Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(36)

"In a couple of days. One of the jobs I applied for came through, and...I won't be coming back for a while."

"What are you doing to do?"

"I'll be welding for a drilling company. I'm starting on an offshore rig in the Gulf. But they move the welders around a lot, wherever the company has a contract." He paused as he saw my expression. He knew my father had died on a platform rig. Jobs on offshore rigs were high-paying but dangerous. You have to be crazy or suicidal to work on an oil rig with a blowtorch in hand. Hardy seemed to read my thoughts. "I'll try not to cause too many explosions."

If he was trying to make me smile, the effort flopped. It was pretty obvious this was the last I'd be seeing of Hardy Cates. There was no use in asking if he'd ever come back for me. I had to let go of him. But I knew that as long as I lived, I would feel the phantom-pain of his absence.

I thought about his future, the oceans and continents he would cross, far away from everyone who knew and loved him. Far outside the sphere of his mother's prayers. Among the women in his future, there was one who would know his secrets and bear his children, and witness the changes the years worked on him. And it wouldn't be me.

"Good luck," I said thickly. "You'll do fine. I think you'll end up with everything you want. I think you'll be more successful than anyone could begin to guess."

His voice was quiet. "What are you doing. Liberty?"

"I'm trying to tell you what you want to hear. Good luck. Have a nice life." I pushed at him with my knees. "Let me down."

"Not yet. First you're going to tell me why you're mad when at every turn I've tried to keep from hurting you."

"Because it hurts anyway." I couldn't control the words that burst from me. "And if

you'd ever asked what I wanted. I would rather have had as much of you as I could and taken the hurt that came with it. But instead I've gotten nothing except these stupid—" I paused, trying in vain to think of a better word. "Stupid excuses about not wanting to hurt me when the truth is you 're the one afraid of being hurt. You're afraid you might love someone too much to leave, and then you'd have to give up all your dreams and live in Welcome for the rest of your life. You're afraid—"

I broke off with a gasp as I felt him grab my shoulders and give me a little shake. Abbreviated as the motion was, it sent reverberations through every part of me.

"Stop it," he said hoarsely.

"Do you know why I went with Luke Bishop?" I asked in reckless despair. "Because I wanted you and couldn't have you, and he was the nearest thing I could find to you. And every time I slept with him I wished it was you. and I hate you for that, even worse than I hate myself."

As the words left my lips, a sense of bitter isolation made me shrink from him. My head ducked, and I wrapped my arms around myself in an effort to take up as little physical space as possible.

"It's your fault," I said, words that would cause me infinite shame later, but I was too worked up to care.

Hardy's grip tightened until my muscles registered the beginnings of pain. "I made no promises to you."

"It's still your fault."

"Damn it." He took a ragged breath as he saw the slide of a tear on my cheek. "Damn it, Liberty. That's not fair."

"Nothing is fair."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to admit just once what you feel for me. I want to know if you'll miss me even a little. If you'll remember me. If you're sorry for anything."

I felt his fingers clench in my hair, tugging until my head tilted back. "Christ." he whispered. "You want to make this as hard as possible, don't you? I can't stay, and I can't take you with me. And you want to know if I'm sorry for anything." I felt the hot strikes of his breath on my cheek. His arms wrapped around me, stifling all movement. His heart pounded against my flattened br**sts. "I'd sell my soul to have you. In my whole life, you'll always be what I wanted most. But I've got nothing to give you. And I won't stay here and turn into my father. I would take everything out on you—I would hurt you."

"You wouldn't. You could never be like your father."

"Do you think so? Then you have a hell of a lot more faith in me than I do." Hardy caught my head in both hands, his long fingers curving around the back of my skull. "I wanted to kill Luke Bishop for touching you. And you for letting him." I felt a tremor run through him. "You're mine," he said. "And you're right about one thing—all that's ever stopped me from taking you is knowing I could never leave once I did."

I hated him for regarding me as part of a trap he had to escape from. He bent his head to kiss me, the salt taste of my tears vanishing between our lips. I stiffened, but he urged my mouth open and kissed me more deeply, and I was lost.

He found every weakness with diabolical gentleness, gathering sensation as if it were honey to be lapped up with his tongue. His hand coasted over the seam of my thighs and urged them apart, and before I could close them again his body was there. Murmuring softly, he helped me to wrap my arms around his neck, and his lips returned to mine, ravishing slowly. No matter how I squirmed and strained, I couldn't get close enough. I wanted nothing less than the full weight of him on me, full possession, full surrender. I pushed the hat from his head and sank my fingers into his hair, pulling his mouth harder, harder against mine.