Who deserved the solitude that had been caving in around him these past few years.
Who’d dug himself into a well of despair so deep that he didn’t know how to get out of it, but knew the woman he’d hurt this morning was his salvation.
My jaw worked as I got to my feet. Scottie scowled at me as I bent down and hauled him into my arms. He squawked, not happy at the move, and probably not happy with being so close to me, but that was the shit thing about being a baby—you went where you were carried.
Still, he settled on my side like he was born to be there.
It was eerie how well he and I connected.
I got the feeling the kid didn’t like change, that he was unhappy at losing Mrs. Linden, and then these past few weeks of endless alterations to his routine were definitely not something he approved of, but with me? He seemed settled, and that? Well, shit, it made me happy.
It had been so long since I’d felt anything other than stoic that the warm feeling inside me had taken me all this time to recognize.
Nicholas wasn’t happy.
Nicky had been, but Nicholas? No.
I knocked on the door, and waited for her to let me in. When it took a while, I pressed my forehead to the wooden plank and called out, “I can’t apologize to the door.”
“The door would listen. I won’t,” she rebuffed, but I heard her tears, knew she was still upset, and I couldn’t blame her.
I’d mocked the paper she’d handed in the other day.
Why had I done that?
Why did I target her writing? Downgrade and downplay it when it was some of the most refreshing work I’d read in years?
I wasn’t jealous.
I just—
Hell if I knew what I was. It confused even me.
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She didn’t reply, and the silence from her room was deafening. She didn’t make even a peep of sound, so it made it feel as though I were talking to an empty room. Then, I heard the patter of her footsteps, and I released a heavy sigh of relief. Scottie’s hand slapped my cheek, almost like he knew Phoebe wouldn’t give me the beating I deserved, and I took the smack.
Fuck, I’d earned it.
Pulling back slightly so I didn’t lean on the door, I waited with bated breath for her to open it. When she did, she stood staring at me with tear sore eyes.
I’d done that to her.
Me.
I sucked down a breath and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
That had her tensing. I realized she hadn’t anticipated my apology, and I wasn’t sure if that made me an even bigger bastard or not.
“Why do you do that? Why do you say the things you do to me in one breath and then do something crazy like let me stay here and not pressure me to find somewhere else to live? How can you hurt me with your words, but hold Scottie like he’s yours, and offer to get a damn nanny for us?” She gulped, and the tears clogging her throat hit me like another sucker punch—I’d experienced so many of late that it was a wonder I was still standing. “Why, Nicholas?”
In the face of her earnestness, it didn’t even occur to me to lie.
“Because I’m scared.”
“Of what?” she sputtered.
“You. Me. What you make me feel,” I rasped, aware that she didn’t have a clue how I felt about her.
“You’re confused about hating me?” she questioned, her brow puckering.
I was confused about fucking loving her. But I couldn’t say that. She’d run away from me if I did.
No, the truth was too unpalatable.
Some thought the words ‘I love you’ were as big a cure as a ‘sorry’ was, but they meant nothing. Not really. Not unless they were gifted and received with heartfelt intention.
I licked my lips. “I don’t hate you. I’ve told you that before,” I retorted. “I don’t want to feel anything for you—”
“But you do?”
Before I could answer, Scottie—my new BFF—squawked and took her attention from me to him. She stared at me for a second, then sighed and reached for her brother.
When the kid was settled on her hip, I watched as she lugged him across the room and set him up in the crib I’d insisted on buying for him—something she’d only agreed to when I’d bought a travel one, and had told her that she’d regret it if he fell out of bed with her one night.
I could have left them to it. I’d made my apology, after all, but I didn’t want to.
I was sick and tired of being on the outside looking in. That was how I’d spent the past eighteen months. Watching her from afar, needing more and not daring to grasp it.
Instead, and feeling as though I were bridging a thousand-foot wide chasm, I stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind me. Was it strange that I felt the need to herd her in? To contain her?
To me, she was like a wave of butterflies. Impossible to capture. But I wanted to. I wanted to be the one to cage her because I knew that was the only way a fucked-up monster like me would ever be able to hold her.
As it clicked closed, her head whipped around so she could look at me over her shoulder.
I kept my back to the door and stayed silent until she carried on tending to Scottie.
“He’s asleep,” she muttered after a few moments.
Christ, that was quick.
“Come to the lounge and talk with me?” I requested huskily, watching her back stiffen.
“About what?” she replied with a tired sigh. “There’s nothing to discuss.”
“Please?” I asked again, ignoring her refusal.
She huffed out another sigh but stepped away from the cot and moved toward me. I opened the door for her and stepped out behind her, and the second I closed it once more, I grabbed hold of her and pressed her into the wall.
Before she could do little else than squeak, I was on her, and thank fuck, she was on me just as fast.
Her hands were in my hair, pulling at the strands as though she wanted me closer but Christ, there was no getting any closer. Her lips were on mine, my tongue in her mouth, and I fucked her. I fucked her there like I couldn’t fuck her pussy, and goddamn, but she loved it.
In my arms, she was a wild thing. Anything but the tame and calm woman who’d managed to raise a baby who wasn’t her own, and hold down several jobs while going to college.
This woman was electricity, and I wasn’t scared of touching her. If anything, it drove me higher and faster than any other kiss I’d experienced.
I pushed my cock into her belly and raised my hands to grab at her own. I knew she’d try to touch me soon, and that couldn’t be tolerated.
Not now, maybe never, but I needed to bind her to me, tie her to me in ways that no other ever could.
With one hand clasping her wrists, I used the other to smooth my palm down her leg and hooked her behind the knee, urging her to grip my hips. When the other mimicked the first, I rocked my cock into her core, letting her softness brush against my hardness.
Fuck, even through several layers of clothing, it felt good.
Better than good.
Heaven.
I stopped fucking her mouth and pulled back to catch my breath. This was about as much sexual contact as I’d allowed myself in the past four years and I didn’t want to come too soon. But shit, it was hard.
As I pushed my dick into her softness, I pressed my face into her throat. I couldn’t stop myself from scenting her, from breathing in deeply and absorbing every bit of her smell. It filled me to overflowing, making me never want to be apart from her, making me want to take it into my body so that our scents were combined into a new one, one of our making.