Protecting What's Mine(56)

But all she saw was the hurt in Linc’s eyes. The way he absorbed the blow she’d thrown. He’d been honest and real. She’d been the one to hide behind her defenses and take pot shots.

Why?

Because the damn fire chief was right. She was scared. Shaking in her air cast scared.

He made her want things she had no business wanting. He made her feel things she had no business feeling. Lincoln Reed was nothing but a charming, built, sexy deviation from her plan. She wasn’t wrong for ending things before they got started.

But she’d done it badly. She’d hurt him needlessly. Worse, she’d accused him of pressuring her.

When had she turned into such a damn coward?

“Fuck.”

She turned off the TV, left the wine on the coffee table, and limped her way upstairs.

She took a long hot shower, hoping to wash away some of the self-loathing. Some of the icy fear that collected in her belly. Closing her eyes under the spray, she let herself think about his hands on her, his mouth. The dirty talk mixed with the sweet.

She wanted Lincoln Reed. And for some reason, that scared the ever-living shit out of her.

Shifting her weight carefully on her good foot, she reached for the shampoo and for the reasons why she was too gutless to let the man into her bed.

She loved a good fling. The rush of it. The comfort in knowing exactly what the expectations—or lack thereof—were. Linc had made his expectations clear, she thought.

The man wanted too much, asked too much of her.

But he wasn’t guilty of anything other than being honest with her.

Dammit. She was going to have to apologize to him.

It was the maddening thing about being an adult. She wanted to hold on to her righteous mad, not be faced with her own shortcomings, her own responsibility in the problem.

Being a responsible adult sucked. She could almost see the appeal of her mother’s choices. No sense of responsibility or empathy. Andrea—Auhn-DREA-ah, never Andrea—O’Neil-Leyva-Mann or whatever her name was now was capable and happy to look out for only one person in this life. It didn’t matter how many husbands or boyfriends she had, how many children she had. Nothing came before Andrea’s wants and needs. Nothing was satisfied before her own addictions.

The water was starting to go cold. And so were the fingers around her heart with thoughts of her mother. Still unsettled, Mack got out and toweled off. She ran a comb through her hair, so tired she just wanted to go to bed. But the thought of aggressive bedhead in the office tomorrow had her reluctantly reaching for the hair dryer.

Hair dry. Head aching. Heart dented, she wriggled back into the boot—doctor’s orders—and half-heartedly clomped into the bedroom.

She turned on the bedside lamp and petulantly let the towel drop. It sat for a full two seconds before she decided she’d be more pissed at herself in the morning for leaving a wet towel on the floor and tossed it over the door to dry.

Biting her lip, she gave in to her curiosity and looked out the bedroom window. His lights were on upstairs. He was probably getting ready for bed, too. Alone.

Hadn’t she spent enough time alone?

Could two people enter into an agreement wanting different things? Was there some sort of tenuous middle ground they could agree on?

Strings, commitments. That’s what Linc was after for reasons she couldn’t fathom. She’d had no use for them, always assuming that someday, when she landed where she was going to stay, that strings and commitments would follow in a natural progression.

She saw movement in his bedroom. A big, muscled arm and then the rest of—

Dear God. The man was naked.

She was naked.

They were staring at each other through panes of glass and an uncrossable swatch of green grass. The fence between them was both a physical and metaphorical boundary.

Chief Reed in all his naked splendor was breathtaking. The body of a gladiator. That broad inked chest. Those hefty biceps and big hands. Thick muscled thighs. And between them…

“Yeah, I definitely need to apologize,” she muttered. The numbness of the shower dissolved as a wave of heat warmed her cheeks.

He watched her neutrally, coolly. She was too far away to see the clench of his jaw, the stirring of the half-ready cock. But she felt the push and pull of anger, hurt, and a want that just might be willing to forgive anything.

She craved that body. Could picture it over her, in her, under her. Her knees trembled, and she opened her lips to say something, anything to him.

But he was drawing the curtains closed, leaving her all alone again.





That night, Mack dreamt. Dark, shadowy dreams that squeezed at her heart, made her blood run cold.

The room. That hot, stuffy room. With the disintegrating Kermit-green carpet. The twin mattress on the floor and the soft pink blanket. Her constant companion through moves and new men Mom said to call Uncle. It was the only thing in this place that gave her any comfort.

The cheap door might as well have been a steel vault. Her little hands couldn’t break the lock. So dark. She was going to be in trouble when Mom came home and saw that she’d used the corner of her tiny room as a toilet. She’d had no choice. It wasn’t her fault.

But things like choice and fault didn’t matter to Mom.

The window. Painted shut. It had taken hours, maybe even an entire day. She wasn’t sure. But she’d methodically pried it open with the open door of a Matchbox car. The ground was so far below. But the air felt so good on her face. It dried the tears and felt like the biggest of victories.