Absolutely-fucking-everything and every time he tried to fix this, he only seemed to fuck it up more and now, he was struggling not to fuck this up one more time, but Christ, it was taking everything he had not to go to her. He’d tried ignoring this pull that she’d had on him since the first time that he laid eyes on her, tried telling himself that she was just a life lesson that he would forget about one day, and he tried telling himself that he could live without her, but after last night…
He remembered just how fucking addictive it was to be around her.
He missed her.
So much more than he thought, Garrett realized as he found himself heading for the front door, ready to fucking beg on his hands and knees for forgiveness only to reluctantly stop himself before he did something to make this worse. Forcing himself towalk away from that door was one of the hardest things that he ever did, but he couldn’t risk scaring her off, not after last night.
He couldn’t even begin to describe just how good it felt to fall asleep next to her. Christ, he hadn’t slept that well in years. Falling asleep watching her work brought back memories of all those times when he used to sneak into her room in the middle of the night just to watch her write. He stayed until Kristen wrote her last word for the night just so that he could watch the way that her lips pulled down into an adorable pout as the pen slipped from her fingertips right before her eyes closed, leaving him to tuck her in before he reluctantly forced himself to leave.
Then, every morning before school, he would sneak back into her room and grab one of her notebooks and devour it at school. He used to love her stories, loved watching her write and lose herself in her work, and last night, he was reminded of everything that he’d lost.
Slowly exhaling, Garrett forced himself to turn around and head upstairs, turning off the lights as he went. When he fucked up when they were little, and God, did he fuck up a lot, all it took was a Hostess Snoball, a well-timed heartfelt sigh and a pathetic expression and she took pity on him. Now, he had no idea what it was going to take to get her to forgive him.
He knew one thing, it was going to take a hell of a lot more than a box of Snoballs to get her to forgive him this time, Garrett thought as he made his way into the bathroom, pulling his clothes off as he went. Maybe he should give her a baseball bat and let her beat the shit out of him, he thought, sighing heavily as he shoved his pants down along with his boxers and tossed them aside.
He definitely needed to find a way to stop fucking this up, Garrett decided as he reached into the shower and turned it on before he stepped inside. He dropped his head beneath the sprayof hot water, hoping to clear his head only to once again find himself thinking about Kristen, but that wasn’t anything new.
He was always thinking about her.
When he was a kid, he couldn’t seem to stay away from her. He used to sneak out of his house every chance he got to spend time with her and when he wasn’t with her…
Christ, it felt like a part of him was missing.
He hated being away from her and it only got worse as they got older, but for other reasons, reasons that he’d struggled to ignore, but, Christ, it had been difficult. While his brothers had been chasing every girl that looked their way, Garrett only looked at Kristen. He’d thought about her, thought about what it would be like to hold her, touch her, and kiss her and that never changed.
When he’d thought that she’d fucked him over for a book, he’d tried to stop thinking about her, tried moving on, tried every fucking thing that he could think of, but he could never stop thinking about her. Every time he got hard, he thought about her. It didn’t matter who he was with or if he was using his hand, it was always Kristen that he thought about, making him hate himself, but now…
Now, he realized that was going to be a problem, Garrett thought as he reached between his legs and absently ran his hand over his hardening cock. He groaned as he thought about the last time her dog dragged her into the pond, completely soaking her and accentuating every generous curve that drove him fucking crazy. God, his fucking cock ached just thinking about her. He-
Needed to stop thinking about how badly he wanted to find out how good she felt wrapped around his cock, Garrett told himself as he reached over and turned the hot water off, forcing himself to grind his teeth as cold water sprayed down on him. He missed her and he wasn’t about to fuck this up. He finishedhis shower, pulled on a pair of boxers as he walked into his room and found himself wondering why the woman that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about was in his bed.
“What’s another word for destroy?” came the absently murmured question that had him frowning.
“Abolish,” Garrett said as he took in the small woman sitting on his bed with her laptop and found himself asking, “What are you doing here?” even though he should probably be wondering how she managed to get in here.
“Nothing,” came the mumbled response as she returned to whatever it was that had her breaking into his house in the middle of the night.
“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Garrett pointed out as he ran his eyes over her, taking in everything from the messy bun at the back of her head to the E.T. tee-shirt, gray flannel pajamas, and the bunny slippers that he gave her for Christmas when they were fifteen.
“You won’t even know I’m here,” she absently murmured.
“I see,” Garrett said as he stood there, taking in the small woman worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as her fingertips moved quickly over the keyboard before shifting his attention to the large dog passed out on his bedroom floor.
After a moment, he glanced back at Kristen. “I take it that you’ve forgiven me?” he drawled, watching her as she shifted, cleared her throat and mumbled something that had him folding his arms over his chest as he waited for an answer that he already knew that he wasn’t going to like.
When he continued to glare, she said, “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then, what would you say?”
“That I have taken your heartfelt apology that moved me to tears into consideration and will get back to you in ten to fourteen business days,” Kristen said dryly, absently nodding as she continued writing.
“I see,” Garrett said, sighing heavily as he resigned himself to doing what needed to be done.
“Wait! We can talk about this!”Kristen said as she found herself unceremoniously dumped onto the front lawn.
“I’d be more than happy to talk about this,” Garrett said as he handed over her laptop and gestured for the dog to join her.
Nodding, Kristen hugged the laptop against her chest as she moved to head back inside only to have the large man, who she unfortunately really needed, lean back against the door, blocking her way. “I thought you wanted to discuss this.”
