Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(50)

“Are you crazy?” I asked, forcing my hands between us to push him off but this was a mistake. A big one. Because his arm slid up my back then grew tighter and it trapped my hands and arms between us.

“I f**ked up,” he whispered.

I stopped trying to pull my hands from between us and glared at him.

“Yeah, you did.”

“I know I did.” He was still whispering.

“Will you step back?” I clipped.

“No. We’re talking.”

“Mike –”

His lips hit mine and I stilled.

“We’re…talking,” he murmured against my lips and I stayed still. Completely still. Except my heart which was racing.

God, that was hot. He was an ass**le dick of the worst variety and still, that was unbelievably hot.

“So talk,” I encouraged bitingly in an effort to hold onto my temper at the same time hide my reaction to the hotness of his maneuver.

He lifted his head half an inch which was not far enough by a long shot but at least it was something and I wasn’t in the position to quibble, unfortunately.

“My headspace was f**ked up,” he began.

“I think I got that,” I retorted sarcastically.

“I know you did, honey, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I served up that crap to you. I’m sorry I did it at all but I’m unbelievably f**kin’ sorry I did it after Darrin died and you were vulnerable.”

“I wasn’t vulnerable.”

“I’m glad to know that now before I gave my heart to you because I had one day with you and I was all set to wrap it up in a tidy bow and hand it right over,” he stated and I blinked.

Mike was repeating what I said. I’d said that. In fact, I think I said that verbatim.

And he remembered every word.

I felt my skin start tingling.

Mike kept talking.

“I was so fired up to protect myself from you playin’ games with my heart, I played yours.”

Holding onto my anger, I shared acidly, “I got that too.”

“I know you did,” he whispered and I wished he’d quit whispering like that because it was sweet, it sounded nice, it made it sound like he meant his words in a way that came straight from the soul and it was messing with my head. I also wished he’d quit holding me. And I also wished I could tear my eyes from the intensity of his.

“Okay, so we’re talking. Can we do it with you not touching me?” I sort of gave in.

“No,” he denied and I glared at him.

“Mike, seriously, this is not cool.”

“What wasn’t cool was me bein’ an ass, treatin’ you like shit and then lettin’ you walk away from me after I did it instead of doin’ everything I could to keep you with me and making you understand. That isn’t happening again.”

“I know the answer to this already because clearly you’re fired up to right wrongs and don’t really give a shit what I want. But does it matter that perhaps I’d prefer you not to be in my space while we have this little chat?”

“You’re pissed at me,” he declared.

“Uh, wrong,” I snapped. “I’m more than pissed at you.”

“Right, so, you get more than pissed at someone who means something to you, you can be driven to do stupid shit. I’m not takin’ that chance either. So, you’re right. I don’t give a shit about what you want so it doesn’t matter that you want space because you aren’t getting it.”

I felt my eyebrows raise and I asked, “Are you serious?”

“Deadly,” he answered immediately making the unmistakable statement that he was, indeed, deadly serious.

I clamped my mouth shut.

Mike looked to my mouth, something else I wished he didn’t do, then back to my eyes.

“Suffice it to say my marriage was not a good one,” he declared.

“Uh…I think I got that too,” I replied.

“I own a six thousand dollar bed.”

I blinked for a variety of reasons. One being in the current circumstances this was a weird thing to share. Two being that I didn’t even know beds cost that much. Three being the fact that Mike dressed nice, he had a decent car and from what I would allow myself to take in it seemed he had a pretty nice house but he was still a cop.

“That’s about ten percent of my yearly salary if I don’t do overtime,” Mike continued.

For a bed, way too much just generally. Way too much for a man who made his salary. And way, way too much for a man who made his salary who had two kids.

“My ex-wife bought that bed without discussing it with me. It was non-returnable, non-refundable. Store policy which they had another policy to explain verbally upon purchase so she knew this when she bought it. She knew we couldn’t take it back. I did five months of overtime to cover that bed, my guys at the Station knowin’ that shit was my life lettin’ me pull it and sacrificing gettin’ it themselves.”

He stopped talking and I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. That was whacked. Five months of overtime was a long time and six thousand dollars was a lot of money to cover.

He must have worked his ass off.

When I didn’t speak, Mike kept going.

“When we divorced, she had two hundred and twenty-eight pairs of shoes. Fifty of them cost more than seven hundred dollars.”