Page 92 of Things We Burn

What was left unsaid was that I didn’t fight forhim. I could’ve wept in response to the pain he was veiling with anger and contempt.

“You gonna let me in, or you gonna continue to make me stand out here like a fuckin’ unwanted houseguest?” he asked. No, demanded.

We had been hashing out something immensely painful and personal on my front porch. Luckily, I didn’t have neighbors, my cottage located at the edge of town, down a long drive with the dense woods bordering my property, giving me the illusion that I was the only person left in the world.

Which is what I had wanted, to hide there. To rot there, maybe. Wallow in my pain and self-pity and absolute fear of what was to come.

I didn’t say anything, just moved my body in answer. He took that as permission and shouldered his way past. I stepped back in time, wondering if he would’ve pushed me if I hadn’t. Surely, he wouldn’t. Kane wouldn’t get physical with a woman, let alone a pregnant woman. Certainly not with me. Or so I’d thought. The old Avery wanted to call him out on that, tell him that despite his anger, he didn’t get to treat me poorly. I wanted to tell him to leave just so I could breathe.

Yet trying to argue with Kane at that juncture would’ve been unwise. Considering the state he was in, there was no winning with him, even on my best day. That was far from my best day. And it was pouring rain, he’d come on his bike. He would get soaked.

Realizing my own mistake in quickly believing those lies and then being hit with how pissed Kane was at me, seeing him after all that time was … a lot. No, it wasn’t Kane’s outrage, it was his pain that was hiding so poorly underneath his anger. I’d hurt him. Deeply.

I stood at the door for a little longer than might’ve been normal after he stormed through, holding on to the doorknob to stay upright and blinking at the motorcycle in the driveway.

I only caught myself when the sound of the back sliding door and the dog’s rabid barking jostled me into the present.

I rushed to shut the door then ran down the hall to the back door before my dog could try to maul Kane. That was the last thing I needed. Not that Kane couldn’t handle himself with an overgrown, untrained seventy-pound dog. The fight would likely be even. Or tilted in Kane’s favor. He just had that aura about him that said he could handle any threat. Most especially now, furious and obviously just out of prison.

But still, the dog had teeth. Sharp ones. That could tear into Kane’s skin, give him more scars. My stomach lurched yet again at the thought, because I’d come to the realization that he had plenty of new scars because of me, ones that weren’t visible to the naked eye but ones that were bone deep, soul deep.

Instead of finding a dog and man brawl in my kitchen, I found the dog on her back, presenting her stomach for Kane to scratch.

“She’s not barking,” I stated the obvious. “Or jumping on you. Or attacking you.”

“She’s not.” He didn’t look up at me, still speaking in that cold, growly tenor.

It made sense. He wasn’t exactly going to stop being angry at me from the time he walked from the front door to the kitchen.

“She barks at everyone,” I said, watching man and dog together, the sight making both my heart and pussy clench … for different reasons. The pussy was obvious; I hadn’t had sex in about … seven months. Kane looked better than ever in a simple black tee, ripped black jeans and boots. His bicep muscles stretched the fabric of his tee, looking like they’d grown a bunch in the time we’d been apart. His hair was longer too, and hehad a dark scruff of stubble covering his jaw. With the tattoos, muscles and in all black, all he needed was a leather vest, and he’d look like an outlaw biker.

Despite Kane looking better than any man on earth had any right to look, it wasn’t just that. It was him. Here. It was his smell. It was his huge presence in my compact, little cottage. It was his large, strong hands scratching the dog I’d adopted.

He was here. In the home I had been trying to create for the past five months. The home that hadn’t been anything more than a house until he stormed through the door.

My eyes welled up, and I struggled to contain my tears.

Pregnancy hormones. That’s what it was.

I cleared my throat loudly. “She’s a rescue,” I explained, focusing on the dog. “And she is … strong-minded. She doesn’t stop barking or running around like an idiot unless I’m feeding her or I’ve tired her out with a long walk on the beach,” I babbled. “And part of that tiring her out is me wrestling with her when another person or dog walks by.”

I placed my hands on top of my belly, unsure of what to do with myself, how to stand, how to act in front of Kane. The man who I’d been more intimate with than anyone in my entire life had become a stranger to me.

When Kane looked up at me, his expression was blank. I had to stop myself from cringing at the sheer lack of warmth in it. This was the man who’d made me feel on fire and alive every time he laid eyes on me. The man who had made me feel like the only woman on planet Earth when he looked at me.

His gaze gravitated down to my stomach for a split second before he focused on the dog again. He gave her belly a rough pat before pressing onto his thighs and straightening up to a standing position.

Blanche jumped up as he did so, her tail wagging madly. I prepared for barking, jumping, plain old wild behavior.

“Go, sit,” Kane commanded, pointing to the rarely used, fancy dog bed across the open plan area in the living room.

I’d tried that command about a million times, at varying decibels. Yelling didn’t work. Nor did speaking softly and calmly. Nothing worked. Nothing that the sweet but befuddled dog trainer did worked either.

He informed me that he’d worked with hundreds of dogs and had yet to have one best him. She was his Everest.

Blanche didn’t skip a beat. She trotted over to her bed dutifully then settled there without so much as a frustrated bark, curling up and chewing on the toy bunny that she’d been uninterested in before then.

I stared in amazement. “Aaron is going to be pissed,” I said without thinking.

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