Page 50 of Point of Contact

The tightness from earlier clenched her throat again, this time bringing an ache. It'd been so nice to feel like she mattered. To feel like somebody cared. The thought that maybe it was driven by nothing more than guilt hurt.

She jumped a second time as the side door opened and Reed stomped in. His eyes went to her face almost immediately. "What's wrong?"

She swallowed, the act much more difficult than normal. "Nothing. I’m fine." She pointed to the couch, hoping to redirect his focus. "I'm a little disappointed about how bad the pink looks with the green."

Reed stepped closer, smelling like the cold outside air and the fresh Old Spice body wash she'd picked out during one of their Walmart trips. He shook his head. "No. You're not going to do this."

She blinked, unfazed by his gruff tone, but definitely affected by his nearness. "Do what?"

"Lie." He kept coming, crowding her space. "I don't mind you being a brat. I don't mind you being a pain in the ass. I might even fucking like it." His big body came close. "But don't lie to me."

She swallowed hard, caught in a cluster of opposing feelings. "I didn't mean to lie."

He continued to watch her. "Then why did you do it?"

She considered lying again. Telling him she didn't know. But she did. "Because I don't really know how to tell you how I feel."

Reed's hand came to her hip, holding with a firm but gentle touch, the heat of his palm sinking through the fabric of her knit pants. "Try."

She struggled to breathe. This was harder than she expected. All her life she wanted someone to care about her feelings, but now that she was faced with having to actually admit them, it felt uncomfortable. Significantly more so than admitting her feelings about her father. "I just thought maybe you've been nice to me because you feel bad for me."

Reed's dark eyes continued to hold hers, pinning her in place and making it nearly impossible to catch her breath. "Is that what you thought?"

Is it? She shook her head. "I don't know, but I was afraid that maybe—" She managed a shaky breath before trying again. "Maybe it was why—"

"Why I touched you this morning?" He finished for her.

She wanted to break the tension, but her brain couldn't scrounge up anything even remotely amusing to say, so she was stuck with, "Kinda?"

Reed's nostrils flared, making him look almost angry. "I didn't touch you this morning out of guilt or pity, Princess." He pushed against her, backing her up until her butt hit the edge of the tiny countertop, pinning her between it and the hard line of his body as his free hand came to grip the braid at the back of her head. "I touched you because I'm having a hell of a time thinking about doing anything else."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

REED

SHE WAS KILLING him. Breaking his heart in ways he never expected. And it was causing a hell of a lot of problems.

"Really?" Courtney’s question was breathless. The look on her face a little skeptical.

It was yet another part of her he never saw coming. The almost shy, insecure, broken bit that struggled to believe someone, anyone, would genuinely want her.

Seeing it both pissed him off and drew him in at the same time. It made him want to be closer to her. To be close enough she would see the truth of what she’d done to him.

It also made him want to throw shit. Rip apart the line of people who'd let her down. Left her alone.

But he'd have to tear himself away from her to do that, which was becoming harder and harder to accomplish. Especially when she put that wide-eyed, vulnerable gaze on him. Like she was now.

"You've got to stop looking at me the way you do." He was on edge. In a position where he might not make the best decisions. The smartest choices. Not about her, but about her safety.

Courtney barely shook her head, dark eyes staring up into his. "I'm not doing it on purpose."

That was part of the problem. He'd seen how she acted on purpose. Knew that her teasing and flirting and brazen sexual innuendos were done with purpose. This new bit of her was not, and it called to his protective nature in a way that was impossible to ignore.

For all her brashness, Courtney was unbelievably delicate. Afraid to even consider she might have the possibility of being genuinely cared for. And she fucking deserved to be genuinely cared for.

He looked over her face, the hope and the fear there. The raw need bathing in the pool of her gaze. It was unmissable and unignorable. Just like so much else about her.

"I know you don't mean to." He gripped the tab of her coat’s zipper, yanking it down before pushing the heavy fabric open. "But if you don't figure out how to stop, it's gonna take us fucking forever to get to Alaska." He gripped the waistband of her pants, unhindered by the normal concerns about interest and consent. He knew Courtney was interested. Knew she wanted anything he was willing to give her. She'd made it abundantly clear on a number of occasions, and right now he was grateful as hell for it. Because it meant nothing stood between them outside of the clothes he was quickly removing.

---