Last night in the moonlight I hadn’t noticed the specks of light in her eyes, or the different shades of grey, from slate to almost silver. “You’re fucking gorgeous Kadyn damn.” I hadn’t meant to say that dammit. She was falling apart in my arms and I was fighting my body’s reaction. I hadn’t lost my hard all throughout this whole ordeal. I don’t know what that says about me, or more to the point the hold she had on me.
“Matt, I’m not who you think I am, I have…there are some things about me that you may not like.” She hid her face once more and I let her. What did she mean by that cryptic remark, and did it even matter?
“Are you a criminal or something, are you running from the law?” Funny, I could care less if the other one got the needle but her I was willing to hide if it came to that. I am truly and totally fucked.
“No of course not but…let me just think about it first okay, I have to decide if this is something that I want, you’re moving so fast…”
“Don’t worry about that it’s a Steele thing, as to you needing time to think I already told you when it comes to us your time has run out. You’ve found your future and I’ve found mine. Just a few short hours ago I wasn’t sure, I too had questions. But I do know you’re the last thing I see before I close my eyes at night and the first thing I see each morning when I awake. I don’t see that changing anytime soon if ever so that’s pretty much a done deal. But I’ll give you time to tell me whatever it is that’s bothering you. So take the time you need, not too much though. Somehow I don’t think I’ll have too much patience where you’re concerned, not with something like this, something that obviously caused you great pain.”
“You feel that?” I pressed her ass down on my hardness that still had yet to go down, it seemed nothing would make the shit go away short of getting inside her. The truth is, nothing had ever kept me this excited for this long except maybe tinkering with my cars. That’s another sign that I’d been about to make the biggest mistake of my life with the other one. She never had me tied up in knots the way Kadyn did; never made me feel like I was losing my damn mind.
Huh, thinking of her didn’t bring with it that feeling of lost. I didn’t feel that ripping hopelessness that had been tearing at my gut for so long and I had no doubt it was thanks to the girl in my arms. Whatever her problem was we’d deal with it so I could get on with the business of claiming her. I hope I have the patience to wait for her to come around on her own and not go home and fire up Josh’s comp and find shit out for myself. Shit, dad had said be a Steele, I guess we were all about to see just how much of one I was because this shit was wild. No wonder Joshua had lost his damn mind.
Chapter 12
We walked back down the beach to the blankets and sat watching while the others frolicked in the water. I kept her hand in mine more so because I couldn’t bear to release it just yet than because she still needed my support. She seemed to be relaxing a little bit more, though I could still sense some tension in her. “Whatever it is, whatever secrets you’re keeping Kadyn won’t change the outcome of us. I don’t know how I know that I just do. I too have some things in my past that aren’t pretty; I’m only now learning to let them go. Our past cannot control us unless we let it.”
“But Matthew we don’t even know each other, who’s to say that you will want to deal with my baggage? How can you know unless you’ve heard what it is? This all seems too crazy for me. You have to understand before I came here, I’d made up my mind that I wouldn’t have that sort of life that it just isn’t in the works for me. I’d made peace with it, I can’t go through another heartbreak…”
“Somebody broke your heart? Who?” I didn’t like the sounds of that, that maybe she’d once been in love so deeply that she had given up on life when that love failed. And that’s just fucked Matt, you were in a relationship too remember? Somehow that didn’t placate me one bit and I found myself biting back the anger.
“No it’s nothing like that; you promised to give me time remember?” I ran my finger down her cheek as she held her face up to me. Why was it I wonder that at this moment I felt none of the angst and uncertainty that had plagued me for so long now? Why did sitting here with her like this suddenly feel so right? This growing up shit was a pain in the ass, what I had before felt like child’s play compared to what I felt now. Did all men fall this hard this fast? Was it even natural, or was it a Steele trait? Josh had been the first person I’d seen react in this way, at the time I’d thought he’d lost his shit but this…this was beyond me.