“I was downstairs and thought I’d come up to make sure you’re okay after the thing with your father.”
That man ruined everything. He showed up and her life blew to hell. He stayed away and she waited and worried he’d slink out of the darkness and show up. There was no peace to be found from being his daughter.
But none of that excused her behavior. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I know there’s more to this story and what’s been happening, and we’ll sit down and go through it, but my bigger worry right now is you.”
Wade offered an emotional way out to this horrible day and she took it. She needed to explain it all, but later. Now was the time for lying.
Kyra tried to take the conversation to a safer topic. “I’ll be fine. I have school starting soon and—”
“Kyra, it’s me.”
She glanced up, ready to ignore the pain pinging around inside her and lighten the mood. Wade’s expression had her hesitating. His brow wrinkled in concern and before she could find her last store of control the words came tumbling out of her.
“I messed up and fell in love with him. Guess I am just a naïve schoolgirl.” She sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the I told you so or something similar. When it didn’t come, she looked up again. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Come here.” When she didn’t move, he opened his arms.
But she was already going. She hit his chest and his big arms wrapped around her. The hold, so secure and comfortable, made her think of all the times he’d soothed and calmed her over the years. Their relationship had morphed into something more adult but she still needed him.
Back then she would get upset, be on the verge of crying, and he would make it better. When her father told her he’d been grooming her to be part of his team, she found Wade and begged him to get her out. He didn’t hesitate or ask questions. No matter what he once did for a living, he was one of the best men she knew, and through him she met Bast.
“I’m fine.” She whispered the words more to convince herself than Wade.
“You said that already.”
“I loved him for so long . . . I don’t know how to stop.”
Wade pulled back and stared down at her. No judgment, just worry in his eyes. “I had no idea before a few days ago.”
“Neither did he.” For a long time, neither did she. She downplayed it and thought it would go away. As she got older, it grew and when she came up with her plan to work at the club to get to him, her feelings fell into place.
Wade gave her a strangling bear hug then let go. “Tell him. The one thing I learned losing Eli and the shitty weeks since is that being stubborn and maybe even being right don’t matter much when you’re alone.”
Speaking of which. “So, how long are you going to wallow and punish you both?”
“I said I was downstairs, didn’t I?” Wade wiggled his eyebrows. “We made up.”
She grabbed his hand. “That’s great news.”
Happiness flowed through her. She loved the idea of Wade finding love and being strong enough to grab the chance.
He eyed her with his “I’m serious here” scowl. “Now it’s your turn.”
If only Bast were ready and not fighting it with every ounce of strength he possessed. “It’s not that easy.”
“Yeah, sis. It is. The Kyra I know would make him understand.”
She’d tried and she’d failed and . . . he moved her in. He flailed and stumbled but when she tried to separate from him, he held on. He could have sex with any number of women. He already had and likely stored their numbers somewhere. But when he wanted someone beside him at night, he turned to her.
Wade laughed. “Did you work it out?”
Bast had one more chance to get this right. “He’s not going to know what hit him.”
• • •
Bast stood in his bedroom doorway and watched her. She sat on the edge of his bed, staring at her hands and nothing else.
He had to swallow twice to make any sound come out. “Kyra.”
She didn’t lift her head. Didn’t even twitch, making it clear she’d known he waited there. “My plan was to come back here, get my stuff and then call Becca to ask if I could go stay there.”
He had to force his muscles not to move. It was either that or jump and risk scaring her. “No.”
Kyra glanced up then. “You think you decide?”
“I think I communicate for a living but for some reason I’m having trouble talking with the person who matters most.” He hung the clothing bag on the top of the doorframe to his closet.
She watched but didn’t ask what he was doing or what he was holding. “Who?”
If she truly didn’t know, he deserved the pain he had in his gut all day. “You, Kyra.”
“You suck at showing it.”
“I know.” He walked into the room, approaching slowly and giving her time to get up and scoot away. When she didn’t, he sat down next to her, letting the mattress sink and his body roll close to hers. “I never thought you tried to set me up with your father. Not even for a second.”
“Seemed like it.”
“I was angry because he came to you with this stupid idea and you didn’t confide in me.” Bast solved problems for a living, found solutions. Yet, when the person he was most desperate to keep safe ignored his skills and went it alone, it fucked him up. His anger made him question everything.
“We’re just having sex. Remember?” The sadness wrapped around her voice until that’s all he heard.
