When You're Back (Rosemary Beach #12)(27)

I should have done all those things, but I wanted the food. The idea of eating my turkey sandwich now was just sad.

“To sweeten the deal, I got you a slice of strawberry cake,” he added. Not chocolate chip cookies, but that was a good substitute. He opened my box as if I couldn’t do it.

“You win. I’m starving.”

He laughed then. A real laugh. Not one that was all-knowing or assholish. I liked his laugh. It wasn’t bad. Not nearly as annoying as he was in general.

“Well, thank you. This means my good deed for the day is complete and I can go about my business being a bastard.”

This time, I laughed.

When he pulled up a chair and started opening up his food, I realized he was staying. I wasn’t sure about that. It seemed a little too familiar. We weren’t friends. We weren’t anything.

“Just eat, Reese. I’m not going to come across the table and grab you. I’m just eating before my food gets cold.”

Right. OK.

I watched as he picked up his burger and took a bite. It looked so good. I pushed my concerns aside and did the same.

We ate in silence, and I decided this was OK. Not weird at all. And the burger was the best thing I’d put in my mouth. The fries were also fulfilling my fantasies. When I had almost finished, he spoke again.

“You hang out at home alone last night? Since your man was off getting coffee with his cousin?”

He’d gone to get coffee with her? I had thought she was crying. They’d stayed out late having coffee? “She was upset. He was trying to comfort her,” I said, pushing the food away. I wasn’t hungry anymore. Not even the temptation of the strawberry cake appealed to me.

“Uhhh, she didn’t seem upset when I saw them. I even saw him laugh. Shame he left you at home at night. It was your first day at work. He should have been there with you.”

“Stop it,” I said, standing up and putting distance between us. I didn’t want to listen to him voice my own fears. It was enough for me to hear them in my head.

He closed his box and leaned back in his chair to look at me. “You don’t deal well with the truth, do you?”

“I’m fine with the truth,” I replied, my voice rising. He was getting to me. He was making me angry again. He was good at that.

“Then why does me telling you what I saw and how I think it was wrong upset you? I’m just speaking the truth. Any man who has you at home should keep his ass right there with you.”

No, no, no. I was not listening to this. He was saying these things to make me doubt Mase. I would not doubt Mase. I’d done that once and almost ruined everything. “He felt bad for leaving me. He apologized over and over and even made me breakfast this morning. Mase is a good man. He loves me. Stop trying to make me doubt him.”

Captain stood up and kept his heated gaze on me. He wasn’t smirking now or looking like he was about to say something else snarky. It was the first real expression I’d seen on him. “I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to show you that not all men are what they seem to be. No one is, sweetheart. I’ve seen it too many times. And the first time I looked into your eyes, I saw a pain I understood. Before you opened your mouth and enchanted my hard, bitter soul, I wanted to protect you. I can’t help that.”

I didn’t have words. He had to go. This was not an innocent lunch. “Leave, please,” I said, pointing at the door.

He didn’t argue. He simply nodded his head, turned, and walked out.

I stood there staring at that closed door for several minutes. He was dangerous. I couldn’t let him get near me again. I didn’t want his honesty. I didn’t want his truths. I just wanted Mase.

Mase

Something was bothering Reese. From the time I’d picked her up this afternoon, she had seemed off. Her smile didn’t meet her eyes. She also seemed clingy. Not that I was complaining. But she didn’t let me get far from her. We had showered together and had sex on the bathroom counter before moving to the sofa and curling up together.

She was currently sitting in my lap with her arm around my shoulders and her head on my chest. The guilt about last night was still digging at me. Was that why she was acting so differently? She was worried I’d leave her again? Did she think she had to hold on to me? I f*cking loved it when she clung to me, but I didn’t want her doing it because she felt like she had to.

I wanted her to know I was always hers. No need to cling to me. I wasn’t going anywhere. I trailed my fingertips over her bare thighs, thinking about all we’d been through and how far she’d come.

She had grown so much, and I would never forgive myself if my stupid actions took that away from her. She was mine, but I was just as much hers. No one else would have me this way.

“I love you,” I whispered into her hair.

“I love you, too,” she replied, and traced a heart on my chest with her finger.

“I won’t leave you again,” I told her. I needed her to believe me.

She didn’t reply. Instead, she continued tracing that heart on my chest over and over.

“You own me, Reese. Know that, baby. Know that I’m yours.”

She stopped tracing on my chest and tilted her face up to look at me. “What if, one day, you’re not mine anymore and you can’t help it?”

What did she mean by that? “I can swear to you that you will always be it for me. No one fits me like you. No one makes me feel whole. No one else ever will.”