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“You don't spend time with people at all?” She sounds disbelieving.
“Not really. No.”
“You don't have friends?”
“I have a few buddies.”
“Okay,” she lifts both shoulders, shaking her head. “You don't see them?”
“We meet for poker, beer and chips,” I admit. “Once a week.”
She rolls her eyes. “So you have friends. You see people. You can't be that difficult.”
I hadn’t thought we were talking aboutpeople. I’d been talking about women. Men were fine with me. They were cool with the scars. Women on the other hand either wanted to pity fuck me or were disgusted by me. I wasn’t cool with either.
And now, I’m pissed again. I’m pissed because thinking about women wanting to pity fuck me enrages me.
But thinking about Sadie wanting to pity fuck me—that kills.
I push away from the counter and move into the living room. I’m done with this conversation. It doesn’t take her long to follow me. I hear the soft thud of her ridiculous socks on the floor close behind me, and I think she’s braver than I gave her credit for. I know she knows I’m mad. Anyone with an instinct for self-preservation would know. Still, she follows. And she follows close.
Then, bizarrely, she asks, “Are you going to set up a tree?”
I spin to glare at her. “A tree?”
“Yes.” She dips her chin in a cute little nod, her hands moving to her hips. “A tree. ForChristmas.”
I give my head a firm shake as I force my gaze to climb from her tiny body with all its gentle curves to her face. The things a man could do to her body—the things I could do…“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don't want a tree.”
She balks. “What are you, the Grinch?”
“I don’t see the point of bothering with a tree.”Why am I getting into this with her?My chest feels tight.
“The point is the tree is beautiful. It's—it's a part of Christmas. You can't have Christmas and not have a tree. Even I have a tree in my tiny little trailer at home. It's small, and it's pathetic. It's worse than Charlie Brown's, but it's a tree.”
I narrow my gaze on her. “I'm not putting up a tree.”
“Fine.” She shrugs. “Be a sad, mean Grinch.”
The way she’s standing, glaring up at me, I almost want to laugh at her. This surprises me. I don’t laugh much. She’s made me want to laugh more than once since she arrived. And fuck, but as she stands there in her sweater with her shoulder exposed to show off golden skin, I feel a sharp urge to lean forward and taste that skin. Her pouty mouth.Other parts of her.
She’s beautiful.
And she’s not mine. She’ll never be mine.
I close my eyes slowly, tiredly, to block out the vision of her and get control of myself again. But I open them as I ask, “Are you going to spend your Christmas with Katie now?”
Her eyes shutter and I find myself leaning forward without any intention of doing so. I want to unwrap her. Every secret, every thought, I want to unwrap them all.
Emotion rattles her voice, and she shifts on the spot, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind a cute as fuck elf-like ear. “No.”
“Why?” I hear myself demand roughly and she flinches. I swallow a sigh as I wait, studying her as she lifts her little pointed chin, her full, pouty lips parting.
“Because the last time I spent my Christmas with Katie, her family looked at me with pity the entire night.” There’s a crack in her voice, a splinter in her facade of strength I want to poke at. I want to chip away at her pain until I uncover the source—and then I want—fuck. I don’t know what I want. Her? To fuck her?To sink deep and lose my misery inside something soft and warm and bursting at the cracks with sunshine?Her voice brings me back from the insanity of my thoughts. “That hurts more—feeling the pity—the weight of it—it hurts more than spending the holiday alone.”
