Page 72 of After All

“You would have cleaned my shed?” Scott was looking at her like he wasn’t sure who she was.

“I wouldn’t havelovedit,” she told him dryly. “But yeah, I know how to use a broom.”

“And why would you have done this?”

“To uh…help you out.”

“I can give you a very short list of ways you can help me out, Trouble. And not one of them includes a broom.”

God, that low, sexy tone did it to her every time. She swallowed hard as heat swirled through her.Girlfriend stuff. Relationship stuff. You’re getting the hang of it. Kind of. Maybe. Don’t blow it now by saying something crazy dirty.Butif you pulled my shorts down and put your mouth between my legs right here on this ladder, you’d be my favorite person everwas right on the tip of her tongue.

And speaking of tongues… She shook her head and took a breath. “I like doing this stuff too.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.” Well, she didn’tminddoing this stuff. Not as much as she’d like doing the mouth-between-her-legs stuff or the stuff Scott had in mind. But that was the point, right? To show him she was about more than that?

“Peyton?”

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

Oh, boy. He was going to kiss her. She couldfeelit. His voice, his eyes… “I don’t think I should.”

“You most definitely should.”

Shereallywanted him to kiss her. She was weak and needy and at the moment, she didn’t care a bit. She scooted down until she was at eye level with him.

He braced a hand on either side of the ladder, caging her in. “If you know how to do all of those things you mentioned,” he said, “how come I’ve been cleaning your gutters out for two years?”

Oh, that’s what he was thinking about. She made herself grin and said, “I like having a man slave.”

He shook his head slowly, eyes locked on hers. “Why really?”

She felt her smile die. How did this guy know her so well? She wet her lips and said honestly, “Becauseyouneeded to do those things.”

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t frown. He didn’t smile. He didn’t move. But he did ask, “How do you know that?”

“Because you take care of people. That’s your thing. And you like that I’m needy and dependent on you.”

And that right there was the issue. He did like that. And she kind of liked being that way. Except that this past week, she’d really liked being the one taking care of him and getting to know him and learning more about him.

Maybe he was going to have to get used to a little of that.

“I do like taking care of people,” he finally said. “But I did those things for you because I thought you needed them and I didn’t want you to have to depend on your dad.”

Peyton felt like he’d just sucked all of the air from her lungs. She stared at him. He’d been trying to keep her from needing her dad? “Why?” she asked softly.

“Because I saw too many times when you needed, or wanted, him to be there and he didn’t show.”

Yeah, hehadseen that. There had been a few times when she’d gotten into trouble, had to call her dad, and then sat around waiting for him. She’d ended up sleeping in the cell at the jail one night. Scott had opened the door. He’d brought her food. He’d told her she could go. But where was she going to go? She’d still been living at home at that point. And yeah, she could have walked home from the jail, but there had been something that made her feel like she’d rather be injail, at least kind of in jail, with Scott, than at home with her parents. So she’d curled up on the bed in the cell and gone to sleep. The next morning, when Dan had finally strolled in, she honestly thought Scott was going to take his head off.

“Is that why you gave me your number to call whenever I needed anything?” she asked. “Because you didn’t think my dad was dependable?”

“I wanted that to be the reason. I wanted to see you as this poor little thing that didn’t have anyone else.”

She looked at his chin instead of into his eyes. Pity. That was one thing she definitely didn’t want from Scott Hansen. “Well, I appreciated it.”

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