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“No.” She shook her head. “No, I’ve never fucked anyone quite the way…I did you.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“I needed you,” she whispered. “I needed what you did to me. For me. Why can’t that be enough?”
Charlie fisted his hands helplessly. She looked miserable, and he wasn’t sure what would make it worse—walking away or pulling her into his arms.
“You said yourself you wanted more,” he reminded her. She didn’t flinch when he cupped her face in his hands. “You said you’ve dreamt of us. Of me inside you.”
Eyes locked with his, she only nodded.
“So how can that one time ever be enough?” He smoothed his fingertips over her face. “I wanna pick you up right now and take you home and make love to you. What we did was incredible, but we could be so much more.”
“We can’t.”
“Tell me you don’t want me to touch you again. Tell me you don’t want my mouth between your legs again.”
“And then what?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Then what? What happens when you’ve fucked me seven ways from Sunday, and you see who I really am, and you can’t run fast enough to get away from me?”
“The only running I wanna do is to you, babe. Right to you. Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“Everyone I’ve ever loved has left me, Charlie,” she whispered. “You would be no different.”
Stunned silent again by her admission, Charlie leaned closer and brushed his lips over hers. This kiss was the opposite of the first kiss they shared.
“I don’t think it’s fair of you to judge me by anyone else’s actions.”
“Look. I have a lot of baggage, and I’m not gonna go to the trouble to unpack it only to lose you and your family and pack up and leave again. I can’t.”
“Tatum.”
“I can’t do it again.”
“The thing about us Murphys is that we stick.” He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “You can’t just get rid of us that easily.”
“Shaun said the same thing.” She sniffled. “But he couldn’t—”
“I don’t know who Shaun is,” Charlie kissed a trail down her nose, “but I’m not him, and I won’t hurt you.”
A car started somewhere behind them. Odds were it was someone leaving Murphy’s Brews. And this late, odds were it was someone from his family. Charlie wished he and Tatum were somewhere private—not for a repeat of the first time they were together, but so he could convince her he wouldn’t hurt her.
“What happens when we’re making love, and Sutton calls? And she’s desperate and sobbing, and I stop you to go to her and find out she’s bluffing for money again?”
“Tatum—”
“Get a room!” Sev’s voice rang out as he peeled out of the parking lot in his truck. Charlie flipped him off, thinking he’d throat punch him if he could get close enough to him right now.
“What happens when we’re making love, and some emergency room nurse somewhere across the country calls me and says Sutton OD’d, and she’s in the ICU and what should they do with Bryony?”
Charlie tipped his head back to look her in the eyes.
“We get dressed, and we get in my truck, and we go wherever Sutton is to sit with her and we take care of Bryony, and you lean. On me.”
He had no idea who any of her cast of characters were, but the tears that streaked her face told him they meant something to her. It mattered. If he had to guess, all the above had happened when she was having sex with someone named Shaun—Charlie refused to think of someone else making love to her, because there was no one who would treat her like he would if she ever allowed him to touch her again—and Shaun had let her down.
