Not that she owed me anything. Everyone had the right to change their mind. I didn’t care if I was buried to the hilt, if she’d said no, I would’ve stopped.
But something happened inside Kate’s mind that flipped a switch so fast it made my damn head spin. She’d stared at my bed like it’d offended her. No, that wasn’t right. There hadn’t been any anger or resentment burning in those pretty eyes.
Itwas hurt.
Something I’d done or said had caused her pain, and dammit, I needed to make it right.
Exactly why I’d been sitting outside her apartment for the past ninety minutes. At least she was home. Music had filtered through the walls about twenty minutes after my arrival.
Off-key singing followed shortly after.
I’d heard both Kate and Millie. They sang and laughed then sang some more. That same ache I’d felt when I saw Kate take care of Millie had shot through my chest again. My feet itched with the same need to flee.
I didn’t.
It took a fucking Herculean effort, but I parked my ass on the floor next to their door and listened with a deep gaping hole in my chest at the sounds of a happy home. The sounds I’d never heard or experienced growing up.
I’d quickly come to terms with how things were in our house. There were only so many times a kid could ask his parents to read him a bedtime story or come to a sporting event and hear the word no.
There’d always been some important client to chase, a big deal to close. But never time for the son they only brought into this world to continue their legacy.
“What the—”
“Tristan.”
The two voices—one annoyed and the other excited—jolted me out of the bitter memories. While I’d sat and reminisced over nonexistent parents, the music had stopped, and the girls had come out of their apartment.
Smiling sheepishly, I pushed to my feet.
“Hey, Princess,” I greeted Millie.
With a big, wide smile, she waved. “Hello.”
My gaze shifted to Kate. “Kitty Kat.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”
“So many things,” I said, unable to help myself. “But right now, I needed to check if you were all right. You haven’t been answering my texts or calls.”
“Kate threw her phone in the bin yesterday.”
I gave Millie a glance. “That so?” My attention drifted back to Kate. “And why would you do that?”
A deep red stained her skin, slowly traveling up her neck and settling on her cheeks. It reminded me of the way she’d flushed when I’d had my hands under her shirt and her nipple in my mouth.
Fuck.
Just thinking about how amazing she felt and those damn unholy noises she made had my blood boiling with a desperate need to drag her into her apartment and sample every inch of her glorious body.
But I couldn’t do that. And I sure as shit couldn’t get hard in the hallway with a little human right there.
Reining in my lustful thoughts, with a great deal of effort, I said, “You ladies look nice.” They really did. Kate had traded the sexy shorts from yesterday for wide-legged jeans. And her black tee for a dark gray one.
Although both had something in common.
“You have a thing for spelling errors?” Kate lifted a brow but that was the only response I got from her, so I added. “The ‘r’ was missing from your shirt yesterday too.”
Her gaze dropped to the big block letters stretched over her chest. I tried damn hard to be a good boy and not imagine the color of her bra. I’d only caught a glimpse of it, but the one from the day before had been brightpink.
