“And your brothers are in on this too?”
He grunted, hoping she’d get the hint he was done talking.
“So getting them to run intel on me was just another day at the office then, eh?”
“Mhmm.”
Come on, woman, take a hint.
She nodded, her hair tickling his nose and causing him to fight back a sneeze. “And what did you do … you know, besides surveillance and security. Did you go to school for anything?”
He rubbed his hand over his whiskers. “I also have a biology degree. Thought about medicine, but … well, I don’t have the people skills.” Her giggle stirred heat in his belly. “I like what I do, and I’m good at it.”
“Have you ever thought of starting your own company?The Harty Boys, and getting your brothers to come and work with you?”
He snorted, his eyelids incredibly heavy and fighting to stay open. “Maybe one day. Stewart’s a great boss. Wants to retire. So maybe.”
She spun around in his arms to face him. She cupped his cheek, brushing his lips with hers. “Thank you for sharing with me. I know that talking about yourself … well,talkingin general doesn’t come easy for you. I really appreciate it. I like this side of you.”
More heat, and this time just a tad too much, ignited inside him. His face was warm, his body even more so, and an itch at the back of his neck told him to get the fuck out of there.
He was a lone wolf, a bachelor, and he liked it that way. Now here he’d gone and invited this woman into his home, who also just happened to be pregnant with his child, and she was sharing his bed. That was all fine. But now she was asking him toshare. Share parts of himself, his history, his feelings and emotions that nobody knew about.
It was too much sharing.
Way too much sharing.
Even his family was kept on a need-to-know basis. It was just easier that way. He was the fixer. He was the one everyone went to for help, not the other way around. And if no one knew his business, then they never knew when he needed help or fixing—which was never.
Fear, and some other unsettling feeling he couldn’t quite pin down, clawed at the back of his head like a hangover headache that just wouldn’t go away. He wasn’t ready for this. Not fatherhood, not a roommate and definitely not telling a complete stranger all his secrets.
Swallowing past a hard lump in his throat that felt more like a piece of jagged glass and half a dozen razor blades, he ground his molars together and rolled away from her, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s late. Thanks for the fuck. Goodnight.” Then he rolled away from her completely and stared at the wall for what felt like hours.
Brock was down in the home gym when Krista woke up that morning. She could hear the subtle pounding of the punching bag and manly grunts coming up through the vents. It was probably for the better she didn’t see him. She needed time to pack.
After he’d shut down and turned away from her last night, she spent the better portion of what should have been sleep time mulling over their conversation. She mulled over their entire whirlwind, unconventional, accidental relationship.
But even after all that mulling, she came up with bupkis. What had caused him to do such a complete one-eighty all of sudden? What had she said? What had she done? One minute they were having a nice post-fuck cuddle, complete with pillow talk, and the next minute he was giving her the coldest shoulder in the history of cold shoulders, thanking her for the fuck and wishing her agoodnight, as if she were some hooker and not his roommate, bedmate and carrying his child.
All she could do was wonder what the heck she had gotten herself into. Who was the man she was about to have a baby with? Who was the man in her (his) bed?
He was sweet and kind and sensitive one minute, catering to her every need, including needs she didn’t even know she had. He’d painted and built a nursery, for crying out loud, and yet when she tried to find out who he was or thanked him for opening up, he put up mile-high fences around himself, shut down completely, and they were back to being strangers—sometimes for days.
She was tired of it. Tired of not knowing who she was living with or who she was going to “get” when she asked a simple question. Was she going to get sweet Brock, the Brock who called her his girlfriend and painted a nursery for their happy little accident, or the Brock who clammed up for no good reason and made her feel like she should pack up her clothes and head back to her pimp?
Hell, she didn’t even know when his birthday was. Was he a Gemini? Was she dealing with a split personality? She was done trying to figure it out. If he wasn’t going to open up, she was going to send him a big fat message to either open up or move on. She could do the single parent thing if she had to. She didn’t want to, especially not after discovering how nice it was living with someone again, but she could do it. Because if she was going to live with someone, she wanted to know that person. If she was going to raise a child with someone, she wanted to know his goddamn birthday and a few other things, too.
She’d had enough. She’d asked him time and time again to open up. To let her in and help her get to know the father of her child, and when he’d give an inch, seconds later he’d pull away and back up an entire mile. She hauled her big suitcase from the closet up onto her bed and opened her drawers.
This thing between them obviously wasn’t going to work. They were just too different.
Sure, they were both stubborn, strong-willed control freaks, but it wasn’tenough. She was bending for him. Relinquishing control. For him. For them. But Brock wasn’t bending at all. At least not enough.
Her bed was scattered with clothes, personal paraphernalia and a snoozing Penelope on a pile of summer skirts when his voice behind her made her jump.
“What are you doing?”
She ignored him. She could put up walls too.
