“Not if you say things that, I’m sorry, darling, aren’tsmart.You’re not looking after yourself.You’re not letting Smithie andLaTeeshalook after you.And since you’re not, I’m steppingin.”
“You been gone a week,” I pointed out snappily.
“You needed time, and I assessed from our last conversation,space.I gave it to you.You curled up, terrified in a corner, I’m done doingthat.”
“You don’t get it.”
“No, I don’t.You’ve attempted to explain and I still don’t.Mostly because I never got the concept of bullshit and I still don’t, even whena beautiful woman is trying to feed it to me.”
Honestly?
I couldn’t take any more.
And because I couldn’t, something snapped in me.
It snapped inside and it snapped me right out of his arms.
I took a step back but lifted my hands and planted them inhis chest, shoving him.
He rocked back on a foot but I retreated three, lifted myhand, and jabbed a finger at him.
“You don’t get it!” I shrieked.
“Then give it to me,” he whispered.
The change in his tone didn’t register on me.The look onhis face.
Nothing.
“I forgot my lip gloss.My lip gloss!” I screamed.“Not my tips.Not my phone.Notsomethin’ important.My…fucking…lip gloss.”
“Okay, honey,” he said gently.
“Went back for fuckinglip gloss.”
“All right, Daisy.”
“Out of the blue,” I swung my raised arm wide and droppedit, “he jumps me.Do you know how it feels to be somewhere you think you’resafe,doin’ something you got every right to do, andsome asshole jumps you?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t feel real good,” I shared.
Marcus didn’t say anything.
“I can take a slap.I can take the back of a hand.Daddytaught me that.Not to mention a number of Momma’s other men who had thatkindathing honedrealgood.”
I watched his jaw get hard, a muscle shift up his cheek, butthat didn’t register on me either.
“I can even take a punch.More than one asshole I let inthere gave me that lesson.”
“Christ,” he bit out.
I ignored that and the emotion behind it.
“But that,that, and what he gave me after he gaveme my beating,thatI hadn’t been taught.”
“No woman needs that lesson.”
