Page 90 of When We Break

“Have you ever lived with a woman?”

Beck takes a breath and doesn’t immediately say anything, giving me my answer.

“Got it.”

“It’s a story,” he says, pausing in the makeup removal to kiss my lips softly and then brush his nose against my own. “I did live with someone, briefly. Her name is Tori, and you’ll hear people talk about her once in a while, so you should hear this from me. I don’t have any secrets. Not from you.”

He tips my chin up with his finger and resumes taking off the makeup. He’s methodical about it, working on one spot at a time before moving on to the next. I reach out and tuck my first two fingers in the waistband of his pants, anchoring myself to him.

“I’m listening.”

He presses another kiss to my forehead. This man’s lips are always on me, and it’s heaven.

“Tori is from Bitterroot Valley. Like most people in town, I’ve known her a long time. She was a couple of years behind me in school, but I didn’t really know her until she moved back after college. Anyway, it was the typical thing. We had mutual friends, ended up hanging out with the same people, and started seeing each other.”

He discards the wipes, then turns on the tap and wets a cloth. He uses my cleanser to finish cleaning my face, moving in little circles over my skin.

“How long did you date?”

“About a year, give or take.” He shrugs and rinses out the cloth, then removes the cleanser from my skin. “I invited her to live with me at the ranch.”

I pull back and grab his wrists, so he’s no longer touching my face, and frown up at him.

“You lived with herat the ranch?”

In the bloody bed that we’ve made love in?

I’m not okay with that.

“No.” He kisses my nose, and his smile turns tender. “No, Irish, she never lived at the farmhouse.”

I release his wrists and take a deep breath. He takes my hand and guides it back to his waistband, and I grab it with my fingers once more.

“All right then.”

He tips his head to the side, his eyes bouncing back and forth between my own. “You don’t like the idea of that.”

“No, and I can’t explain the why of it. I just don’t like it.”

Perhaps because it already feels likemyhome.

This is my man.

Those are my chickens.

Mine.

He nods and warms the cloth again before returning to his task of wiping my face.

“Fair enough. Anyway, she didn’t want to live at the ranch. She wanted to be in town, so we moved into a place, and I commuted.”

“What did she do for a living?” I ask, frowning. Why wouldn’t she want to live at the ranch?

“She’s a nurse. She had shift work at the hospital, so I figured she didn’t want to have to drive back and forth in the middle of the night, and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t really want her to do that either. But I put in long hours, so I’d leave well before five in the morning and not get home until close to ten at night. Sometimes later. I didn’t have the staff that I have now.”

Tossing the cloth aside, he reaches for my moisturizer, but I pass him the rose water spray that I use first, and close my eyes while he spritzes it on my skin.

“Now this?” he asks, and I nod as he dips his finger into the pot. “We never saw each other. I hated the drive into town every day, and she made it perfectly clear that she’d never be a ranch girl. She didn’t like the animals, and honestly, I think she assumed I was wealthier because I ran a successful dairy operation.”

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