Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(54)

This he used as his affirmative response. He didn’t speak often because he didn’t feel he needed to speak when his actions could speak for him. At that moment, he also didn’t speak because he didn’t want to do something stupid, something that would set her off, something, anything that would make Lexie’s light shine through. Which was what he wanted to do.

“All right, I’m going. I’ll see you later,” she announced, moving to the sink to put her coffee cup there.

“Where you goin’?” he asked.

“There’s a garden center in Chantelle. Shambles told me about it. I’m going to get some flowers,” she told the island where she went to grab her purse which she did then she ripped off the top paper on the pad. Then her eyes skimmed through him and she finished, “Later.”

She started toward the stairs, shoving the paper into her purse but stopped and turned around when he asked, “Who’s Shambles?”

“The guy who owns La-La Land coffee,” she told him, started to turn back to the stairs but stopped and turned back at his voice.

“La-La Land coffee?”

“The coffee house in town,” she answered then started to turn again but stopped when he again spoke.

And he spoke when he shouldn’t have. He spoke because he was a dumb f**k. He spoke because he couldn’t hack it; Lexie shut off, not just off but shut off from him.

“You’re not goin’ to a garden center.”

Her head tipped to the side. “I am, the deck needs plants.”

“The deck doesn’t need plants.”

“Yes it does.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Okay,” she took one step toward him and the dead was gone from her voice, she was now speaking with strained patience, “you’re a guy so you don’t get this but when a man brings his new wife to his house, she does shit like plant flowers to put her stamp on it, make it her home, make it his home. People are going to expect me to do shit to put my stamp on your house and therefore, the deck needs plants.”

To this, Walker replied, “It’s Sunday.”

Her brows snapped together. “You’re right. It’s Sunday.”

There it was. Something. Not something big but confusion mixed with impatience.

He took it and without hesitation, f**k him, he went for more.

“So, a man gets outta prison, he gets himself a new wife, he brings her home, takes care of business by findin’ a job to provide for her, his first day off, his wife does not go to the garden center to buy plants in an asinine effort to put her stamp on a house. She stays home with her husband while he f**ks her brains out.”

He watched the color hit her cheeks and her eyes flare and he liked it. It wasn’t that Lexie light but it was something. Something more than confusion and impatience and he took it too.

Then he watched her straighten her shoulders before she returned, “You’re right, Ty. A man who just got out of prison with a new wife, I can see this. I can also see him returning home right after work and getting his workout not at a gym but, as you put it, by f**king his wife’s brains out. But you haven’t been doing that. Even this morning,” she threw a hand out toward the door, “you didn’t engage in morning nookie with your wife but went for a run. You’ve established the pattern so, clearly, I’m not behaving outside the norm.”

“Maybe I didn’t f**k my wife this morning because I tired her out last night,” he replied and watched her hands shoot up in the air and drop as she lost patience.

There it was. He went for it. He got it. More.

“Well, you didn’t tire her out last night. You slept on the f**king couch!” she snapped.

“You drew that line, Lexie,” he shot back.

That’s when she lost it and how she lost it, she shredded the already frayed hold he had on his control. Frayed because she’d been picking at it from the moment he saw her standing beside the Charger outside in the hot as f**k southern California sun and, after she’d shut down, he’d kept picking at it.

“No, Ty, you drew it when one second you had your tongue in my mouth, your hands on me and me on my back in your bed and swear to God, swear to God, that was all you had to do, I was this close,” she lifted a hand and held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart, “to cl**ax just with that and the next second you took it all away from me. All of it and you f**king know exactly what I’m talking about because the next second I was standing on my feet, you were two feet away but you might as well still have been in f**king California and then I watched you shut down.”

At her words, he felt his lungs seize but he managed to force out, “What?”

“You heard me,” she bit off and whirled saying, “Now I’m going. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Oh no she f**king wouldn’t.

“Don’t walk away from me,” Walker growled.

She didn’t respond but she did keep walking away from him.

That was when Walker moved.

She was two steps down when he caught her around the waist and hauled her right back up. The back of her body slammed into his, he wrapped his other arm tight around her chest, turned, set her on her feet and marched her forward, his mouth to her ear.

“I said, don’t walk away from me.”