But more than that, I want her to start living.
“It’s…uh, really hot out here.” Jarret hooks a finger under the neck of his shirt and tugs.
“How hot?” Her eyes light with mirth, locked on mine, as she initiates a game the four of us used to play.
Jarret taps his fingers on his leg. “I’m sweatier than a pregnant nun on a Saturday.”
“Sweatier than two mice fucking in a wool sock.” I grin.
“Sweatier than a cowboy writing a love note.” Conor arches a brow.
We continue for a few more rounds, drifting into easy laughter before falling silent.
“It is hot.” I climb to my feet and offer her my hand. “I’ll answer your question inside.” In my bedroom.
She grips my fingers long enough to stand, follows me into the house, and through the sitting room.
“Conor?” Jarret pauses in the main hall between the two wings and waits for her to face him. “It’s really good to have you home.”
She goes still, expressionless. Then her mouth parts. Her fingers touch her throat, and she walks to him.
She reaches him with her arms open, and he scoops her up in a tight hug, his eyes squeezed shut.
When he lowers her feet to the floor, his gaze finds mine over her shoulder. The relief on his face spreads a loosening warmth through my chest.
He needed that…that reassurance from her. It’s not forgiveness exactly, but it’s progress.
“Night.” She steps away from him and strides past me, heading to my bedroom.
I trail behind her, shamelessly staring at her ass in those cotton sleep shorts. Waves of natural red hair hang to her tiny waist. She’s tiny everywhere, from her bare feet and slender legs to the cute biceps of her inked arms. She’s so delicate she looks ethereal, but there’s plenty of muscle on that petite frame. I felt it flexing and bunching this morning when I had her pinned against me.
She enters the bedroom and perches on the foot of the mattress.
“Well?” She glances around the room and squints. “I don’t see any stumps to stand on. What’s the form of payment for tonight’s emotional blackmail?”
Straight to the point and full of piss and vinegar. This should be fun.
I stand in front of her and clasp my hands behind my back. “I’m sleeping in here going forward. With you. That’s the deal.”
“No.” She scans my face, and her head gives a slight shake. “No way.”
“Clothes on. No sex…until you’re ready.”
“Until I’m ready?” She surges from the bed, hands fisted at her sides. “I didn’t return home for buckin’ or bakin’, Jake Holsten. If you’re looking for someone to keep your sheets warm, check the Big Sugar. There’s a table of cheap boots waiting for their seventeen orgasms.”
“Sit down.” The bark in my voice makes her jump. I lower my tone, but it’s no less stern. “Sit. Down.”
She does, glaring and balling her fists on her lap.
I bend over her, with my hands on the mattress, bracketing her hips. “I’m going to sleep in here with you and stay at your side, because that’s what you need and that’s what I want.”
“I need to be alone.” Her gaze lowers to my chest and skitters away.
“You’ve been alone for six years.” I grip her chin and force her to look at me. “No more.”
She yanks free of my grasp, and her eyes dart around the room, looking at everything but me. She wants to flee, but she won’t. She’s too damn tenacious.
“You better not give me a half-ass answer.” She pushes against my chest until I move. Then she tosses me a world of contempt in her eyes. “If you’re sleeping in here, I want to hear every detail about your first time. Who and how and where. No filtering.”
She doesn’t just want to torment herself. She intends to use that information to resent me, hate me, and push me away. Because I’m affecting her, exposing vulnerable parts of her she doesn’t want to acknowledge or examine. Self-preservation demands she put up walls to keep me out.
And I’m prepared to kick them all down.
“She was nineteen.” I sit on the bed beside her. “I was twenty.”
“Twenty?” Her mouth falls open, closes, and opens again. “That can’t be right. I saw you with Sara Gilly, and you… Well, you sure looked like you knew what you were doing. And what about all your pole ponies at the bar? The things those women said…” She rakes a hand through her hair, eyes wide. “You’re telling me you were a twenty-year-old virgin? How is that even possible?”
“If you let me talk, I’ll explain it.”
Her teeth click together, and she narrows her eyes as if to say, Get on with it.
I pull a knee onto the bed between us, turning sideways, so I can monitor her breathing and expressions.
“I lost my virginity at a field party.” I wet my lips. “In a barn. It was dark and godawful loud. The rowdy crowd and music…”