“I’d never do that to you,” he said, possessiveness stabbing at him. In that moment, a part of him told him he’d never let anything bad happen to her. He’d protect her any way he deemed possible. He mentally shook himself. What the hell was that? She wasn’t a wounded animal, or his lover. She didn’t need his protection.
She worried her bottom lip. “Thanks. I usually don’t believe what people say.”
“Do you believe me?” he asked, his lips working faster than his brain. Asking this kind of question would only land him in trouble. Yet he found himself leaning closer, anticipating her answer, his gaze dropping from her eyes to her plump mouth.
She bit her lower lip, and desire punched him in the groin. “I don’t know… yet.”
“Fair. You don’t know me.”
“I doubt you’d make it easy for me.”
He cleared his throat, gathered every reluctant part of him, and surged to his feet. If he knew what was good for him, he’d leave. Or maybe what was good for her. “I shouldn’t. I’m your best friend’s dad. There’s no reason why you should know more about me,” he said.
She lifted her chin, determination glinting in her eyes. “What if you weren’t Madison’s dad?”
His pulse skyrocketed. Should he tell her the truth or the safer version? “I highly doubt we’d ever meet by chance.”
“Really? I saw you on a dating app.”
His blood cooled in his veins. He never saw her profile, but her age group also wasn’t in his targeted search. A stab of jealousy came over him, and the idea of her profile on a dating app which any sleazeball could be on bothered him in a way that defied rationality. “These apps suck. You shouldn’t be on them.”
She narrowed her eyes, obviously not convinced. “But you are?”
“I’ve had some mileage on me, girl. You are…”
“I may be a virgin, but I haven’t been living under a rock.”
No… she’d been living next door, and as of tonight, she was under his roof. Get a hold of yourself, man. Alice had trusted him in asking for him to host Alyssa and her high-maintenance dog for a night. Was that how he’d go? Seducing the girl and taking her virginity? Even though that technically, he wasn’t the one doing the seducing.
Didn’t matter, though.
He was the one with decades’ more experience. He was the one who was supposed to know better. She came over for one night. Great. He’d made it. Now, he needed to do the right thing and stay the hell out of her way. “Alyssa… I should go back to work,” he said, against his body’s every wish.
4
Alyssa lapped in the pool. She’d been swimming for the past twenty minutes, from one side to the other. The Smiths had a nice pool, but it was shaped in asymmetric angles so it was more to go in and enjoy than actually lapping.
Knox’s pool was made for intense exercise. The man had to keep those wider-than-Texas shoulders somehow, right? She sighed, and reached the edge. She was so out of her depth, and she didn’t mean the seven feet depth of the pool. She was playing way out of her league, which he reminded her of every chance he got.
But little did he know that the more people said no, the more she wanted to prove them wrong. She’d won a state Volleyball championship once, when her classmates dared her to join the team. They didn’t think she could do it—make it to the practice, games, afford the gear.
But she trained like crazy, worked as a babysitter to pay for new sneakers, as well as her share in the application forms.
Hell, her mother probably didn’t think she’d make something of herself. Not because her mother wished her bad things, but her poor mother never knew the meaning of ambition and self-worth.
She was training to become a masseuse, a profession many may look down upon. But one day, she’d have her own parlor. One day, she’d be an entrepreneur and have a nice home to come back to when her shift ended.
Maybe a husband and kids too? She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Hard to think about marriage when the only man she ever wanted was dismissing her pursuit. The reason she came to swim. To think about things, to strategize a way to have him look at her as a potential woman he could date, and not the girl that was friends with Madison.
She drummed her fingers on the concrete. She loved Madison, and would never hurt her feelings on purpose. But Madison was now an adult, her age, and she had to understand her father had a love life too. Besides, she wouldn’t hurt anyone. Madison wouldn’t even find out.
Maybe I’m fucked in the head. No maybe. She was. She was broken, a part of her innocence had been taken away from her even if not in a sexual way. She’d just seen too much what unrequited love and lack of self-esteem could do to someone.
Am I just like my mother? She should think so—after all, she was throwing herself at Knox, and how had he responded? But a part of her refused to believe so. Must be because spending time with Knox did something to her insides, and it wasn’t just knotting her stomach and pushing her heart up her throat.
No. It was a sense of empowerment. A gut feeling that being with him, was not only something right, but something she had to do. Something she wouldn’t sleep well until she had done it. Much like the Volleyball championship, but a hell of a lot more exciting.
