Page 6 of Loaded Laces

She gasps.

Because I’ve thrown out my hand to catch it. “I know you’re in a hurry, sweet cheeks,” I drawl, “but I don’t think Huddy will appreciate you denting his ride.”

It’s a sweet ride too, a Porsche he somehow crams his big body into.

I prefer the legroom in my Land Rover.

“I need to go,” she says quietly.

“You need to go.” I let the words hang in the air, my unspoken question—you need to go after showing up after all these years, saying that shit?—sitting heavy between us.

I know she feels it because her throat works, eyes dancing away.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispers. “And I know I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Then why did you?”

More silence, her unspoken answer to my question weighing the conversation down even further.

I want to shake her, want to force her to give me a fucking explanation.

But I’ve never been able to make Belle do anything she doesn’t want to do—not ten years ago when we were teenagers—and I know I have no hope of making that happen with this stranger—yet not—standing in front of me.

So, I wait.

And I hope that I can wait her out.

Her one weakness…patience.

She burns hot, makes rash decisions?—

Burned. Made.

The reminder is a visceral slap.

I don’t know this woman in front of me, this woman from my past, this woman who left a wound so vast that no matter how much I tried to bury it, to ignore it, was still there, still aching, still oozing out sickness into my soul.

Because she doesn’t speak.

Just keeps her pretty brown eyes on mine anddoesn’t speak.

“Let’s start with something easy,” I say, breaking the silence, biting back my frustration. “Do you live here?”

Those eyes slide to the side.

Then come back to mine.

“Definehere,” she replies.

Progress. And…not. I stifle a sigh. “You’re really going to pull that shit now?”

“No,” she says, and the ice in her tone, the tart that slips across the space and jabs at me, makes my dick hard. I’m a sick fuck, what can I say? But I’ve always loved it when this woman gives me attitude, always loved it because it meant I could kiss her until she went soft for me…

Then could kiss her some more.

“No,” she says again, tart intensifying. “What I’m going to do is go home?—”

“So youdolive here in town.”

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