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He glanced up, surprised. “What?”
“You keep checking your phone.” I walked into my tiny kitchenette so I wouldn’t have to see his face. “You looking at Grindr or Thrust notifications or something?”
Kit came up behind me. “Is that what you think?”
I shrugged a shoulder and pried the lid off the stroganoff.
“Like I’d have the stamina for another man right now,” he said, nuzzling into the back of my neck. “No, Joey. You’re more than enough to handle.”
I opened a drawer and withdrew a couple of forks. I handed him one. “You were checking your phone even while we…”
He winced. “Not a good look, huh? I’m sorry about that. Dakota’s on her date tonight.”
Everything fell into place then. How edgy Kit had been when he first got here. How he’d been in extra dom mode with me. Not that I didn’t like it. I did. I couldn’t handle that kind of edging all the time, but once in a while? Hell yeah. The payoff had made it worthwhile.
“You’re worried about her,” I guessed.
He blew out a breath. “Things can go wrong when she’s out, and she’s had some bad luck with guys before. Some of them are just weirdly fascinated by what a paralyzed body will allow them to do.”
“You mean, like…” I grimaced. “Hurt her?”
“Sometimes. Or it can just be a fetish. But even without that, her health issues sometimes intimidate men. They don’t know how to handle it.”
“They don’t deserve her, then,” I said.
“No, they don’t.”
“She seems to really like Felipe,” I said tentatively.
“Yeah, he’s an all-right guy. I went and sized him up at the coffee shop. Wanted to make sure his intentions were good.”
“Dakota was okay with that?”
Kit stabbed his fork into the stroganoff and shot me a quick grin. “Nah. She doesn’t know. She’ll be pissed if she finds out.” He shoved a big bite into his mouth and chewed, moaning softly.
It was almost enough to rev my motor, but I’d been thoroughly worked over.
“Risky move,” I said. “Dakota doesn’t seem like a woman I’d want to cross.”
He chuckled between bites. “Yeah. She’d have my balls, but she goes through enough pain without some asshole using her, too.”
“Yeah,” I said, a heaviness settling in my gut.
Kit straightened, seeming to realize what he said. “I don’t mean… I’m not trying to—”
“I know. It’s just the reality.”
Dakota’s pain was my fault. No matter what happened here in this pool house—the sex or the kissing or the feeding Kit—it couldn’t change what had happened.
The obstacle that always stood between us.
Kit seemed to realize the same. He shoveled another couple of bites into his mouth. “I should head home. She’ll be back soon.”
I nodded. “I hope it goes well.”
He tipped up the Sprite and gulped half of it down.
“Do me a favor and check your phone too?” he suggested.
