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But Nova’s wounds are open and fresh too, and—
I need her to know. I need her to understand what I barely do myself.
Her palm settles over my heart, and it’s such a gentle touch, so much like what I didn’t get growing up, in the relationships with all the women before, that it’s jarring.
And it jars the rest of the words out of me.
“But you don’t know about the one who stole from me to fuel a drug habit I didn’t know about, and you don’t know about the one who would punch and kick and hit me if I did something to upset her—and I upset her a lot.”
“Lake,” she whispers, eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“And you don’t know about the ex who thought she would convince me to marry her if she was able to get pregnant.”
She sucks in a breath.
“I figured out the condoms had holes in them eventually, but not before a pregnancy scare.”
I thought then that I didn’t want kids, didn’t want the lifelong tie to a woman who might very well make my life miserable. Now…
I watch a tear slide out from the corner of a pine-green eye, and IknowI want something different.
Something more.
“I’m so sorry that all happened to you,” Nova whispers.
I know she is.
Because she’s not them.
“Hey now,” I say, brushing the tear away. “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad, butterfly. It’s so you know why I close everyone out, even”—I cup her cheek, tilt her head back so I can stare into her eyes—“a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart.”
Soft. Warm. Forme.
This time I’m expecting my heart to make its roll.
Especially when she nibbles at her bottom lip. “But we didn’t—” A wince. “Those first couple of times, we didn’t use protection and I’m not on anything—”
I brush my thumb along her mouth, freeing that lip, that truth coming to me too.God. I’m so fucking oblivious, a damned ostrich with my head in the sand. Ineverfucked a woman without a condom, but with Nova, I didn’t even blink about doing it. Twice. “I know,” I tell her gently. “It was stupid on both our parts, but I think, for me, I knew you were different even then or I wouldn’t have ever taken the risk.”
Her shaking exhale coats the tip of my thumb. “I think”—a breath, her eyes filling with the slightest bit of mischief—“that I wasn’t much thinking at all.”
My dick twitches even as amusement ripples through me. “And that too,” I say lightly. “There wasn’t much thinking going on by either of us.” I slide my hand back, cover her cheek with my palm, holding her head in place. “I’m sorry.”
She covers my hand with her own. “It took two of us.” And proving she had those moving forward skills, she squeezes my fingers. “If something comes of it, I’ll figure it out.”
I drop my forehead to hers. “If something comes of it,we’lldeal.”
Her eyes go warm again, and her body melts against mine.
Fuck.
But this is a woman I can love. A woman Idolove.
She takes a breath and then curls into me again, arms wrapping around my waist. We stand in the quiet, the waves of the lake lapping against the dark shore behind us, the world quiet and reduced to just the two of us. She’s still shivering, but when I’m about to hustle her back inside, she lifts her head and whispers, “You asked Jer to make contact with a gallery.”
I freeze.
“He gave me the card at the vet today.”
