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He dug his thumb in a little deeper, right under her big toe, and Amy let out a moan that was filled with both pain and pleasure.

“Am I remembering that right, Amy? Were you trying to avoid conversations about family?”

Amy was having trouble keeping track of the conversation as Ryker’s big warm hands caressed and kneaded her sore foot.

“I told you about Carla,” she protested drowsily.

“Yeah, and I want to meet her sometime.”

Amy smiled. It’d be nice if Ryker met Carla. They’d like one another.

“But I’m right about you wanting to avoid questions about your family, right? It was because I wanted you to come and meet mine that you stopped taking my calls, isn’t that true?”

Amy blinked. Her brow furrowed as she tried to take in what Ryker was saying. She tried to pull her foot away from his grasp.

“It’s okay, Honey, nothing bad is going to happen. I just want to understand. Why didn’t you want to meet my family?”

“Seriously, Ryker, let go of my foot. I need to sit up. I was totally out of line on how I ghosted you, and I came here to explain, and you rubbing my feet is making it all confusing.”

“Am I hurting you?” he asked gently. “Or does it feel good?”

“It feels good,” she admitted. “But….”

“But what, Honey?”

“But I don’t want you to be nice to me when I wasn’t nice to you. I want to apologize and tell you how sorry I am.”

He clasped both of her feet in his hands, caressing them. “And you just did. I accept your apology. See how easy that was?”

She looked at his bright blue eyes and realized he meant it. He was totally sincere. Every moment of her obsessing and worrying about him not liking her anymore was over. He’d accepted her apology like it was nothing.

“I’m really, really sorry. Every time you called or texted I felt worse and worse. By the time you showed up at the restaurant, I totally understood why you were there to give me a hard time. I deserved it.”

His hands stopped moving on her feet. “Wait a minute, did you think I was making fun of you? Honey, you have it all wrong. I was just nervous and said the first thing that came to me. You’re just lucky I didn’t say ‘Hey, good looking, Whatcha got cooking?’”

“You weren’t there because you were mad and making a point?”

Ryker pulled her by her feet, and soon her booty was on his lap. “Never. I would never do something like that to you. Honey, even if we were in our worst fight, I don’t play that way. I won’t go out of my way to make you feel bad. That’s not how I roll.”

“It’s not?” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back as he stroked her hair away from her face.

She let out a long sigh, then rested her cheek against his chest. “Do you know how much better I feel?”

“I can imagine. So are we good now?”

She pushed away so she could look up into his face. “Yeah, I understand now. But Ryker, let’s face it, you want a relationship with me, and doesn’t that huge misunderstanding prove just what a hot mess I am?”

“We all are.”

Amy gulped. “You were right when you guessed that I didn’t want to come and meet your mom. She sounds fabulous. The only reason I can handle Lark’s mom is because she was there in the thick of things during some of my mom’s shit. She knows where I come from, and how I was raised, and somehow she doesn’t hold it against me. I still can’t believe that knowing all of it, she still wanted to invest with me, but she did.”

Ryker started stroking his fingers in lazy circles on her back. “Tell me more.”

“You can’t possibly know how messed up my life is. I have a temporary restraining order against my mother. Who has that? Do you know why?”

“Tell me, Honey,” he coaxed. He breathed the words into the curls on the top of her head.