Take (Need #2)(65)

“No. Besides wanting to spend time with you, I want to see how you’re doing.”

“Meaning?”

He sighs. “Is the fighting still bad, baby?”

Oh. That. I shrug, staring down into the water. “I think your dad’s cheating on my mom.”

“I got the same feeling.”

My head shoots up. Anger sends my heart into a tailspin. Hearing Steven’s son confirming my suspicions only makes them seem that much more true. “I think I’ll kill him if he is cheating on her.”

Brayden nods. “I think I’d help you. It would make what he did to my mom that much more pointless. If he was going to break her, the least he could’ve done was do it for a woman he truly loved.” He realizes what he just said too late, his eyes widening and pupils expanding.

The irony of his statement hurts too much to contemplate on. After all, he once ruined me for a woman he claims to have had no feelings for.

Actually, there were a whole lot of women he supposedly felt nothing for.

I decide to ignore the awkwardness and pain between us. “What makes you say that?”

“The signs are all there, Kira. And, apparently, your mom is picking up on them.”

“How do you see them if you aren’t even living here anymore? You’ve hardly seen them together.”

He scratches his chin, then nods. “I remember what they were like before the cheating. Or, before Mom found out about the cheating. Sonia wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last because that’s who he is. He doesn’t do love.”

“Neither do you.”

He shakes his head, his green eyes swirling with pain, much like they did years ago. “I don’t do emotional pain. To me, that’s all love ever was. If I didn’t fall in love, problem solved. But there’s a flaw.”

“Flaw?”

He reaches out and caresses my cheek. “Love isn’t a choice. It’s a force, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You can fight it, but in the end all you do is cause yourself the pain you were trying to avoid in the first place.”

“So you had sex with all those women, and your father has also run through his fair share, both while claiming to love one woman . . . How does that make you any different from him?”

He turns from me, dipping his hand in the water and splashing it onto his chest. When he looks back, there’s a sort of resolve I haven’t seen in awhile.

“I couldn’t be with you. First due to your age, and then because they got married. I was a horny teenager and didn’t make the best decisions for me or for you. That’s the power of hindsight. The correlation means nothing, because I don’t want anyone else. I want to love you and you alone. I’m not a cheater.”

“Yeah, right,” I grumble and place my hand on the edge of the pool, preparing to get out.

Brayden stops me, grabs my chin, and forces me to look into his burning eyes. “I’d rather die than ever cheat on you.”

“I’m not in the mood to f*cking deal with this right now.”

“You never are.”

“Damn right. I don’t owe you shit. Now let me go.”

Clearly, “let me go” translates into “don’t let me go” in his book. If I tell him to keep his hands on me, will that somehow register in his dyslexic brain and make him release me?

“I haven’t been with any woman, except you, since I decided I was going to do right by you this time. Since the day I told Ryan I would wait for you, come to you at your eighteenth birthday.” His eyes beseech me.

I shake my head, and his hand falls away from my face. “So?”

“Do you believe me that I haven’t been with anyone else?”

“What?”

Brayden moves closer. When I try to look away, he moves back into my line of sight. “Do. You. Believe. Me?”

The cynical, injured part of me doesn’t, but . . . “Yeah, I do.”

His shoulders fall, and he sighs as the tensions leaves him. “I will not be with another woman now that I’ve had you. You’re the best I’ve ever had in every f*cking way. No one’s ever owned me like you do. I can’t even bring myself to think of another woman.”

My cheeks heat up again, and I’m grateful it’s night out. Even with the pool lights, I doubt he can see me blushing. “That’s impossible. You’re a human man. I’m sure you still have some sort of celebrity crush, at least.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Baby, celebrity crushes? Sure. Why not? But even if one of those chicks somehow appeared in front of me, I doubt I’d be interested in the real life deal. Hot women are everywhere, but in my opinion, I’ve got the hottest. The sexiest. The best girl in bed and out of it. Why the hell would I look elsewhere?”

Giddiness floods through my veins, overwhelming everything I consist of. It’s the perfect thing to say. Something every girl on earth would die to hear. It’s too good. Straight out of a dream. I know better than to believe that. He’s just reeling me in. Hook, line, and sinker.

Nothing I tell myself penetrates through. I’m freaking happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long time. His compliment sucker-punches me in the gut. No man has ever had the power to make me feel this way with just a compliment. And I’ve received many, I won’t lie.