Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(66)

“Uh, Lara?” he said, warily. “Are you okay?”

“And my dad,” she said. “He was such a snob about all the guys I dated. None of them were smart enough for him. But if he’d ever met you, I don’t think he would have been able to think of a single thing to complain about. Not after what you did for me.”

“Lara,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“But you’ll never meet him. Or her. They’re gone. There’s nobody left to pass judgment on the men I sleep with. No impossible parental standard to live up to. It’s so simple for me, from now on.”

“Aw, shit.” He scooted to sit next to her, touching her shoulder.

She flinched away. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Somebody put a blow torch to my life, and it’s not your fault, but there’s nothing left that’s normal for me anymore. A phone call like that one, for instance. Never again. And I’m so f*cking jealous of you. And that’s so unfair.” Her voice was shaking to pieces. She stopped, breathed, tried to still it. “You’ve done so much for me. I’m such a bitch to feel this way.”

“No, you’re not!” he said. “Just feel the way you feel.”

“That’s very generous of you.” She hated the words the instant they flew out of her mouth. Hated herself for saying them. She was on her feet, running toward the bathroom. Miles called out behind her, but she slammed the door on him. Sank onto the floor, hiding the shaking, agonized grimace her face had become against her knees.

So ashamed. She’d tried not to let the ugliness into herself, but she was steeped in it. Stained by it. She was toxic, bitter, ruined. She shouldn’t inflict that on anyone. Particularly not someone like him.

The bathroom door opened. It had not occurred to her to lock it. It had been so long since she’d had any sense of autonomy about when doors opened or closed. Or maybe she’d been hoping to be followed.

He crouched down beside her on the cold bathroom tiles, and then sat next to her, crosslegged. Put his warm hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I set you up for that. I told you not to treat me like I was broken. You took me at my word.”

“I should have known better,” he said. “I was just thinking about myself.”

“And your mom,” she said, sniffing hard. “You were thinking about your mom, and that’s great. I applaud that. Really, I do. It’s just hitting me all at once. My parents. I tried not to think about what happened to them, but . . .” She shook her head. “He was so afraid of pain. My dad. Even a headache made him panic. He was afraid of a lot of things. You’d never know it to look at him. He was this confident, successful professor, handsome, smart, popular. But underneath, he was scared. Anxious. To think of him going through that . . .” She pounded her fists on the hard tiles, as hard as she could. Bruising her knuckles, but she didn’t care. The pain helped, in a weird way.

Miles caught her fists in his, and stilled them. “He was brave that day,” he said. “He was a goddamn superman that day, in my book.”

She dared for a moment to look up at his face. “Why do you say that? How could you know that?”

Miles was silent. Considering his words carefully. Nervous about touching off a full-out nervous breakdown from the crazy girl.

“I knew that he’d gotten a letter from your mother, giving him certain information,” he said slowly. “Matilda told me about it. It had a rendezvous point, a date, to meet up and save you. When I found him, I also found a ticket to Denver to the rendezvous point. He’d planned to go. They hurt him, and killed him, but afterward, the bad guys still didn’t know about the letter, or the date, or the rendezvous point. They didn’t know about them because he did not tell them, Lara.”

She just looked at him, openmouthed. “Oh.”

He lifted both of her clenched fists to his lips, and kissed one, then the other. “Love makes you strong,” he said.

She came apart. Was a total shaking mess for a long while.

He pulled her into his lap and held her in his strong arms until the storm passed through and left her soft and limp.

It was chilly. When he felt her shiver, he muscled her onto her feet, set the shower running, and shucked his jeans.

He guided her into the stream of hot water, and joined her in there. They stared at each other, hands twined, as the water poured down over them and steam fogged the glass. It was like floating in a bubble, a magic place outside time and space.

He was so gentle. He had water tangled in his long, thick eyelashes, dripping from the ends of his long, shaggy locks. Naked emotion blazed from his eyes. She put her hands on his chest, blocking the rushing pattern of water racing down his chest, down his treasure trail, flowing around the turgid cock. Wow.

On impulse, she seized his thick, veined shaft, stroking it. He gasped, shuddering, and abruptly she was desperate for more. She wanted him to feel as vulnerable as she felt.

She put her arms around his neck, lifted her leg to curl it around his thigh, pressing his cock against her sensitive folds. “Hold me.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “Lara, I—”

“Hold me, goddamnit! I need this! I need you!”

He muttered something obscene under his breath, but he cupped her ass and lifted her to that perfect height where she could take him inside. Wide open, pressed to the wet, tile wall, her knees draped over the crook of his arms. She was still wet from the last time, so he entered her in one deep, smooth lunge. She clutched his shoulders, sobbing at the perfection of that thick club caressing her inside. Her tears mixed with the water from above, sluicing them down.