My fingers glide around her waist, to the ridges in her back along her spine. “I don’t believe that anymore.”
She sucks in a breath as my fingertips lightly grace the swells of her ass. “You said you weren’t so different. What do you mean by that?”
A corner of my mouth tugs upward. “It means that I felt lost until you, mo ghrá.” She rolls those plush pink lips I want against mine. “Can you blame me for wanting to keep you?”
Her hands lift out of the water, gliding along my shoulders and down my pecks. Her fingertips play with the dark hair on my sternum.
Fuck, I’m addicted to the way she touches me.
My dick is fully awake now from her magic fingers.
Kate’s body leans into mine, her arms snaking around my neck. Her perky nipples glide against my pecks. “We barely know each other.”
“What’s your middle name?”
Her brows dip. “Breanne. Why?”
I cup her ass, lifting her further onto my lap to draw her mouth closer to mine. I breathe across her lips. “Kate Breanne Hannaford, will you go on a date with me?”
Despite the warmth soaking us, she trembles in my arms.
I can be a gentleman.
For her,only her, I’ll be a fucking great one.
THIRTY-FOUR | KATE
Ismooth my hands over the flowy fabric, unable to tear my eyes away from the dress that has emotion gripping my chest.
Back at my studio, I have the necessities: comfortable clothes, a few casual ones, and a few pairs of my work overalls. The only other thing I left back there are photos I’ve kept stashed in my wallet, along with all the money I have made from working at the park. I’m sure my landlord, Sindy, is worried sick, now that she knows I am running from someone. My rent was due the night after Arden drugged me at dinner and forced my secrets out. It’s been four days since then, and she hasn’t heard from me.
I may only have a few personal things and clothes, but my wardrobe definitely doesn’t have a ten-thousand-dollar dress that appears to have been made for me.
Preston asked me to go out on a date with him in the bathtub, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Like my mind wasn’t whirling in a million different directions, recounting the night when I was bound to that chair, wondering if I would die, and then wondering if he would.
The whiplash happened so fast that it split my brain.
We both needed several days to recuperate and rest. And I’m thankful for that, considering there are still faint marks painted on both my wrists from the zip ties.
I haven’t seen much of Arden. He’s been avoiding Preston and me. The few times I have seen him, he’s made uncomfortable eye contact with me from across the room with a vanquished look in his eyes. His mouth would faintly twist to the side, as if the remorse was oozing through the control he kept so well maintained all the time.
Then he’d give me a singular nod before disappearing.
The worst part? I don’t hate him for what he did, and I know I should. I can’t imagine the kind of trauma that comes with opening a box to see the hearts of two people you love.
The part of them that should keep the blood circulating through their body.
The part that feels.
That loves.
That keeps them alive.
I have so many questions I want to ask Preston tonight. Yet there’s something sharp weaving between my ribs that tells me those answers might be figuratively written into the timeline tonight. He wants to know me, and I want to know him. The good things about the past and the worst. What the future could look like.
All our little ugly truths, no matter how unpleasant they may be.
I want all of it. All of him.
