“Hey,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
“Hey yourself.”
She tilted her face up, and I kissed her. Soft this time. Gentle. So different from the desperate hunger on the deck, but somehow just as intense.
This was what I’d been missing my whole life. This quiet intimacy of belonging to someone.
I was falling in love with her.
The realization hit me like a fist to the chest. And then, in the same instant, I understood that wasn’t true. I wasn’t falling for her. I’d already fallen. I was completely and irreversibly gone for this woman who’d stumbled into my life through smoke and fire.
I opened my mouth to tell her. To ask her to stay. Not temporarily, not until her house was fixed. But for forever.
And that’s when her phone rang.
She reached for it on the nightstand, frowning at the screen. “It’s the insurance company.”
My stomach dropped as she answered.
“Hello? Yes, this is Cassidy Mitchell.” She sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist, exposing her gorgeous breasts. “Oh, that’s wonderful news. Yes, I understand. The contractor can start that soon? An RV? What do you mean an RV?” She shifted in bed and glanced at me. “Oh. I didn’t realize. It’s going to be delivered tomorrow at nine a.m.?”
Each word drove a spike deeper into my chest.
“Thank you so much. Yes, I’ll be there. Thank you.”
She hung up and turned to me, her eyes tinged with worry. “They approved everything. Full coverage for ninety percent of the repairs, and they’re providing a temporary RV for me to stay in while the work gets done. It should only take a few weeks.”
“That’s great.” The words came out flat. I forced a smile. “Really great news.”
She was leaving me.
Right when I’d finally let myself believe this could be real, she was going back to her life in the valley. Back to her farmhouse. Away from me.
“Hall?” She touched my arm. “You okay?”
“Fine.” I sat up, putting distance between us. “Happy for you. This is what you wanted.”
Her brow furrowed slightly, but she nodded. “Yeah. It is.”
She looked up at me, “We’ll still see each other, right?”
“Yeah. Absolutely,” I grunted out.
I wondered what this had meant to her. Maybe I’d just been convenient. Offering a warm bed and a stiff cock to take her mind off her troubles.
Maybe she was just passing through.
Could I survive tomorrow without her?
What about the next day?
Or the day after?
My world shrunk in on itself as she met my questioning eyes with questions of her own. She parted her lips to speak, but nothing came out.
Looked like now we wereboththe silent types.
Chapter 13
