Page 93 of Caught from Behind

I look down, see that her eyes are open.

“Morning, chérie.”

Her lids slide closed, but not before I see another glimmer of guilt and pain and fear.

And I know I’m not going to get any further right now with this.

It’ll just take time.

I smooth back her hair. “Think I can tempt you into making me some of those muffins from the other day?”

She went stiff when I first started speaking but then softens, her mouth tipping up. “One night at your house and you’re already trying to get me in the kitchen?”

“Damn right,” I murmur, lightly swatting her ass.

“Rude.”

“I’ll show you rude,” I say, nudging her to her back, rolling on top of her.

She parts her legs, letting me in, allowing me to settle my pelvis against hers. Smooth skin, hot flesh, lapis eyes deepening to a deep Tahoe blue. “You can show me rude and naked and hard,” she murmurs, running a hand down my chest?—

And then freezing, guilt creeping back into her eyes.

Damn.

I take her hand, bring it back to my chest. “You’ve got to stop, baby.”

An exhale, eyes sliding closed. “I can’t. I keep thinking about what I did and what I said to Kit and?—”

“What happened with Kit?”

She shakes her head, expression one of complete and utter misery. “You’ll hate me as much as he does.”

“Baby,” I say, shifting us so she’s cradled against my chest. “Tell me.”

“I can’t,” she whispers.

“Kit is your friend. He cares about you. He knows that you’re not perfect,” I say softly. “You apologize. You accept that he might be upset for a while, but you’re not the first person in the world to make a mistake and you love him, chérie. He’ll come around.”

She groans, drops her head against my shoulder. “I’m supposed to be the person who fixes everyone else’s lives.”

“Sucks to be the one needing the fixing, huh?”

Her head pops up, nose wrinkled adorably. “What do you know about needing to be fixed, Mr. Perfect? You’re emotionally adjusted,” she answers before I can remind her of my own heavy baggage and the memories that crop up at the worst possible times. “You don’t fly off half-cocked and say and do terrible things. You don’t?—”

“I didn’t push you away?” I counter, tilting her head up so that she has to look at me. “I didn’t hurt you?”

“It’s different.”

“It’s the same, chérie. We’re human. We fuck up. We apologize, do our best to make it right, and then we move on.”

“You make it sound easy.”

I laugh. “It’s fucking hard, baby. But my dad’s lived his life in this cycle—hurting the people he cares, feeling guilty, then doing the whole damned thing again. The difference is that he never gets to the making it right part. He just skips right over that and moves on.” I shake my head.

“Knox says your dad is an asshole.”

Amusement bubbles up in my chest. “He is.” I sigh. “But then he has these moments where he’s awesome, where he’s my dad again—though they’ve come less and less frequently over the last few years.”

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