“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Go,” she breathed, dismissing me with a flick of her hand.
Wait. I’d never seen her go for a jog since I’d been here. I narrowed my eyes, which, of course, was wasted on her since her attention remained glued to her damn cell. “You don’t run.”
“Never said I did…damn, lost again!” She scowled at the cell screen and continued tapping furiously. “That’s a hundred darn trophies lost since this morning!”
Frustrated to my back teeth, I snatched the cell from her and shoved it into my pocket.
Finally, she looked up, blinking the rain from her eyes. “You ready to talk? I thought I was going to have to wait here until you ran your hundred k or your feet to stumps. Why did you avoid me last night? Then you slept on the couch?” She dashed at the few wet strands that had escaped her ponytail and stuck to her cheeks.
“You laid the ground rules for this. Sex only.”
Hurt crossed her expressive features. “That was before…” Then she clamped her mouth shut.
Fuck. I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting to get myself in hand, and exhaled roughly. “Because I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to handle jealousy.”
She blinked. “Devyn means nothing to me—”
“He kissed you.”
“He took me by surprise.”
“Youdidn’t tell me.”
“Because I knew you’d be upset.”
Right. Jaw tight, I stared at the kids’ slide, the rain flowing down the smooth, red surface, and tried to rein in the cascade of emotions flooding me. One, utter possessiveness, because this girl had seeped beneath my skin and was slowly climbing her way into a heart I hadn’t thought I possessed until her.
“Is that why you stayed late at the bar last night?” she asked.
I sighed. “No. War and I had to keep Jack’s ass nailed to the chair, or he would have probably landed in jail this time…” I told her about Jack and the brother-in-law he loathed.
Logan pushed up from the swing. Her gaze searched my face, edged with a plea for understanding that squeezed my gut. She stopped an inch away from me. “I shouldn’t have askedyouto leave, I should have told Devyn to go. But I realized I had to speak with him, get things in perspective. I’d been with him for so long, thenthathappened. I was devastated. For over a year, I lived like a robot, struggling to find a way to move on. I think it’s why Ray moved in with me. I was a mess. In the last six months, I’ve been managing. Still, it was hard. Three months ago, I started to breathe again, then in the last month, I finally forgot…”
Hearing her talk about how much that douche had hurt her, my chest tightened. I lowered my head to stare at my wet sneakers, trying to suppress the spasm of pain clawing at me. Would she ever feel for me half of what she had felt for him?
And then I stilled, her words sinking in.In the last month…My gaze snapped to hers. Like a man possessed, I cupped her face in my palms. “Until me?”
“Until you,” she whispered.
My eyes burned, her words flowing through me, healing the bruises caused by this weekend. I kissed her. “I’m sorry for being such a dick.”
She smiled, the tiny dimple near her mouth appearing. “Lucky for you, I like dicks—ugh!” She laughed. “You know what I mean.”
For once, I didn’t have a comeback.Like. Was that all she felt?
Until you, her words echoed in my mind. Ones I hung on to.I’dpulled her out from that abyss of pain she was buried in.Me.
No, she wasn’t ready to accept the truth just yet, but she would soon.
Smirking, I reached for her. Hastily, she stepped back, eyes widening. “What—eeek, Max!” she squealed as I swept her off her feet, tossed her over my shoulder, and took off in a jog.
She grabbed my waist. “What are you doing? Put me down.”
“You’re tired. I’m taking you back to the apartment. I can be a bastard, but I won’t let you suffer the trip back.”
Her laughter spilled free, and she smacked my butt. “Darn it, Max, everyone’s looking!”
“Who? It’s early morning. Unless they’re peering from behind the curtains, but then they’re probably wishing they could be carried in the rain, too.” I found her top had moved up, revealing skin, and I rubbed my bristly cheek against her side.
