Page 96 of You're so Bad

I itch to go to him, to soothe him. To reassure myself that he’s really here. But I don’t move. “Why’d you make yourself stay away?”

He laughs and scuffs a foot against the floor. The expression in his eyes says he thinks I might kick him or send him outside. “I don’t know how to do any of this, Tiger. Maybe I’m not cut out for it. But I talked to Burke, and he got me thinking that maybe it’s something I can learn.”

“What is?” I ask, my eyes glued to him as I wait.

He takes in a deep breath and says, “I like you, Shauna. Truth is, I’ve got it bad for you. It’s been that way since we first met. When Constance told me about her lie, the honest-to-god first thing that came to mind was, ‘Here’s my chance.’ But I’ve never been in a relationship with a woman. Never. I don’t want to fuck everything up. Seems to me you’ve been hurt enough.”

Everything in me feels like it’s quaking. I hadn’t thought it was possible that I’d hear him say these words, and until this moment, I didn’t realize how much I wanted it.

“So have you,” I say softly, my mind bringing up a picture of that little boy, forced to do things he didn’t understand. Beaten and twisted by his own father.

“You deserve a man who’s not afraid of his own shadow.”

He may be afraid of his shadow—of the darkness within him—but he’s fearless when it comes to everything else. It’s obvious he doesn’t see it that way, though.

“I don’t want you to stay away,” I say. “If you stay away, that’s what’s going to hurt me.” Then I let myself span the distance between us, running to him like he ran to me.

“I’m sweaty as fuck,” he says as I reach him and wrap my arms around him. I bury my face in his neck and kiss him there, tasting the salt, snuggling in close so I can feel him against me. His heart is thumping fast in his chest.

“I don’t care,” I say into his neck. “I’ve missed you. And I’ve got it bad for you too, Doc. Really bad.”

He wraps his arms around me, holding me tightly to him, like he’s worried I’m the one who might run away. “I’m sorry,” he says softly into my ear.

We stand like that for a long moment, wrapped around each other, soaking each other in. “I told Burke about my father and about what I meant to do when I first came to Asheville,” he says then. “Just like you told me I should.”

“What did he say?”

He tightens his hold on me slightly and speaks into my hair. “He said I was his brother, and nothing could make him push me away.”

He sounds incredulous, like he can’t believe a person would ever feel that way about him, and a sense of shame envelops me. I used to think the worst of Leonard—I used tobaskin thinking the worst of him. It was wrong, even if I did it because I knew I could fall for him, and it would be a long, dangerous tumble into fire.

“Of course he did,” I say, kissing him again and tightening my hold on him.

He kisses the top of my head, then pulls back slightly and lifts me up by the hips. I wrap my legs around his waist as he kisses my mouth, his lips needy, his teeth tugging on my bottom lip.

Then he ends the kiss and smiles at me, my legs still wrapped around him, his hand on my ass. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Tiger. Is this here a new line? They don’t look much like the pieces you’ve got out front.”

I groan and bury my head back in his neck. “It’s a problem is what it is. Sometimes, when I’m upset, my monsters have more teeth and claws.”

“My little hellcat,” he says. Then, sobering, “Was it because of me? Because I stayed away this week?”

“A bit,” I admit. “But I’ve had trouble making anything else lately. I’ve been on a bit of a dark jag.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me to come back here the other week.”

“Yes. But I did make a different kind of piece on Monday…”

“I don’t want to set you down,” he tells me. “So you’re just going to have to point.”

I do, to the piece sitting on the rack in the corner, and he goes to look at it. I’m close to his face, so I can see his jaw working and the emotion filling his eyes.

I trace his cheek with my finger, ending at the slight lines around his eyes—the laugh lines that he managed to form despite going through hell. My heart aches for the boy he was. For the man he’s becoming. For the fact that he’s kept his sense of humor and joy intact through all of it. “It was the look in your eyes when you saw Bean again. That’s what made me want to make it.”

His gaze burns into me. “I want to be a better man for you.”

I don’t even realize I’m crying until he traces the tears from my face and then kisses my wet cheeks. “I need you inside of me,” I say.

“That’s not something a man would say no to.” He kisses my cheek again, then my mouth, groaning a little before he pulls away, his hand caressing my butt. “But I don’t have any condoms.”

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