Page 136 of Steamy Ever After

“But you’re always laughing.”

He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a defense mechanism. It mutes the doubt and disappointment I battle on the inside.”

Stunned that he’d share such a personal thing, she wondered if he was lying. But as she held his stare she found nothing but sincerity looking back at her.

“I imagine,” he said, softly. “It’s the same as being a bitch. If you reject people first, they can’t reject you.”

Was she really that transparent? She shivered, her cold dress clinging to her.

Giovanni walked over to the bed and retrieved the crumpled T-shirt. “Here. You can wear it.”

She took the bunched-up cotton and stared at it, confused and exhausted. “Why are you being nice to me?”

“Because it occurred to me, that maybe it’s been a long time since anyone has.”

She looked up at him through a wall of tears, fighting back the lump of unwanted emotion in her throat. Her chin lifted. “I don’t need your pity.”

He sighed, the delicate moment over. “And there’s the Erin we all know.”

He walked back to the bed, this time climbing under the covers and sorting through the chips and candy. It was as if she disappeared and he no longer saw her.

Invisible, she returned to the bathroom to change clothes. Leave it to her to find an ally and destroy the connection in under a minute.

What the hell was that? Giovanni despised when women cried, but seeing Erin Montgomery cry was the worst freak of nature he’d ever imagined. She was too tough for delicate emotions. How was he supposed to hate her if she got all soft and weepy?

A faint sniffle came from the bathroom and he glanced at the door, doing a double take when he glimpsed a flash of pale flesh through the crack. He leaned to the right, catching more than a hint of her naked curves.

Jesus, she was built like a brick shit house. Tapered thighs, darting hips, narrow waist, and those tits. Her nipples had been hard as rocks since she took off her coat. The white T-shirt slipped over her head, sliding over her body and covering her curves, but not before he caught sight of the bare flesh between her thighs. He should not be looking at her.

The door opened and he grabbed the first thing next to him—a bag of M&Ms—and focused hard on the ingredients.

The bed dipped under her slight weight and the candy and chips rolled into his thigh as she lifted the covers. They sat in silence. He feared moving the slightest muscle with Erin being like a grenade with a loose pin. Who the hell knew what might set her off.

He’d only complimented her crumb cake and the chick went bonkers.

“Are you going to eat them?”

Without looking at her, he handed the chocolate-covered peanuts over to her. The tear of the bag and the crunch of her bite the only sound. Several more rattled out of the package and clicked into her palm.

“I’m tired,” he announced. “I think I’m gonna get some sleep.” He scooted under the covers, setting an avalanche of junk food into motion. He stared at the horrible drapes covering the front window by the door, listening to Erin crunch away.

He couldn’t get comfortable due to his body’s response to seeing her naked. He was pathetic. She was just flesh and bone, nothing he hadn’t seen before. Besides, she was mean.

As he stared at the wall, he thought about pit bulls. Lots of people didn’t like them because of their bite. They were up there with the strongest dogs. But when he was younger, they had a pit bull named Clementine. She was the sweetest, most docile pup he’d ever known.

One day, on the way home from school, Dickie Masterson was pestering Giovanni’s sister, Mariella. Mariella hated Dickie, but it was clear Dickie only picked on her because he had a crush. He followed her all the way home, pulling her hair and teasing her the way young boys often did when not getting the attention they wanted.

When Dickie tried to kiss Mariella, she shoved him away, but Dickie didn’t let go. Clementine jumped the fence and chased Dickie clear off their property, snapping and snarling like the dog from Salem’s Lot. They never saw Clementine attack like that again, but since that day, they always knew she had it in her.

The covers shifted. He sensed Erin scooting lower, the heat from her bare legs warming the air under the sheets. He tried to ignore her presence and continued to focus on his distracting thoughts.

He once saw a show about dog fights. It was awful. Dogs like Clementine were kept in captivity and taught to kill. He didn’t like to think about such cruelty, so why was he thinking about that now?

Dogs weren’t born nasty, they were made that way. Cruelty begot cruelty. Maybe someone was mean to Erin. She had to pick it up somewhere.

Any time someone claimed all pit bulls were mean, he defended the breed, telling anyone who would listen that Clementine was the sweetest girl he’d ever owned. She only growled when protecting herself or her pack and once when she was scared at the vet.

Was Erin scared of something?

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