Page 20 of Puck & Make Up

Then it’s time to put up as many barriers as possible, bricks and barbed wire and bombs that will detonate to keep the danger at a distance.

Like a cornered dog growling to get someone to leave it alone.

Normally it works—far too well.

But, just now, when Fox looked at my body and?—

Dammit.

That look of derision.

It’s so fucking familiar.

Jett perfected it.

My other boyfriends tried it.

And I…well, I tried to logic my way through it.

But…

It still hurts.

I’ll never be slender and petite like Bailey. Nor a curvy dynamo like Rosie. I’m tall with broad shoulders and muscular biceps, and I can dead lift more than most of the guys at the gym I attend.

And Fox’s look brought that all up again—the vulnerability, the need, the…

Loneliness.

Knowing I’ll never find someone to love me for me. Not really.

Ugh. Why didn’t he just leave when I asked?

Then he would have never seen me like this, and I could go back to pretending to hate him, spending all my spare energy turning Monroe’s into the best bar on the planet, and being happy for my friends and how wonderful their lives have turned out.

This, though?

ThisI can’t undo.

He’s seen behind the veil, and if I know anything about Fox it’s that he’s not the kind of man to let this go.

Stubborn.

Pushy.

Damn.

I tremble and he murmurs, “Easy,” again, still rubbing my back with that big hand, still holding me gently even though, looking at him, there should be nothing gentle about the huge hockey player. He’s so tall that I feel small, so strong and built that when I’m pressed against him, I feel delicate and feminine.

And for a woman whose dream it was to spend her lifesavinglives in between hauling hoses, using axes to break down walls, carrying gear and oxygen tanks and the occasional unconscious body out of buildings, feeling small and delicate and feminine…

Is not common.

That Fox manages to invoke those feelings just while holding me in the hallway of my apartment when he doesn’t really like me, when we’re always picking at each other…

It’s not the Fox I know.

Not the Fox who’s always prepped with a joke, who loves kids, who cares deeply about my friends just because they lovehispeople—and who’ve become his people now too.

---