I blew out a slow breath, her words like an invisible undercut to my gut. They say sticks and stones and all that, but this woman’s sharp tongue could break a man. Cut him into a thousand guilty pieces. And knowing what she believed about our past, I didn’t blame her for it.
“Knowing Creighton, I’m sure they were.” I dragged my towel over my face and then hauled on my shirt, feeling her gaze crawl over me like the heat of an ember starving to ignite. “Well, I’ll leave you to your hunt.” I reached for my water bottle, preparing to walk outside and dump the cold contents over my head.
I’d almost made it to the barn doors when Lara called, “Calder, wait.”
Damn me.And damn my feet for stopping for her.My heart, too.
“I want to apologize for what I said earlier,” Lara started again, regret fused to her voice. “I’m just frustrated and tired and emotional and ... a lot of things, but that didn’t justify—”
“Stop.” I whipped around. “Don’t apologize for how you feel. Ever.”
“Except I don’t feel that way,” she insisted, wringing her hands and reminding me of how strong her fingers were when they’d pulled me to her; to feel someone need me like that, the way she had, was something so powerful and vulnerable at the same time. Exactly the reason why I’d avoided anything like it until now.
But Lara Crane was just as unavoidable as the storms that barreled over the plains and bowled down over the mountains. And equally as earth-shaking.
“I know you’re just trying to protect me, and I know, whatever happened back then, you wouldn’t have intentionally hurt my sister. I know how she was. How emotional and ... difficult she could be. And I know the way she treated you probably wasn’t—”
“Enough,” I cut her off with the kind of rudeness I didn’t even reserve for Creighton. I couldn’t let her keep going—I’d already let myself go too far. Told her things that should’ve stayed in the past. Kissed her ... touched her ... when I should’ve kept my hands to myself.
There was more than the truth about her sister that was separating us. I knew I’d ended things honestly and couldn’t regret that. What really kept me from Lara was the way she made me feel, and the memory of what losing Mom had done to Cassius.
I locked my gaze to Lara’s, ignoring every emotion I saw and every instinct of mine to reach for her.
“It’s in the past,” I continued, my voice clear as it trod over the grave of my buried-alive heart. “Emotions can run high in the middle of a case, especially after what happened last night.” Quickly realizing there were twoverydifferent sets of events I’d just left open to interpretation, I added, “Seeing Sarah like that, and thinking about your sister ... there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s par for the course.”
Said the man who’d spent the last hour and a half beating on Colton’s heavy bag because being a good man was at war with being a better man.
“And is making out with your clients par for the course, too?”
Dammit.
“No, it’s not,” I said through locked teeth, though parts of me wanted to make it par for our course. “That was well outside the bounds of our professional relationship. Professionalism isn’t just a rule. It’s a code. A contract of trust, and one that I ... muddied.”
Just holding her in the rain had broken every rule she deserved to have kept in place.
“I think both of us were involved in the muddying.”
I couldn’t stop the shudder that hit me, recalling how perfect she’d looked in my lap. How perfect she’d felt grinding on my cock.And how fucking wrong it was to take advantage of her right now.
“You have my word it won’t happen again.” It couldn’t. For a million and one reasons, the most important one being survival.Mine.
I could account for a hundred different scenarios. Plan for a dozen different kinds of danger or injuries. But this ... her ... the havoc she’d wreak if I only had a taste ... I didn’t know what was worse: having her and having her leave, orhavingher the way my parents had had each other and knowing it could be lost.
“And if I want it to?”
“Don’t,” I ground out.
Colby chose that moment to return, sliding the door wide open behind me and propping her hip on the edge. “Looks like another storm is rolling through.”
The record should show that her statement camebeforeshe’d taken a good look at Lara and me.
“Yeah, you both should head back to the house.” I extended my arm as though waiting for the two of them to do just that. “Cassius probably has dinner ready.”
The mention of food spurred my sister and her grumbling stomach into action. As she strode by me, her head swiveled so she could keep her intrigued stare anchored in my direction.
“Yeah. We’ll get out of your hair.” She linked her arm with Lara, who’d managed to wipe the anger from her expression but not the flush from her face.
I watched the two of them leave. Waited. Convinced myself I was going to have dinner in the Airstream.Alone.And I did good on that resolution, making it back to my RV and through a refreshingly cold shower without reneging. I fixed a basic turkey sub and took a seat at the table without second-guessing my decision. But when I pulled over my crossword puzzle, all I saw was the wordPhiltrum, and then the woman whose lips had given me the answer.