If anything, that sharp whack in his gut increased. He slipped his hand over hers, thinking touching her might ease the pain. “You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” She angled her body so they almost faced each other. “You act like—”
“A douche. An ass. You’ve called me both and were accurate.” He’d used harsher names on the car ride back from her apartment.
“Is this some sort of legal maneuver?”
His massaged her hand and slipped his hand over each finger. “What we have has nothing to do with work.”
“You know I told myself sex would be enough. That we’d have some fun . . . but that’s never what I wanted.” She slipped her hand out from under his. “See, deep down I hoped you’d fall for me because I have been in love with you forever.”
He almost slid right off the bed. His foot hit the floor harder than he intended and he kept blinking as his brain tried to catch up. “What?”
Her chest fell on a hard exhale as she stood up and walked over to the closet. She fingered the edge of the clothing bag he’d just hung up. “Yeah, I only recently admitted it to myself, but there you go. I love the way you look, and how you treat people. Most people, not me over the last two days, but usually.”
Hope punched through his pain and his heart took off on a speed run. “Kyra—”
“But before that, in those quiet times when we were alone and you’d touch my hair or whisper my name. When you thought I was sleeping but you’d tell me all those things you liked about me. I loved those moments.”
Every word she said surprised him. “You heard all that?”
“I hear everything, especially the things you hold back and don’t say. The panic, your fear about loving a woman again. Your fear of failing.” She squinted up at him. “Not going to deny it?”
No, he was done running. Done fighting. She loved him and he didn’t understand it or even fully believe it was possible, but he refused to pretend none of this touched him. “I can’t.”
“Lena thinks—”
That sucked some of the growing relief right back out of him. “You talked with my ex-wife?”
“She still loves you.”
“That’s not true.” God, he couldn’t fight that battle again. His relationship with L
ena was long over and he would not invite her presence into the middle of what he shared with Kyra.
“She knows you need someone other than her and she wishes she could be what you need, but she knows she can’t.” Kyra shrugged. “I felt sorry for her. Then I felt sorry for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know if I’m what you need either. She thinks I am but my past and my age scare you.”
“Stop.” All the arguments tangled together and got confused. She was viewing this all wrong and he had to make her understand. The adrenaline pumping through him said his happiness depended on it. “Listen to me. I don’t give a shit about your past. Not at all. And your age . . .”
“I can’t fix that.”
“It isn’t about the number. Well, it was at the beginning until I realized how sexy and smart and mature you are.” Now he thought of her as younger and him as the luckiest man in DC. “Your age scares me because I know you should go to school and find a younger guy, one without baggage, who can give you a life without all the crap I drag behind me.”
“Are you kidding?”
He slipped his hands over her arms and pulled her in close. “I should let you go, but call me selfish because I don’t think I can.”
Not, “think” at all. He knew.
Her hand went to the knot on his tie and a sexy glint shone in her eyes. “Bast, to be frank, I’ve had boys. You know you weren’t my first. Not that we’re talking numbers here because that can’t lead to anything good, but you weren’t even my second.”
Okay, he’d be fine if they skipped this part. “So?”
“I want a man. You.” She went on tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss on the top of his nose. “You with your emotional bullshit and messed-up family. You with your clingy ex-wife and need to rescue everyone. You who panics when things get emotionally close and shoves me away.”
Man, she knew him cold. “I won’t do that again.”
“You will because you’re still battling something deep inside. Because you don’t think you deserve happiness and to find what you want, but you do.”
His hands went to her lower back and her body slid against his. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want more than now. I want a chance at forever.”
Forever. Exactly what he wanted. “Let me give you that.”
She pulled her head back and frowned. “You’re even willing to try?”
This was it. He could pivot and use his way with words to get out of plunging straight in, but he didn’t want that. He had to put it on the line and hope she’d join him.
She’d said she loved him. She took her risk. Now it was his turn.
“I know this is fast and you’re unsure, but I want you to move in. For real, not just because it’s safer.” His gaze searched hers. “All I can think about is you. When you’re not here, I want to go hunt you down and drag you back. It’s this strange Neanderthal thing I’ve never really experienced, but I need you by my side while we work our way through this.”
She bit her lower lips as her finger tightened on his tie. “And when you decide it’s time to move on?”
“It’s not going to happen.”
She loosened the knot and pulled the tie free from his shirt. “I’m going to start school and that’s going to suck because I hate school and am not good at it. Book stuff doesn’t come easy to me.”
