A vein throbbed in Kayden’s temple, because it was fucking true. He’d been an asshole, and so had just about everyone else. “You could have told Eastern.”
She scoffed as she squirted cleaning liquid into the water. “I didn’t get their plates, and some of the officers at the station hate me.”
“So, what was your plan, to let them throw rotten fucking eggs at your house every other week?” Shit, he needed to calm down.
“No, I’ve ordered security cameras and they would have gotten their plate numbers. I was going to report them as soon as possible, even though I’m not sure the officers would have done anything.” The last part was said more to herself than to him.
She lifted the bucket, and he immediately slipped it from her hands. “The next time they pull a stunt like that…hell the next timeanyonedoes any shit like that to you, tell me.”
“Kayden, it’s not your—”
“I’m not joking, Tilly. Promise you’ll tell me.”
She frowned. “Why do you care so much?”
Wasn’t that obvious? He’d been fighting his attraction to her like crazy, but that kiss…there was no fightingthat.
He stepped closer. “You know why.” She swallowed, her gaze lowering to the floor. He touched a hand to her chin and tilted her face up. “Tilly, please…I need to know you’re okay. That you’re being treated with respect.”
One deep inhale, and she nodded. “Okay. I’ll tell you.”
CHAPTER 12
“He kissed you?”
Tilly gasped at the volume of Harper’s voice, the knife she was using to chop chocolate almost slipping. “Shh! Cody’s just in the other room.”
Harper rolled her eyes. “They’re brothers, and Kayden’s always at the bar talking to him. Trust me when I say that Cody would have been the first to know.”
Was that true? Had Kayden told his brother about the kiss? And if he had, how had he described it? Nice? Hot? Something that under no circumstances would ever happen again?
After not calling or texting in the last few days, she was leaning toward the latter. Hell, with the visitors center being closed for the last four days, she hadn’t even seen him.
“So…” Harper said, this time in a quieter tone. “He kissed you.”
They stood in the kitchen of Harper and Cody’s new house. The place was ridiculously cute with its white picket fence and Hamptons-style decor.
“Honestly, I don’t really know if he kissed me or I kissed him,” she finally said, her gaze on the flour Harper wasmeasuring into a mixing bowl. “It’s a bit of a blur. We were just on the couch in my living room, and we kissed.”
“Two people neverjust kiss.Set the scene. What happened before the kiss?”
That was a good question. Everything before the kiss just kind of felt…insignificant. “We were eating dinner on the couch with a movie on, although I wasn’t watching the movie. We talked a bit about my mom and why I moved back.” She wrinkled her nose. “I may have gotten a bit teary, and he swiped the tear away with his thumb.”
Harper lowered the measuring cup. “Oh, Till, I’m sorry.”
“It’s strange that I feel so comfortable talking to him about my mom and how hard it’s been since she died. I don’t usually talk to anyone about that stuff.”
“I always told Cody his big brother was a softy at heart.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice once again. “Was it good?”
“Was what good?”
“The kiss!”
A warm tingle danced over her skin, and she almost touched her lips as though they somehow held the memory. “It wasn’t just good… I don’t even know how to describe it. It was hot and addictive and…easy.”
“Easy?”
“Not in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way. In an I-could-do-this-over-and-over-again kind of way.”
