Still Not Over You(14)

It always gives intentions. Feelings. Fears. When people wrap their arms around themselves like that, they’re creating a defensive barrier and covering any places that feel exposed, vulnerable. They’re trying to make themselves small so they’re less of a target.

Right now, she’s trying to make herself so small absolutely nothing can hurt her.

Not like I did before.

I try not to shake my head openly. I don’t want to keep thinking these things, much less feeling them.

Especially not guilt.

It’s not my fault. None of this is, and a pair of big green eyes and soft dark lashes aren’t going to fucking change it.

I look away with a snarl. If I don’t look at her, I don’t have to feel this way. “Look,” I growl. “You don’t have to stay here alone. If it’s too much, you can pack up and go the fuck home. I’ll even pay for your tank of gas.”

Her breath catches. “No! Landon – I’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. Really. You’ve got your security system and if the alarm goes off I’ll just call the cops and hide. It’s just a bunch of dumb kids anyway, I'm sure. If I come out shrieking like a banshee they’ll probably pee themselves and run away screaming.”

My mouth is doing this thing. I don’t really like it.

It’s gone all twitchy, trying to curve upward like I actually want to smile at her visual, arms flailing and eyes wide, careening out my front door and at a bunch of terrified, screaming rich kids who think they're heirs to the universe.

A low growl bubbles up in my throat. I fold my arms over my chest with a grunt and force the corners of my mouth to turn downward. “Don’t know. This whole thing is probably a bad fucking idea. Let's be honest.”

“How bad can it be?”

“You don’t want to know.” I blow out an explosive sigh. “Fine. Whatever. Stay. But first, you’re going to memorize the security access code and the location of every intercom panel. I’m going to drill you before I go.”

“K. Am I supposed to salute, sir?”

For some unholy reason, my dick throbs, right before I remember this is no joke.

“Don’t be a brat. Listen.” I fling her a glare, but she’s smiling in that impudent-yet-shy little way that makes her such a fascinating mess of appealing contradictions. “Every intercom has emergency police call buttons. I’ll leave one of my guys from Enguard, too. He’ll do regular patrols a couple times a day. If you’re really convinced you want to do this.”

She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. It’s not hard to tell she’s still nervous, a little tick of her pulse against her soft, vulnerable throat, but there’s pride flashing in her eyes.

I don’t want to admire it, but I can’t help myself. Can’t help how I linger on all her soft bare skin, stretching from the soft hollows beneath her jaw down to her collarbones. How those collarbones dip down toward –

I jerk my gaze away.

Not again.

Her eyes are up there, Landon. Those tits, the ones I badly want to suck, might just be out of this world.

“I’m convinced,” she says, so seriously you’d think she was swearing in before a judge seats her. “I’ve got this Don't worry.”

Little Reb. Always so earnest, always putting her heart into everythi –

She’s not Little Reb anymore, idiot.

She’s a pain in your fucking ass, I tell myself, and she knows too much.

I tear my eyes away from her again. I’m so done with this shit, and I have too much to do to be wasting more time here with her.

I can’t even say anything else; I just turn around and walk away, stalking toward the stairs and my bedroom.

I can’t believe Reb is back in my life like this. Fucking up my business again. Must come naturally.

Worst part is, this time, I’ve invited her.





7





Old Familiar Names (Kenna)





I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Okay. Not quite.

I do know. I’m close to hyperventilating. But in the broader sense, I have no freaking clue what I’m doing in this situation.

To be fair, I don’t really know what I’m doing in most situations. I’m a pantser, not a plotter. I dive in and let my muse have the driver's seat.

But this isn’t one of my books. It's real life. And I can’t just delete a part that isn’t working and then rewrite it in my favor.

If I could, I’d rewrite my entire history with Landon Strauss. No question.

Of course, that isn’t possible. We can only write new pages, new chapters, and what’s staring at me in ink as dark as the feral lines on his body?

Messages. Signals. Warnings that say things aren’t as cut and dry as they seem.

Part of me says he hates me. That part of me is currently screaming toward a panic attack of self-recrimination and guilt, wondering why I didn’t just pack up and go after our first catastrophic run-in.

But the other part of me remembers the wild look in his eyes by firelight. The frantic desperation in his movements. The fervor, how viciously, desperately, and beautifully he battered at the door to the beach house lashed by flames.

The way he shouted my name.

That part says, he hates me not.