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Tears prick at my eyes. Here, in Starlight Canyon, I’ve already turned the page.
He’s breathing deeply again now. I kiss his chest. “Maybe you can change yours, too.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
DASH
I’m falling so easilyit doesn’t even feel like it’s happening. I should have said no and I said yes instead. Because that’s what catching feelings does. It has you acting all out of character and doing things that are a far cry from common sense.
But that’s just it. Being with Molly doesn’t feel like I’m still searching, like I do at the Valley. When I’m with her, it feels like I’ve already found what I’m looking for.
Bacon sizzles in the frying pan, and I think about me having that damn dream again. I think about Molly’s last croaky words. I was too tired, and scared, to let her know I heard her. Molly will change her story… but I’m not so sure about me.
The only page I want to turn is the one where Molly’s in the next chapter, and she’s too good for me. One day, she’ll need to move on from my moody ass. She’ll want someone more spirited, like Mateo. Or someone smarter with more direction like Colt. She’d probably even be better off with Logan, who, one day, when he settles down, will use his swashbuckling energy to put a smile on his wife’s face to go with a sparkling Cartier ring on her finger.
I’m just a melancholy country boy living over some stables. I’m too simple for her. I’m too grumpy for her. I’m too damn fucked up for her. She needs someone who has their shit together, not someone who’s been having recurring dreams about running out of ground for a decade.
Molly has been through so much. She had to face her fate day after day and have the courage to heal herself a million times. And I can’t even do it once. When Molly and I first started getting closer, and I knew she was a kindred spirit, the thought of her being my soulmate crossed my mind. But it wasn’t enough. There’s more than one soulmate for each soul in the world. No. Molly is my North Star guiding me toward a better life. Being a better man.
I knew I was fucking smitten when she, drunk with her inhibitions down, went straight to my private drawer and wrote in my leather notebook, and instead of being mad she went through my things, I thought about how I’ll forever have her handwriting etched in my book. In my mind… in my heart.
I shake my head.You can’t have that girl, Dashiell.
Finishing off two eggs in the pan, I scrape the bottom to make sure they don’t stick. My bedroom door handle clicks and Molly pads out onto the oak floorboards, all sex hair and wearing Logan’s Scorpions ice hockey jersey going right down onto that voluptuous part of her thighs. She must have taken it from my drawer since her clothes are out here in a sensual pile on the floor outside my door.
I drink her in from head to toe, and she is fucking gorgeous. But now I know why the boys go mad when their girl is wearing another man’s jersey. I kind of feel like that right now. I’d rather she be in my plain black tee than a shirt that represents my brother.
“Morning,” she rasps. She tucks hair behind her ear and holds her shoulders up high.
“Breakfast? Just a short walk of shame to the table.” I joke to try and make her comfortable.
She rolls her eyes. “Funny.”
I put the plates on the table. She sits with one knee up and tucks the jersey down over her pussy so I can’t see if she put underwear on. My God, I’d give anything to be buried down there again.
I pour Molly a cup of coffee and add some creamer, as much as I think she likes, then sit opposite her, occasionally letting my eyes drop, hoping for a slip of the fabric.
She takes a bite of food. “You’re almost as good at frying eggs as you are at scrambling them.”
I let out a one-syllable laugh and I’m glad she’s seeing humor in all this because I don’t want her feeling like I do. Falling. Wanting. Already seeing the hurricane coming before the weather even turns. This woman can hurt me. She can hurt me bad.
Yet here I am, gobbling up every morsel she’ll give me.
She stares at her plate and snaps a piece of crispy bacon in half. “Yesterday was… maybe the best day of my life.”
I try not to say it the way it comes out, like I don’t believe it. “Really?” She’s the best I’ve ever had, too, no contest.
“Yeah.” Her gaze hides somewhere on the plate. “I always wanted to have family game nights and laughing and just… all that.”
Well, I guess she didn’t meanmethen.
She peeps up under her eyebrows, her brown eyes sparking. “And then to come home with the handsomest man at the party?” Her cheeks grow round.
Her warm smile ropes me back in again. “The pickings were slim. You only had me and two married guys to choose from.”
“Even if the entire cast ofOcean’s Elevenwas there I would have chosen you.” She flutters her eyelashes.
A stupid, involuntary grin spreads across my face, and my heart flickers. “Yeah? Well, even if I wasn’t related to all those women, I still would have chosen you.”
