Parental Guidance (Ice Knights #1)(41)

…

It wasn’t a sincere offer, but it made Zara smile. Her last boyfriend would shit a brick if he ever opened his front door and Caleb was standing there. That mental image alone was almost as good as the wine-and-chocolate cramp cure and the way he didn’t freak out when she spilled the beans about her broken bean.

Thank you, wine on a chips-and-candy-bar stomach for that bit of wordplay.

“It’s not only the guys’ fault, although yeah, they were not all that into making sure I came or changing what they were doing to get me there.” Why was she talking about this with him? She needed to stop. She was gonna stop. The words came out anyway. “I saw a therapist. She said I needed to live in the moment more.”

He looked skeptical. “Did that help?”

“Not really.” She scooted over on the couch, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Telling herself to just relax got about the same results as when other people told her to. It wound her up more. “It’s hard for me to turn off my brain. I’ve had to keep six steps ahead of things my whole life. I don’t even mean to do it. It’s just how I am.”

It was how she’d grown up. She’d always had to be the responsible one, the one who made sure things got done. While her dad was out cheering up a neighbor, she was home calling in the grocery order or adding the second-notice-overdue bills to the magnetized chip clip on the fridge so he’d remember to pay them.

She always worried about something. It had become her neutral point—and that caused difficulties in ways she hadn’t expected. Every time things got serious with a boyfriend and they had sex, she fell into that what-do-I-need-to-take-care-of stress spiral.

“I tried a glass of wine before sex to relax me. It just made me sleepy. I tried meditation and even tried thinking about the porn I enjoyed during my alone time, but that was a no go. I was too busy thinking about everything else from was his tongue starting to develop a cramp from being down there so long to did I remember to put dog treats on the grocery list. Ultimately, unless I gave myself a helping hand, it didn’t happen. I’m broken.”

Just like they weren’t supposed to be sharing secrets, she was not supposed to be sharing tears, but her cheeks were wet anyway.

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and inhaled a sniffly breath, trying to focus her gaze on the TV instead of the man sitting next to her. It gave her some mental space to get everything put back into its correctly labeled emotional box. That worked out great right up until the screen went dark, showing off the reflection of the ten miniature scenes she’d picked out for the cocktail party celebrating tickets going on sale for the Friends of the Library ball. All the worries and the doubts about the one thing in her life that only she was in charge of and, therefore, could control slammed into her. Were they good enough? Was she just selling herself one of her dad’s pipe dreams thinking they could be?

Fragile sense of equilibrium lost, Zara dropped her head to her knees and let out a pitiful moan. She’d warned Caleb that she was at peak crampy period misery, and he’d shown up anyway—no doubt a decision he was now regretting.

“You’re not broken, and neither is your clit,” he said, laying his big hand on the back of her neck and rolling the pad of his thumb over the knots there with just enough pressure to make her sigh.

“Why?” she asked. “Because you made me come? Do you subscribe to the magic tongue school of thought?”

He chuckled and continued to massage the tension out of her neck. “No, I think you might have had it right the first time. With us, it’s different not because of my skills—although, for the record, I want it noted that I have them—but because I don’t matter. I’m just temporary.”

She lifted her head, the meaning of his words cutting through her own misery. Damn. She was a bitch. “I didn’t mean it to sound so mean. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I’m tough. I can take it.” His hand moved from the back of her neck to her ponytail, his fingers sliding through the length of it before he pulled away from touching her completely. “Still, we owe it to science to figure out if my hypothesis is correct.”

The words had come out light, fun, almost teasing, but there was something real underneath the tone that called out to her. Still, it couldn’t happen. What if that one time was just that—the one time? Then she would be back to having mediocre sex. Or it could happen again and then her ever-spinning brain wouldn’t rest until she figured out why and what it meant.

“You gotta be kidding. That’s the plot of a bad movie, and they always end up together.” Her pulse picked up as she turned the idea over in her mind despite knowing it was probably a worse idea than the time her dad put their electric bill money on a sure-thing pony at the track. It was ridiculous. And foolhardy. And a disaster waiting to happen. And…oh God…she wanted to say yes anyway. “I’m not in this for orgasms. I want to go to the ball, but I’m not looking for Prince Charming in or out of bed. I most definitely am not looking for love or a relationship. Depending on other people is for suckers—I learned that the hard way.”

Caleb tapped the bump on the curve of his crooked nose and raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like anyone’s prince?”

That’s where he was wrong. He might not have shown up at her door tonight on a white steed, but he’d come bearing chocolate and wine in her time of need. That counted for something—really, it counted for a lot.