She doesn’t move, and I can’t set myself in motion when I lower my mouth to her lips.
“You have to trust me, baby…” I murmur in a husky voice that scratches my throat.
When you have to say that to someone, the trust has already reached a breaking point.
I feel a quiver across her lips and relish the trembling in her touch. Her fingers dance across my chest while her eyelids go lower and stop at half-mast.
She responds to my kiss with soft lips and genuine warmth.
“That’s better…” I say, talking to her as if she is a vulnerable, broken, beautiful thing.
In my eyes, she is all that.
I slide my hands inside her shirt and run it off her shoulders. The garment meets the floor, her hair fluttering around her like a cloak.
She stares blankly at my chest, her hand spread over my pecs, seemingly thinking about something.
“Was everything okay at my place when you checked it the other night?” she asks.
Tension zaps through me like a bolt of lightning. Restrained and quiet, I mull over an answer.
A hint of suspicion flickers through her eyes, or maybe it’s me projecting.
I hold her gaze, unwavering.
“Yes. Everything was fine. Why?” I ask.
She thinks about it.
“What’s bothering you?” I ask again when her response fails to come.
“I was thinking about my place… Having an intruder a while back… Finding that suspicious trail of water and the baseball bat being misplaced.”
“Uh-huh…”
Her eyes drill deep into mine, and I can tell she is testing me, expecting me to answer truthfully and thoroughly.
She’s onto something, and I keep my expression neutral, waiting for her to give me a hint about what is going on.
“What if there’s a burglar in my neighborhood? Someone checking places, figuring out who’s home and who isn’t, and then breaking into their homes? My backyard neighbors are not home, for instance, and their place is right behind my house.”
She stops, expecting a reaction.
“That is at odds with the idea that they were looking for something specific, and it doesn’t explain the missing piece in that wooden beam,” I argue.
“Yeah… It doesn’t,” she says, slightly disappointed that I didn’t bite. “It might be a quirky thief. Someone collecting souvenirs. What do I know?”
Her gaze slides down while I tighten my arms around her.
Why would she mention her neighbors?
A thought pops into my head, my eyes sliding to my cell phone.
Has she checked my phone? Would I be surprised if she did that? No. I’m not the only one aware of the distrust between us.
She’s noticed it too.
“What is it?” I murmur, waiting for her to bring her eyes back to me.