Page 52 of Savage Game
Why can’t he just leave things well enough alone?
Frustrated, Charlotte leaned away from him but when she tried to tug away her hands, his grip tightened. “Why do you always have to dig into things? Into me?” She tugged again, and he let out a rumbling warning.
“Talk to me.”
Charlotte let out a derisive snort and pitched her voice low. “Talk to me, baby.” In her own voice, she added, “Just stop with the domineering act. I might like it in the bedroom, but I don’t want to be bossed around here.”
One eyebrow slid up.
“And don’t use that look on me.”
“What look?”
“The ‘Daddy isn’t mad, Daddy is disappointed’ one.”
“I’m not your daddy.”
“No, you’re not. But you are being an asshole, who is constantly probing me to bare my soul and who won’t be honest about his own past with me.”
Finally, he let go of her hands, and she took a hasty step back and folded her arms.
He sighed and eyed her warily. “What do you want to know?”
“What happened to your leg?”
“Busted kneecap.”
Um, okay, well that didn’t tell me much, does it?
“How did you bust it?”
“Bad luck.”
She sniffed and tried again. “Bad luck how?”
“I was in a car crash.”
His shoulders went stiff, and his entire body screamed his discomfort with the topic.
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “Just an accident.”
The lines on his face and the shadows in his eyes told Charlotte there was a lot more to tell than that.
“You know, for a guy who relentlessly pressures me to open up and to be honest, you are being annoyingly evasive.” She pushed out her bottom lip in a childish pout. “I don’t like it.”
He didn’t laugh like she hoped he would. If anything, he closed off even more.
Suddenly cold and oddly disappointed, she curled her arms around her upper body in a self-hug and stroked up and down her arms. “Whatever.”
Her attempt of stomping out of the room was hampered by a long, muscled arm around her waist. Byron rested his head against her belly and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She lowered her face and pressed her cheek against the top of his head. As she stood in his arms and gave him comfort, she stroked his nape and shoulders. Whatever had happened had to be far more than “just an accident”. All she could do was let him know that she was there for him. As fingertips moved softly over his tense muscles until they finally began to loosen, all she could hope was that he’d decide he could confide in her and open up about his past. The shadows changed as the sun lowered, and Charlotte waited.
23
Day Twenty-Three
