Ignite (Cloverleigh Farms #6)(22)

But not only did I ignore it, I hitched her up by the back of her thighs, and she gasped against my lips as she wrapped her legs around me. Grabbing her ass, I pulled her tight to my lower body and moved her up and down my cock.

On the table, the candle crackled and spit, making both of us jump. I set her down hard and backed into my chair, putting distance between us. “Fuck.” I held up my hands, as if she’d asked me to put them where she could see them. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry.” She shook her head. “It just—it just happened.”

I stood there for one second longer, watching her chest rapidly rise and fall, feeling like I couldn’t catch my breath either—and I knew if I didn’t get out of there, I’d end up with my tongue in her mouth again.

Or maybe other places.

“Goodnight,” I said, and quickly retreated into my house.

Once I’d shut the sliding door behind me, I went into the kitchen and braced myself against the counter with two fists. Closing my eyes, I hung my head.

What the fuck? What had possessed me to do that? Was I really so weak? The girl was only twenty-two! She was twenty-fucking-two, and I was thirty-four with two young daughters, and I had no business putting my hands on her. For fuck’s sake, she was nearly closer to Hallie’s age than mine.

Furious with myself, I went to the fridge and took another beer out, popping the cap off with an angry twist. It reminded me that I’d left the two empty bottles on her table—now she probably thought I was one of those assholes who never cleaned up after himself and expected a woman to do it, just like my dad.

Leaning back against the counter, I took a long drink and vowed not to touch her again. If that meant I had to keep some distance between us, so be it. I’d just keep my head down if I saw her. Wave and keep on walking.

It wouldn’t be easy, but I was good at doing hard things. Wasn’t that why I’d become a SEAL in the first place? I could still hear my father laugh when I told him that’s what I wanted to do. A hard-drinking gambler and drifter, he’d served some time in the Navy long before I was born, and never held down one job for long. Tired of his cheating, my mother threw him out when I was ten, and he’d been in and out of our lives after that with no consistent pattern. He often disappeared for months at a time. Our mother, who was loving and kind, always worked two jobs to support us.

But she had a soft spot for him that refused to harden, and she always let him back into our house when he felt like coming around—and even into her bed sometimes. It used to make me sick to think about it, so I tried not to. I hated the days when I’d come home from school or practice and saw his truck in the driveway. I felt sorry for my mother because she said she couldn’t help loving him, but I was also angry with her for being so weak, so easily manipulated. By the time Bree and I were teenagers, we could see she was only going to end up hurt again when he left—because he always left. No matter what that lying asshole said, he always left again.

But he happened to be around the day during my senior year that a Navy recruiter had come to school. I’d come home excited to tell my mom what I’d decided to do with my life, since I’d never been sure before, and she was always on me to make a plan.

When I’d walked into the house, there he was, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer and watching my mom cooking dinner. “Son,” he’d said as I came up short at the sight of him. He used the word like a weapon.

I refused to call him Dad. I refused to acknowledge him at all.

Instead, I turned to my mom and started telling her about my talk with the recruiter and how he thought I might be a good fit for the SEALs. Over at the table, my father had busted a gut. “You’ll never be a SEAL,” he said derisively. “You know how hard that is? I knew guys way tougher than you who couldn’t hack it.”

I glared at him, my hands curling into fists. “Watch me.”

I didn’t see him again for almost a decade—he had the nerve to show up at my mother’s funeral and claim he was sorry, and I nearly lost my mind and threw the punch I’d been dying to throw for twenty years. My sister and Naomi had to calm me down.

Bree kept in touch with him for a while, but I told her not to tell me anything. I didn’t care if I ever heard his name again.

But I supposed he had taught me some valuable lessons—how not to be a father. How important it was not to let anyone make you feel weak. How good it felt to prove someone wrong when they doubted you.

Turning around, I dumped the rest of the beer in the sink. The last thing I wanted was a hangover in the morning. My girls deserved better.

After turning out the lights, I went upstairs, checked on them one last time, and went into my bedroom.

Five minutes later, undressed and under the covers, I lay with my hands behind my head, wide awake and unable to stop thinking.

About the past. My mother and father. Naomi and me. Our marriage had failed for different reasons than my parents’—I hadn’t been unfaithful, and to my knowledge, she hadn’t either—but we just hadn’t loved each other enough to make up for lost time, for our differences, for failed expectations, for hurtful things that couldn’t be unsaid.

I thought about Chip and Mariah and hoped it would work out better for them. It certainly seemed like some people were able to figure it out. Maybe it was the luck of the draw. Or maybe it helped to grow up like Chip had, in a house with a mom and a dad in a good marriage. Seemed like Winnie had grown up that way too.