All my love from this world and the next,
Dad
Chapter Twenty-Three
Now
He came home a week after their jog to a house smelling of smoke, and not only smelling of it but filled with it as well. He yelled for her, worried at first, until he realized the smoke had a decidedly Italian smell to it. At just that moment, she emerged from the cloud with an oven mitt on one hand and her other hand waving smoke away from her face. The grimace on her face was priceless, and he almost started chuckling before he could stop himself. Here he’d thought he might ask her to take a run. Apparently she had burning his house down in mind.
“Sorry. Your oven is . . . complicated.”
“Is it?” He studied her for a moment, deciding if he wanted to smile or not. He settled on a smirk, and she bit her lower lip. “So, what’s on fire in my kitchen?”
“It was supposed to be lasagna. But it’s . . . black.”
He nodded slowly. Now he was just toying with her. Of course she was nervous. It wasn’t her house or her kitchen that she’d filled with smoke, and she didn’t realize at all that he didn’t give a shit.
“How ’bout you help me open the windows.” He brushed past her and headed into the smoke. When the windows were open and the smoke had cleared, he met her back in the kitchen. “Let’s go.”
“Go?”
“Well, since you destroyed dinner, you’re going to have to feed me.” The blush on her cheeks left his cock hard. He turned from her before she could notice just what the simplest of things could do to him when it came to her. “Don’t worry, I’m paying.”
She followed him outside, and when she grabbed her bike and started to climb on, he paused a moment before grabbing the bike from her and putting it in the back of his SUV. Of course it made sense to take her bike seeing as she didn’t live with him and had no reason to return with him after dinner, but it was a letdown nevertheless.
He pulled into Harry and Sally’s a few minutes later. His brain was running on autopilot at the moment. He wasn’t letting it go anywhere near the emotions that usually cropped up when he was around her. He’d done the same on their jog a few nights before. Hell, he was starting to do it anytime he was around her. He just didn’t want to feel any of it anymore. All he wanted to feel was how good she could make him feel. And she could.
The electricity that coursed through him when he spent time with her was intense. The arousal that grabbed his dick and didn’t let up until he’d come, moaning her name when he was alone in his shower, was a distraction if nothing else. The fact he didn’t want to run away from any of it was a mystery he’d failed to solve. He was keeping this particular mystery to himself at the moment. He wasn’t ready to acknowledge just what he was doing with the girl he was supposed to hate. Of course, eating with her at Harry and Sally’s, the busiest little restaurant in their town, wasn’t going to go unnoticed. How could it? There was no such thing as none of your business in this town. People felt they deserved to know anything and everything they wanted to know about their neighbors in this place, and there was little doubt their interaction would raise a few eyebrows.
He opened the door for her, and as the bell attached to the door rang out their arrival, a few heads peered up from their tables. Within moments, the few pairs of eyes turned into every eye in the small dining room. Some people just blatantly stared, others whispered to one another, and you could see recognition passing people’s faces as it sank in just what they were looking at. They were a damn spectacle.
“Dr. Cory. Good to see you, and . . . um. . .” Sally’s eyes took in Bailey beside him, and Sally was suddenly speechless—a rarity. “Well, then . . . table for two?” He nodded, and they followed her to a booth along the back wall. It hardly offered any privacy, but the booth was at least tall, so they could pretend they were alone without the eyes of the entire town watching them.
Sally took their drink order, and they were finally alone. “So, what possessed you to try to cook for me?”
Her cheeks were pink again as she tried to figure out how to respond. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. ’Spose I just thought it would be nice.”
“I see.” He looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. “Tell me about prison.”
She knocked over the ketchup bottle she was moving from between them, and she looked like she’d choked on her tongue. “Oh . . . uh.” She shook her head, a bit dumbfounded, while he watched her steadily. “You know, lots of cinder block walls and bars. Not much to say.”
“Bullshit. There’s plenty to say. You just don’t want to talk about it.”
She sighed. “Can’t we talk about something else?”
“Okay.” He leaned forward, resting his clasped hands on the table between them. He wasn’t going to make this easy on her. “How long’s it been since you’ve been fucked?” He refused to look away from her eyes as hers bulged in mortification.
“That’s personal.”
“I’m aware of that. Answer the question.”
Her mouth was still gaping, and the second Sally set her ice tea in front of her, she started sucking it down. Darren cocked his head, refusing to let her off without an answer. He was trying to make her uncomfortable, but he also wanted to know. “Since before the accident. A few months before, I suppose. Hard to date when no one likes you. I’m not very popular in this town anymore.”
“Huh, imagine that.” He was being sarcastic, but in truth, he was relieved to know she wasn’t fucking about with anyone—not that he expected she was. He just found it as painful to imagine now as he always had in the past.
“And you?” Now she was trying to play his game.
“Well, it hasn’t been five years. Nowhere near.”
“That’s not an answer.” She was challenging him.
“Fine. A couple weeks.” Her focus dropped to his hands, her cheeks paled as he watched, and she swallowed over a lump in her throat. He knew exactly how she felt. It had always been painful imagining Bailey with other men, and he was guessing she struggled with it too. Odd they should still struggle with it. But he knew he would too were the situation reversed.
“I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”
“Seeing someone.” He repeated her words, suddenly feeling ashamed, and he was the one who looked away this time. Of course she would think fucking and being in a relationship were synonymous. “Not seeing someone. Just fucking.”
She looked hurt, and she tried to force a casual smile to her lips, but it was an utter failure, and she ended up looking out the window, her brow flinching. He couldn’t have hurt her more with words, and that same painful need to cause her emotional pain boiled under his skin. It was painful because he desired it so much, but it brought him just as much gut-wrenching heartache as her. He could feel the rejection she felt right now. He could feel it like it was happening to himself, but it was still satisfying. It was like scratching poison ivy. It hurt and burned like hell when you scratched, but it was still relief. God, he was a fucking asshole.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Her voice was whisper quiet.
“So, prison is off limits; fucking is too. What’s left? Wanna talk about the day you killed my sister?”
She stared at him with her wide blue eyes that he’d always loved looking at. Her eyes glossed, but no tears fell. She was completely restrained, and he got goose bumps just looking at the cool control she was exhibiting. He’d hit a limit of hers he didn’t know existed, and he waited for her response.