Page 28 of Dirty Rock

“So, yeah, Rhett,” she said, making me look up. “I expect you to grieve a man you’ve never met. I expect you to lose yourself over someone you didn’t even know because that’s what I’m doing right now, and it’s all I can do.”

“This is different.”

She wiped a tear away. “Is it?”

“My father chose to leave. Your niece didn’t.”

Her breath quivered as she sucked in a sharp breath.

“I fucking hate seeing you like this.”

I did. Shewasthe fixer… of so many things. I’d never given thought to who the hell was there to fix her up when she needed it. I’d, wrongly, assumed she never cracked. That there were no pieces of her glued back together, and that she’d always been perfectly perfect. Now, though, she was breaking. She showed me in every crease of her eyes, every shudder of her chest, and with every tear that fell down her rosy cheeks.

I shuffled closer, cupping her neck. Her legs parted, letting me in. I didn’t think about any of it—about how we were almost too close, or how it could look wrong to those who hadn’t heard the words and secrets we’d exchanged. All I could feel was the tears that fell against the edge of my palm, and the way she leaned into my touch and closed her eyes.

“I want to know how you do it,” she whispered. “I want to know how you shut off your emotions and ignore life back home when you’re half a world away.”

“You don’t want to know what I do. It’s unhealthy, and it’ll all blow back in my face one day.”

We were hushed truths, quiet whispers, and silent heartbreak as we stared at one another when she opened her eyes again.

“I need to know, Rhett. Tell me. Because I’m close to breaking for good, and I’m begging you to be the one to save me.”

“I can’t save you, Jules.”

“You’re the only one who can because you’re the only one who’s real,” she whispered. “Tell me what you do.”

“I drink too much, snort coke I don’t need, and I fuck anything that moves.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

Her beautifully vulnerable eyes searched mine, and she leaned closer. My breathing picked up pace when her gaze fell to my mouth.

“Anything,” she said again.

Oh, shit.

“Jules, I don’t think…”

Her lips pressed against mine before I could finish. For a moment, she just held them there as I watched on with wide eyes, expecting her to say she’d made a mistake.

But with a hitch of her breath, her lips began to move, dangerously intoxicating as she pressed herself to me with everything she had. I stumbled back, my arms wrapping around her and catching her as she fell against me. A grunt escaped my throat, breaking us apart for less than a second before her hands dug through my hair, she searched my eyes one last time, and her lips found mine again. When my arse hit the floor and Julia straddled me to rest her firm little behind against my erection, I was fucked.

My body was still healing from the attack outside the strip club, but none of that mattered with the booze in my bloodstream and a woman I never thought I’d want or have grinding against me.

She felt light in my hands, but the weight of responsibility was suffocating.

Julia.

This was fucking Julia.

God, she couldkiss. That mouth was perfect, and that tongue was coaxing me into actually wanting my own destruction. The way she scraped her nails on my scalp and tugged on the longer lengths of my hair was quickly driving me crazy, and my hips pushed up to show her the effect she was having on me. I imagined fucking her against a wall from behind, and how sweet she’d look with her mouth full of my cock.

Fucking Julia, man.

This couldn’t happen. It would ruin everything.

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