Her eyes smile. “When I broke your wall, you laughed. Youlaughed. And then you asked me what color I wanted the room when everything was fixed, like it was my house.”
“You see it more than I do.”
“I don’t have permanent homes. I don’t get comfortable. I don’t break things without expecting a blowup. But you made me feel like I belonged because you wanted me to pick a paint color. I don’t think you can understand how big that was.”
She doesn’t have family to spend the holidays with. While I don’t know her full history, I know she’s had several bad rental homes. Waverly is the only friend I’ve heard her talk about, and the only job she’s mentioned prior to her pop career taking off was something to do with medical billing.
People have hurt her.
Not justsomeone.
Multiple someones.
I want to hunt down every one of them and make them pay for how they’ve hurt her.
She hugs her knees tighter. “Part of me is still waiting for you to decide you want your pool house back and that I have to go.”
“It’s yours as long as you want it.”
Those wary eyes gut my soul.
Truth? I don’t want her in my pool house.
I want her in myhousehouse. In my kitchen. In my living room. In my bedroom. In my shower. Sprawled out on my dining room table.
Stop it, I order myself.
Doesn’t work.
Not when she wrote a song—her most popular song—about me.
Not when I want to be the man standing between her and every bad thing that could ever happen to her from now on.
Not when being here with her is only making me want her in ways I’ve never wanted another woman.
That’s why I tell myself I’m too old for her.
It’s why I tell myself she sees me as nothing but a mentor.
Because if I give in, if I tell her how much I want her, if there’s even a chance she wants me back—I can’t fuck this up.
Not with her.
I like her too much for her to be one more woman I’ve screwed around with just for fun.
I don’t wantfun.
I wanteverything.
“This would be much easier if you weren’t nice to me,” she whispers.
“I’m completely incapable of not being nice to you.”
Which is why I’m definitely sleeping on this couch tonight.
Even if we didn’t have a very large age gap, she’s not someone I want to fuck things up with.
Ever.
