“It’s late. You need to go to bed,” I told her, wanting nothing more than to crawl into that bed with her. Even if it was just to sleep.
“Will . . . will you stay here tonight?” she asked against my chest.
“Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
She pulled back from me, and I let her go. She walked over to the bed, pulled back the covers, and climbed under them. Then she patted the spot beside her. “Sleep here. Beside me.”
Her wish was my command. I lay down beside her but stayed on top of the covers. I was fully clothed, so I didn’t need covers anyway. Holding out my arm, I looked at her curled up on her side, watching me. “Come here,” I said, and she immediately moved to tuck herself into the crook of my arm and shoulder. I wrapped my arm around her and held her.
Staring at the ceiling, I wondered how I would go back home on Sunday morning. Leaving her wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t like thinking of her here alone.
The need to protect her had grown into something fierce and possessive inside of me. I thought of her all the time, and all I could think was that I wanted her safe. I wanted her with me. I didn’t want anyone else touching her or comforting her. Just me.
I was supposed to fix her problems. I was the one who should be holding her when she cried. It drove me crazy to think of anyone else doing something for her that I should be doing.
This girl was making me crazy. I felt out of my depth with her. I didn’t know why I had this insane urge to wrap her up and run off with her. It couldn’t be healthy. I had always been protective of Harlow and my mother. But other than those two, no one else was that important to me.
Until now. And this was a league all its own.
Why her? Why was she affecting me like this? I had seen hot bodies before and gorgeous smiles. It was more than her outward appearance. Beautiful women only interested me for one thing. Reese had reached something else inside of me and squeezed it tight, from the moment I ran into the room and found her sitting on the floor surrounded by broken glass.
I had actually been pissed at the mirror for hurting her. Who gets fucking mad at an object?
“Mase?” her soft voice said against my chest.
The blood in my veins warmed and sped up with the sound of my name on her lips. Or at least, it felt like it. My whole body reacted to her. “Yes,” I replied, gently wrapping a silky lock of her hair around my finger.
“It was my stepfather,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.
Everything in my chest felt like it was twisting into knots. It hurt to breathe. Holy fuck, it hurt so bad. I had to force oxygen into my lungs as the reality of what she had just admitted to me settled in. Rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced crashed through me, and I wanted to murder another human being for the first time in my life. No, I wanted to torture him slowly first. Listen to him scream in agony. Then I wanted to watch him die.
“Mase?” Reese’s voice called my name again, and I inhaled sharply, putting the revenge and hate for a man I didn’t know to the side. My girl needed me now. She didn’t need me losing my shit over this. She’d trusted me with it.
“Yes, baby,” I replied.
“I hate him, too.”
Those four words just about undid me. “I’m going to wash it all away. I swear to God, I am, Reese. One day, all you will see or remember is me and what we feel like together. I swear.”
She turned her head and kissed my chest, then snuggled closer to me. “I believe you.”
Reese
It took me a few seconds to awaken fully and remember that I wasn’t alone in my apartment. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that I was alone in bed. I could feel Mase’s absence. His warmth was gone.
But he was in the other room. The smell of coffee filled the small apartment. And Mase’s voice, although he was talking quietly, drifted through the closed door.
I made quick work of brushing my teeth and hair before going into the living room to face him after last night. The fact that he was here still amazed me. He had come to stop me from going on a date with Thad. And in return, I’d freaked out on him while doing something as simple as kissing and touching.
I opened the door and stepped into the room, and my eyes went straight to the tall form of perfection standing at the window with his back to me. He was on the phone. He was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt he’d had on last night, but his duffel bag sat on the sofa. He had come prepared.
“I’d rather not come, Harlow. I like Tripp and all, but I wasn’t planning on being here this weekend, and I didn’t come down for his party. I have other things I’d rather do tonight,” he said in a frustrated tone, although he was still talking in a quiet voice.
His jaw worked as he listened to whatever his sister was saying. It seemed she really wanted him to go to a party tonight. I started to speak up and tell him he should go.
“Fine. I’ll go if Reese wants to. But if she’d rather not, we’re doing something else. End of discussion. Now, I love you, but I gotta go. I was going to try to make some breakfast before she wakes up.”
I closed my mouth and stared in surprise at his back. He wanted to take me? To a party with his crowd? And he was going to make me breakfast? Not blurting out that I loved him was hard, because after listening to this conversation, I wanted to open the window and alert all the neighbors that I was in love with this man.