Page 48 of Vamp

I whipped around and smacked his chest. “You dirty, dirty cheat!” I laughed, the smile on my face so wide it felt like it was splitting in half.

He grabbed my waist and lifted me, twisting me in the water so I was straddling his thighs. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said, continuing the chuckle at his joke, thinking he was so hilarious. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me so our chests were pressed flush together. The rasp of his chest hair scraped across my nipples, making them pebble. “Sorry, baby. I couldn’t help myself.

“Mm-hmm,” I hummed, lowering my head to press a kiss to his pec. Now that we’d started touching, I found I was having trouble stopping. “I forgot you were such a sneaky bastard. It’s why I hated playing board games with you.”

“Very true.” He wasn’t the least bit repentant. “But, hey. It’s not my fault. When I want something, I pull out all the stops to get it. In every aspect of life.” His gaze drilled into me as he spoke that last sentence. When he looked at me like that, it was hard not to get swept away in him. It had only been a few hours, but already, I felt those walls eroding, and if I wasn’t careful, they were going to crumble to dust.

I couldn’t let that happen. At least not right now when I still had no idea what Roan and I were or where this was going. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, sure, but there was a difference between physical attraction and something more. There was something deep inside of me that wouldn’t allow me to completely let go of my fears or the hurts from the past.

I could handle this... now. But when I tried to get my mind to consider the future, it was as if a brick wall shot up in my path and I ended up slamming into it. Over and over, so many times that if I wasn’t careful, I was going to end up with some serious long-term damage.

After that story about his father, so many questions that had been plaguing me for the past decade finally had answers, but those answers didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me what was happening in his life. We were supposed to have been partners, but he kept some pretty crucial secrets that ended up destroying us. He didn’t trust me then, and I wasn’t sure I could trust him now.

It was why I couldn’t let him tell me he loved me.

I shook myself out of my melancholy and forced myself to stay in the here and now. Lifting up, I traced my index finger over the black ink etched into his skin, tracing the Roman numerals. “What do these stand for? They must be important if you put them somewhere you see them every day.”

“They are important,” he informed me. “It’s a date. Most important date of my entire life.”

My eyes lifted to his, my curiosity piqued. “Is it the date you signed with your label?”

He shook his head.

“Your mom’s birthday?”

There was no missing the flash of pain that skated across his expression, but it was there and gone so fast I almost convinced myself it hadn’t been real. “No. it’s not that,” he murmured.

I hummed, tapping my bottom lip. “Is it... the date you won a bigtime award or something?”

“Nope.”

The skin between my brows puckered as I frowned. “Then what is it? What could be that important?”

He took my hand in his, straightening my index finger back out, and guided it over the marks again. “This is the year, 2010. The month.” He moved to the middle set of numerals. “March.” Finally, we traced the last numerals together. “The day. The twelfth.” His gaze returned to mine as he repeated the date. “March 12, 2010.”

My chest shook on a choppy exhale. “The date we met,” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure he’d heard until he nodded in confirmation.

“Yep. The date we met. Like I said, most important date of my entire life.”

And it was right there, front and center for him to see every time he stood in front of a mirror without his shirt on.

“When did—how—” I stumbled over my words and had to stop to pull in a calming breath before trying again. “When did you get that?”

“The week you left Nashville.” The pain radiating off him was so palpable, I felt it sinking into my own body, turning the lukewarm water in the tub frigid. “That was when I accepted that it was really over and I’d lost you for good.”

I sniffled, trying my hardest not to burst into tears.

“No baby,” he said soothingly, tucking a few strands of hair behind my ear that had fallen loose from the knot on the crown of my head. “Don’t do that. Don’t cry. It’s in the past. We’re here now. We’re together. Don’t be sad.”

I sniffled, trying hard to get hold of my emotions. I blinked the tears away and focused on calm breaths until I felt like I was in better control. “Sorry. I’m good.”

“Hey.” Roan’s big hand came up to cradle one of my cheeks, his thumb skating along my cheekbone. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for. If you need to cry, cry. I’ll be here to dry your tears, baby. But what I really want most in the world is just to make you happy.”

His hand came around to the back of my neck. He used his grip to tilt my head down for a slowly, languid kiss before he rested my forehead against his.

“I think it’s time we go to bed,” he decreed softly.

Before I could argue or agree, he wrapped and arm around my waist, pinning me to him, and hoisted me up with him as he rose to his feet. He stepped out of the tub and lowered me to my feet on the fluffy bathmat. Then he proceeded to dry every inch of my body with such tenderness, he made me feel delicate, special... important.

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