“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“Don’t be. You were right. I should have been here. That might not have stopped it, but I wasn’t here. She’s stubborn, and she won’t let me tell her what to do. She look through everything?”
“Yeah. She’s going to talk to the crane operator in the morning.”
I chew that over. I don’t like her traipsing all over the city looking into an accident that was only an accident, but the quicker she realizes that, the sooner we can go back to Old Harbor. “Okay. I’ll do some work in the office, and Talia can hang out with us.”
Beau raises his eyebrows. “You’re not going with her?”
“Devyn wouldn’t let me, and Tony won’t talk to her if I’m there. It’ll be easier all around if I just accept it. We’ll meet you at nine.” I turn as Devyn and Talia approach us. Holding out my hand, I say, “It was nice to meet you.”
Talia places her hand in mine, and Beau watches, his eyes narrowed.
For fuck’s sake.
“It was nice to meet you too. I’ll see you in the morning,” she says pointedly to Devyn, and my mouth twitches in amusement.
I crowd Devyn to the elevator, picking up her suitcase as I nudge her past it, hurrying her along.
After we’re inside and the doors close, I pull her to me, pushing her against the wall. I breathe her in, and I didn’t realize how much I missed her scent. Roses will always make me think of her.
The elevator bumps to a stop in the lobby, and Devyn tries to pull away from me.
“Can you stop for one fucking second?” I growl, trapping her in my arms. “Just stop moving for one minute.”
She stills, and I think I’ve gone too far, but she presses her face into my neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We didn’t say anything. You didn’t say anything when I left the lighthouse.”
I lean away, and cup her cheek in my palm. “I’d known you for three days. You know what I am, how I live.” I pause. “What I look like. How could I think you’d want me? I’m a broken man, who, on rainy days, can barely move.”
Her eyes are so green, I think of oceans of dark grass, and I want to bring her somewhere, anywhere that’s away from here.
She opens her mouth to speak, but I rest my thumb against her lips. “I was scared to tell you, Devyn, because the last time I said it to a woman, she didn’t say it back.”
Batting my arm away, she says, “Then she was a fool.” She crashes her mouth to mine, and I’ve never tasted anything so sweet, so intoxicating. Devyn’s all passion, bottled-up lightning, and her energy, her spark, is slowly waking me up. My tongue tangles with hers, and I shove my hand up her top. My fingers splay across her ribs, against her hot skin. The contact soothes me, but my blood boils. It’s only been two days since I’ve had her, but they’ve felt like years.
“Say it,” I demand, my breath fanning her face. “I need to hear you say it.”
“I love you,” she gasps, biting my lower lip. “I love you.”
I never let myself believe a woman could say those words to me after the accident. I never thought I would meet a woman who could see the man I was trying to be underneath my injuries. Not when Renata would look straight through me.
“Thank Christ. Come on. We need to get out of here.”
The truck’s still waiting, double parked with its hazard lights flashing, and I toss her suitcase into the back. I haul her into my lap and don’t notice when Mack melds into the traffic toward an apartment I haven’t seen for two years.
Her pajama bottoms are thin, and her cleft cradles my cock through my jeans. I didn’t give her time to put on her jacket.
“I’m sorry,” I say, fluttering kisses all over her face. I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. Making her leave Beau’s penthouse without a coat, or letting her come to Cedar Hill without me, or not telling her I love her when that’s all that’s wanted to come out of my mouth since the morning I watched her drive away.
“For what?” she asks, dragging her lips over my jaw and down my neck where she worries the skin between her teeth.
I choose one. “For not saying anything the morning you left.”
She sits up, pushes away a piece of hair that fell over my eye. I haven’t bothered with a haircut in God knows how long. I haven’t bothered with a lot of things.
“It’s okay. There were things I needed to do before you did.”
“Things like the accident?”