“What?” he asked with a smile. Her dirty mouth was all sorts of hot. He liked that he was rubbing off on her.
“Look at this.” She handed him the paper, ignoring his lascivious glances.
The picture on the article was of Kat’s mother and father, dressed to impress and looking like every other political couple Carter had ever seen. However, the headline caught Carter’s attention: Senator Lane Served Time for Misdemeanors.
Holy shit.
His eyes flicked up to Kat’s before he stared back at the clipping and began to read. The misdemeanors ranged from graffiti, being drunk and disorderly, dope possession, and, most impressively, car boosting. The penalties he’d been given were tame, due to the senator’s age when the offenses were committed, and it was clear from the tone of the article that the senator’s past had only been brought up in an attempt to blacken his name, but still, Carter didn’t know whether to be exceptionally smug or stunned.
Either way, he was definitely intrigued.
“I can’t believe Mom didn’t fucking tell me,” Kat fumed at his side. “After everything.” Kat dropped back against the pillows. Her voice climbed in pitch. “After everything she said about my job, about you.”
Carter picked up all the clippings and carefully placed them on the side table.
“How can she be such a hypocrite?” she asked through her teeth. “How could she say such awful things about my choices, when she made exactly the same ones?”
“They’re not exactly the same,” Carter countered.
Kat cocked an eyebrow.
Carter shifted. “Look, I’m not defending the fact she didn’t tell you. That shit’s not fair, but your dad boosted a couple of cars and sprayed a few walls with paint.” He shrugged. “Compared to me, he’s as clean as they come.”
Kat’s eyes darkened. “That’s not the point, Carter. She omitted that information and made me feel like crap because I wanted to be with you and I wanted to do a job that would help me overcome my fears and make me stronger. She’s done nothing but belittle me, you, and the decisions I’ve made, and all the while, she knew my father had a criminal record.”
Carter cupped her face in an attempt to soothe her.
“It’s not a competition based on who did the worst thing or did the longest time,” she continued, disgusted. “In the eyes of the prejudiced assholes walking around with their judgmental noses in the air, you and my father are the same.” She shook her head. “My mother knew that. That’s why she didn’t say anything.” She moved closer, curling her body around his.
He ran his index finger down the center of her nose, following the outline of her top lip he knew tasted like raspberries. “Are you mad at your dad?”
“No,” she whispered, trailing a finger around his nipple. “How could I be? He made some bad choices when he was a kid. So what? He’s still one of the best men I’ve ever known.” She hesitated. “Like you.”
Carter couldn’t pull his eyes away from her. Her words ruined him. There was no denying it. Christ, she was so damned beautiful, draped across him, with her fervor and fire heating the room around them both.
Unexpectedly, his chest stirred, as though a rope wound tightly around his insides, tugging them hard. He moved, trying to ease the pressure rising within him, up from his stomach, to his throat. Everything inside immediately was too big, as if some unknown force was making his organs swell and push together, overwhelming him. It whipped his breath away and set every nerve ending in his spine alight. His skin erupted in gooseflesh and his toes curled in supplication to whatever the fuck it was.
“What’s wrong?” Kat asked, noticing his alarm.
Carter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Just indigestion, I think.”
Kat placed a soft kiss below his belly button. “Better?”
Carter grabbed the tops of her arms, pulling her closer, up his body. “No. You’re too far away.” He kissed her, needing her above him, below him, covering him, engulfing him.
He kissed her hard, breathing in the rush of life that came from her lips, the heat, and the color she’d brought into his miserably gray life. She kissed him back, concern evident in the gentle brushes of her lips. She pulled away, her gaze dancing, searchingly, over his face.
Carter swallowed. “I’m fine.”
He tried to keep his voice calm, tried to show in his face that all was peachy fucking keen, but inside, a goddamn festival was taking place, and, for the love of God, Carter had no idea how to stop it, or if he even wanted to.
30
Kat awoke to the sound of banging that sounded like it was coming from Nana Boo’s front door. Carter moved with a loud sigh, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. He hadn’t let her go all night. They’d done nothing but cuddle and spoon, even though his hard body had told her he’d wanted a lot more. There was something different. He was different. Something had appeared in his eyes. Something irrevocable and too big to deal with at—
With her face half covered by the pillow, Kat glanced at the clock to see it was a little after ten in the morning. How had that happened? Christ, she didn’t even remember falling asleep.
“Who the fuck is making that noise?” Carter grumbled into the nape of her neck, pressing his delicious morning wood against Kat’s ass. “They need to shut the fuck up and let me get back to sleep.” He yawned. “I was having awesome dreams.”
Kat snorted and rolled over to look at him, smiling at his adorable sleepy eyes and brushing her palm over his crotch. “I can feel how good they were.”
Carter sighed and lifted his hips from the bed, chasing her hand. “Don’t pretend that you don’t love it.”
Kat frowned when the banging stopped abruptly and raised voices, spouting inaudible words, echoed up to the room.
A concerned frown slashed between Carter’s brows. He lifted himself up onto his forearms. “What the hell’s going on?”
Kat shook her head, hating the heavy dread snaking up her back. “I have no idea.”
Carter was swiftly on point, protective and cautious. “I’ll go and check it out.”
“No,” Kat said, touching his shoulder as he pushed back the sheets. “I’ll go.”
“Peaches,” he murmured with an annoyed glint in his eye.
“It’s fine, I’ll—”
“KATHERINE!”
The bubble around herself and Carter burst apocalyptically as the voice pummeled at the bedroom door. Kat’s skin prickled in cold terror, while tears sprang to her eyes, forced to the ducts by fear and absolute fury.
“Mom.”
“What?” Carter coughed, shooting to his feet at the side of the bed, eyes wide. “Your—your mom?”
Kat nodded slowly, robotically, gripping the blankets in her fist.
“Katherine, come out here! I know you’re in there with him!”
Kat closed her eyes, unable to look at Carter for fear that she would fly out of the room and slap her mother senseless.
“Eva, calm down.” Nana Boo’s voice crept under the wood.
“No, I will not calm down. How could you have him in your house? How could you allow this to go on under your roof?”
“Because it is my roof, Eva, and I am your mother. I don’t answer to you.”
There was a beat of silence; the acidic tone of Nana Boo’s words fizzled into the air.
“I should go,” Carter muttered, making his way around the end of the bed.
Kat’s heart dropped to her stomach. “NO!” she called out, scrabbling from the bed toward him, catching her foot in the sheet. “No, you don’t have to go anywhere. Please. Don’t go.”
He avoided her eyes, looking past her, alarm making the muscle in his jaw jump. “I can’t be here.”
“Yes, you can,” Kat urged, grabbing at his biceps. “You have as much right to be here as I do.”
“Kat—”
“If you go, then I’m coming with you.”
Before Carter could answer, the door of the bedroom swung open, smacking the back wall of the room with the momentum with which it was forced. Kat turned to see her mother glaring at the two of them: Kat in Carter’s T-shirt, and he, bare but for his ink and a pair of black boxer briefs.