I made my way into the loft and stopped short once I hit the entrance. She was sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed I hadn’t bothered to fold back into the couch. She had the frosty bottle of Scotch from the freezer in one hand and a glass half full of the amber liquid in the other. She had her platinum hair tucked behind her ears and her powder-blue gaze locked on mine. All of that was enough to make my dick twitch as it was, but the fact that all she had on was one of my button-up shirts and apparently nothing else had my vision narrowing to fine points and all the blood in my body surging out of my brain and pooling below my belt.
She took a swig of the amber liquid and I had to bite back a groan when her tongue darted out to scoop up a stray drop off her lower lip.
“Are you going to hurt my dad, Race?”
I heaved a heavy sigh and sauntered over to the bed so I could snag the bottle from her. I looked down at her and muttered, “I haven’t lied to you yet, Bry, and I’m not going to start now. Even if it means you start putting clothes back on and walk out the door.”
She cocked her head to the side and finished off her drink. “I need to know the truth.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with your dad, Brysen. He owes a lot of money, and eventually he has to figure out a way to pay it off. I’ll tell you this: dead men can’t pay, so even if we eventually have to have a talk, making it real clear he better come up with the cash is as far as it’s gonna go—for now.”
That was so far from reassuring that I was sure she was going to freak out again and leave, so I snapped the cap off the Scotch and finished the remainder of the bottle in one, burning chug. I had to hiss a cooling breath through my teeth. It was smoky and earthy tasting.
“There isn’t any money, Race. The house is in foreclosure, he gambled away his retirement, and you already have the car. There isn’t anything left.”
She sounded so sad, so defeated, that all I wanted to do was snatch her up and tell her everything was going to be all right, but like I said, I wasn’t going to start lying to her now.
“That happens more than you think.” It sucked but it was the cold, hard truth and it had long since stopped making my head hurt when I heard the same story over and over again. Only this time there was something there, something deeper than judgment and disappointment in her blue eyes that had a twinge of remorse poking at the iron shell I wrapped myself in when it came to business. I kept telling her I wanted to take care of her and keep her safe and yet here I was indirectly causing her all kinds of grief. It made me feel the first real stirrings of regret about what I was doing in the Point, considering all the suffering she had already been forced to endure as the result of so many poor choices made by others.
It was her turn to sigh and she bent over to the opposite side of the bed to put her empty glass on the floor. The motion gave me a perfect view of her very naked backside, and this time I couldn’t hold the groan in. She lifted her eyebrows and rose up on her knees so she could make her way to the edge of the bed where I was standing. She didn’t stop until she was right in front of me. Her chin tilted and those blue eyes bored into mine with unflinching directness.
“Are you the reason the TA from hell suddenly switched classes? The professor is reevaluating all of my work for the entire semester and now I’ll probably pass.”
I lifted the hand that wasn’t holding on to the chilly bottle and cupped her cheek. I used my thumb to brush across the velvety-soft curve of her bottom lip.
“You’re a good chick and a sweet girl. I’m tired of life trying to kick you around. We have to talk about that TA, Brysen. Shit doesn’t add up.”
She made a face but turned her head and put a kiss in the center of my palm that I felt all the way down to the last pieces of my soul that were untainted and unmarred by the life I chose to live.
“Are you trying to take care of me, Race?”
“Trying. So far my success rate is only about fifty-fifty.”
She laughed drily and put her hands on either side of my waist.
“Why? Why, with everything else in your life, do you want to add me to the mix, knowing I might not be able to stomach this? I’m not Dovie. I’m not from the streets, Race. Your life scares the hell out of me.”
I let the Scotch bottle fall to the floor, not caring if it broke. I threaded my fingers through the supersoft hair at her temples and tilted her face up so we were looking at each other and she couldn’t pull away.
“I know it does, but you’re here anyway and that’s why I want you in the mix. You make all the ugly things a little less nasty to look at, and really”—I leaned even closer so she was feeling my words against her parted lips rather than hearing them—“your life is just as scary as mine at the moment.”
She let out a breath and then lifted herself up on her knees so that our mouths were hovering a fraction of a breath apart.
“I really wanted to convince myself that I could hate you. I wanted you to be the worst thing in the world for me, but every time I turn around, you end up being the best thing in my world at any given moment.”
I brushed my mouth across hers, let the very tip of my tongue touch the little divot in her upper lip, which had her shuddering and had her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt.
I told her in a rough rush, “I’m not a very good person, but I do know right from wrong. I’m tired of the wrong always winning in this place, and I’m tired of the wrong trying to eat you alive, so I will do anything and everything I can to make sure it doesn’t get its teeth into you.”