Chapter Six
Bradley groaned as he woke, his shoulder sore. That wasn’t uncommon, given working with large livestock could be hell on his muscles, and he wasn’t the same young man who had bought the property when he’d barely reached adulthood.
Except, when he opened his eyes, reality fell into place. Blonde hair spread over his shoulder and a familiar sleeping face rested on his chest, her arm wrapped around him.
It made him freeze. Despite everything they had done, the distance they’d crossed since he’d come back,thiswas another level.
For Kat, giving in to a physical relationship wasn’t a surprise. She liked to cling to that as a safer alternative to anything else. So the night before, the chance to taste her, to overwhelm her with Dean, that wasn’t all that unexpected.
The fact that she ended up in bed with him all night was very different.
It hadn’t been a real choice, of course. Kat had been all but mindless when he’d gotten her home, after he and Dean had enjoyed her at the club as Olin had watched. She’d been exhausted, and when he’d gotten her into bed, she’d wrapped around him and refused to let go.
And her sleeping face made him remain still, so he could watch her for a moment without those walls that she’d built up around her. The sunlight that streamed in the window highlighted the freckles on her pale cheeks. Her long lashes cast shadows, and there was a smudge of mascara beneath her eyes—not a shock since she’d been beyond exhausted and ready to sleep by the time they’d gotten back.
Kat shifted, those eyelashes of hers fluttering as her eyes opened. That bright gray met Bradley, took him back when she looked at him with the same old trust.
At least, she did for a split second before her brain started working, before that defensiveness she wore like armor wrapped tight around her again.
Kat pushed herself upright, frowning as if trying to figure out what had happened. A flush covered her cheeks, which told Bradley she’d recalled the night before.
And he sure as hell would not apologize forthat.He didn’t think he’d ever been as happy as when he’d touched her again, when he felt her weight and heard those sounds she made when lost to pleasure.
It had beenwaytoo long since he’d gotten to experience that, and he wouldn’t waste a single minute regretting it.
“Fuck,” she whispered softly as she moved her hair from her face.
“Pretty sure we did that,” he said.
She pressed her lips together as if she didn’t enjoy his attitude.
Funny, given Katalwayshad an attitude of her own. It seemed like a fair turnabout to brat back at her.
“This was a mistake,” she said as she pulled herself out of the bed, her nightgown revealing enough of her thigh that Bradley wondered if another go that morning was possible. After so many years apart, he wasn’t quite ready to let it all go.
Though, a glance at her face said that wasn’t likely.
“You needed it.” Bradley sat up, not caring that the sheet fell to his waist and that he didn’t have a stitch on. “Nothing to beat yourself up over.”
“I didn’tneedanything.”
“Course you did. You’ve been up against a wall for weeks and trying to stand on your own for a lot longer. You needed the chance to just let it go for a while.”
“Sure,youcan say that. You get to leave and run back to your ranch and ignore everything again. You don’t have to pick up the pieces. No wonder you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, and of course you act like I just up and left for no damned good reason—like you hadnothingto do with that. Like I haven’t been at my ranch alone because you made it perfectly clear you didn’t have any fucking room in your life for me. Don’t you try to play the victim here, Kat.”
She stood up straight, as if the words had dug down a lot farther than Bradley had really meant them to.
Then again, that was the risk with two people who knew each other so well. It was so much easier to drive in a knife where it would do the most damage, and Bradley always had a sharp tongue and short temper.
He sighed, then rubbed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Look, Kat…”
Before he could get anything else out—maybe before he could think of anything else to say—she shook her head. “It’s fine. You’re right. I’m going to get to work.” Kat grabbed clothing from her closet, slinging it over her arm. She paused by the door to her room but didn’t look back. “I know I’m not easy to deal with,” she said, her voice so soft it almost couldn’t carry across the room. “I know I’m a lot. I’ve heard it my whole damned life, that I’m too much, that I’m extra. I wish I could say that was going to change, that I was suddenly going to be a person others wanted to be around, but if it hasn’t happened yet, it isn’t going to, is it?”
She sighed, her fingers grasping the edge of the open door as if to hold herself together. “Guess it doesn’t matter how old we get—people never really change.”
She left, and the sound of the shower running told Bradley she’d finished with their little conversation.