Page 82 of All Our Secrets

I shrank away from him, stood, and backed right into the refrigerator. “Whoa. What was that?”

“A good morning kiss. Get over here.” He pointed to the chair I escaped from. The chair he stood behind.

“No. Don’t do that.”

“Peyton.”

“Don’t Peyton me.”

“Baby.”

My heart skipped a beat. That,that.He kept calling me baby, like I was his woman. Theodore had called me baby. Each man made the word feel completely different. “I’m not your baby.”

“You are.”

Ugh.Silas King being Silas King. Stubborn as a mule and meaner than a striped snake. I knew this would happen, so why—whycouldn’t I resist the temptation? Why was I so weak when it came to him? I feared I’d spend the rest of our lives fighting him away with a broom. Which was crazy. My heart really needed tostopracing at the mere sight of him. The organ wasn’t making this easy. Silas didn’t settle down or do much of anything when it came to relationships. So why was he trying to be all domesticated after two nights of screwing each other? A kiss on a forehead? Absolutely absurd. For my heart’s sake, he couldn’t do it again.

“I think you’ve got something mixed up here.” I waved my hand between us.

He crossed his thick, muscular arms across his chest. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “I had an itch, was all. A need that made me come to you. And it seems like you had one too.”

The vein in his neck jumped. “Itch?”

“I needed sex.Relief,” I blurted. My face felt like it would melt off. I couldn’t stop talking. My hands were clammy, and my heart was getting all messed up. I had to draw the line. “And honestly speaking, with your attitude, you always seem like you need to get laid.”

“Hmm, if you needed ‘relief,’ as you put it, why come to me?”

“Yeah… You… uh.” I stared at the ground and racked my brain. There was no way I’d speak the truth. “I don’t know, Silas, I just needed it. I have nothing more to say, but I can’t do the forehead kisses.”

Silas scoffed. “You don’t know what you need. But if you did, you’d be too damn afraid to admit it.”

My temper rose as his words stung my chest with their truth. “I have nothing to admit.”

His nostrils flared as he took a step forward. “It’s always been there between us. You know it. I know it.”

I reared back as if he’d slapped me, bumping my head against the fridge. To hear him speak it out into existence made me feel like the world’s awfullest wife to Theodore. I’d tried so hard to hide it, even from myself. I didn’t want to hear it coming from Silas’s mouth.

“You didn’t say that,” I uttered.

“You know why I could barely speak or look at you all these years?” he went on anyway. Stalking forward, he grabbed my hand and caressed my fingers with his. “Because if I stayed too long, stared too long, I would have done somethingbad.”

Heat overflowed within me. No. Heatwasme when Silas neared. I hated that a part of me, a part too big, needed to hear that from him. Any explanation for his past behavior. And those feelings were what hurt because it disgusted me. It sickened me that I’d had all these emotions for someone before my husband was buried in the cold, hard ground.

“You’re not saying that.” Tears threatened to spill as I looked into his dark eyes. “How could you say that? Theodore was your best friend. And I’m his wife.”

“You’re his widow, Peyton. Stop. Calling. Yourself. His. Wife.” He punctuated each word.

“I was then.”

“You were never supposed to be his anything.”

“What?”

“The day you walked into the bar, you weremine.” Suddenly, his hand gripped my chin. Nose to nose, my breath got lost in his intensity. “I can’t fault Theodore for stepping in. I made a bad call that day. One that still haunts me. Promising you now, baby, I won’t ever make that mistake again.”

Stepping in? He spoke as if he’d come before Theodore. But that wasn’t correct…

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