His brain cells flickered off and a rush of heat pulsed through him. Through it all, he struggled to keep up. She had to know this was about more than sex and he did listen. “Why are you going?”
“Because I managed a store and I know what I really want to do is have the skills to own one.” She smiled. “Jarrett helped me figure out what program made sense for me.”
“Of course he did.”
“He’s a good guy.” She unfastened one, then another button on Bast’s shirt. “So are you.”
“Then take a chance on me.” He willed her to say yes.
“You’re not that big of a risk, except that you might only ever want me for sex.”
“I do want sex, but it’s much deeper than that.” He lifted her off her feet and groaned when she wrapped her legs around his upper thighs. “Do you really not know I’m falling for you? Can you not see it? Feel it?”
With his hands under her ass, he pulled her higher up his body. The kiss came next. A mix of hot and sweet. A promise of more to come.
Before she could say anything, he pushed ahead. “Reality is I’m half in love with you already and falling this fast scares the shit out of me.”
She burst out laughing. “So romantic.”
“But I want to risk it all. I was trying to do that tonight.”
Her laughter faded. “What?”
“There.” He turned her around and shuffled over to the clothes bag. “One of your dresses.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His confidence tripped. It had seemed like a good idea a half hour ago. Now he worried she’d tag him as a stalker or housebreaker. “I’m sure there are guys who can look at a woman and know her size and buy the right thing—”
“That sounds creepy to me.”
“To me, too, so Wade gave me the key to your place and I went over and picked up a dress.” As soon as the words were out Bast knew he had fumbled that like he had so much else.
Her eyebrow lifted. “Not creepy at all.”
“Point is I wanted you to wear it when we went out on our first official date tomorrow.” He pressed her back against the wall. Balanced her there as his hand traveled over her shirt to cup her breast and smile over the feel of her.
“Out with me in public?”
“You want me, you get all of me.”
She unbuttoned the rest of her shirt and slipped a hand over his chest. “I can handle that.”
“Yeah, well. Wait until you meet my dad.”
“He’s going to think I’m too young for you.”
“Actually, he’ll think you’re too young for me but the perfect age for him.” Bast almost lost his train of thought when her fingers went to his belt. “Dad’s an expert on families, having had three of them so far.”
Before he could say anything else, she put a hand against his cheek and forced him to stop talking. “I love you.”
Three words that scared the hell out of him a few weeks ago now set him free. “And I love you.”
“That doesn’t sound like a guy who’s just falling.”
“Wait until I say it a few weeks from now.” With every day it would grow and take hold. He already hated being away from her. He couldn’t imagine how strong those feelings would be in a month, or even a year. And he planned to stick around and find out.
“I can give you the time you need to be ready for us.”
He loved her even more for saying that.
“I don’t want time or distance. I want you.” He kissed her, long enough to send a message. Short enough to leave room for so much more. “My one and only.”
“That’s an offer that will make me stay.” Her fingers slipped past his waistband and into his briefs. “But you should know that once I dig in, I’m not going to let you go. No divorce, no pushing me away. You get me, only me, forever.”
Marriage. A concept he’d pushed aside and decided would never be for him again. Now he wondered. With her, he might be willing to try again.
“Deal.” His lips went to her neck and he inhaled the warm scent that lingered there.
“So, this dinner is tomorrow and not tonight, right?” She wrapped her fingers around his cock and moved her hand up and down.
“Yes.” It was the only word he could force out.
“Then you know what time it is?”
“I’m hoping you say time for make-up sex.” He got her shirt undone and debated the benefit
s of carrying her to the bed versus taking her against the wall.
She rubbed her thumb over the tip of his cock. When he treated her to a sharp inhale, she did it a second time. “Once again we’re on the same wavelength.”
Against the wall won. “See, we’re perfect for each other.”
Her mouth lingered over his. “I’ll give you all night to prove it.”
And he did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bestselling and award-winning author HelenKay Dimon spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all that time and effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to write romance novels full time. Her books have been featured at E! Online and in the Chicago Tribune, and she has had two of her books named “Red-Hot Reads” in Cosmopolitan magazine. When not writing, she teaches fiction and romance writing at MiraCosta College and UCSD and generally wastes a lot of time watching bad Syfy channel movies.
HelenKay loves to talk with her readers and can be reached through her website, helenkaydimon.com, or her Facebook page, facebook.com/HelenKayDimon.
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