away from the house, vanishing among the trees, I’m smiling.
***
