he thought I might bust up the other hand while unsupervised, they left. Mason and—unfortunately—fucking Sebastian hung around, and everyone moved to the patio to play cards. Everyone except Mia.
I push my chair back and stand. “I’ll get her.”
Bailey arches a brow. “Yeah. Good luck with that.”
Ignoring her skepticism, I head inside and find Mia in the kitchen sterilizing bottles.
She jumps when she sees me. “Arrow.” Ever since the night she accused me of hating her and I told her I wanted her, she’s been like this any time I’m around. As if she’s afraid of me. Except for the night I broke my hand. She wasn’t afraid of me that night.
“Because you regret it and I should, too.”
“Do you need me to do anything for you?” Mia asks.
My back teeth slam together. I fucking hate when she acts like my servant. “Yeah. Actually, you can.”
Surprise registers on her face but she tries to hide it with a plastic smile. She pulls the last bottle from the steaming water, flips off the stove, and turns to face me, her back against the counter. “Great. What’s that?”
“Take the night off. Katie’s gone. Gwen’s not even here. Come outside and hang with us, and anything on that list of yours that you don’t get done, I'll help you with tomorrow.”
She opens her mouth—probably to object—and then closes it again.
“Please,” I whisper, stepping closer.
She sneaks a look out the window and tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t know how to do it anymore.”
“Do what?” I take a final step and stop, because if I step any closer we’ll be touching.
She keeps her eyes on the window. “Be like them.”
A puff of laughter escapes my lips, and she looks back to me, frowning. “You were never like them, Mia. And I don’t think that’s what you mean at all.”
Her eyes search my face. “Then what do I mean?”
“You don’t know how to live anymore.”
“What’s the point, Arrow?” She shakes her head. “I can’t even feel anything.”
God, this woman’s going to break my heart. “Close your eyes.” At first, I don’t think she’s going to do it, not with as tense as things have been between us, but then she does.
I take half a step closer, brush the hair off her neck, and lower my mouth to her ear. When the scent of her fills my senses, time skips like an old record hitting a scratch and backing up to a better song. I’m back in the car with her, watching the morning sun stretch out over the water, her body tucked into mine.
“What are you doing?”
“Reminding you,” I say against her ear. My hands find her waist first, settling at the top of her hips and waiting for permission. It comes in the slightest shift of her body toward mine, the barest arch of her neck to give my mouth better access to her ear.
It’s so easy to slip my hand under the hem of her skirt. So natural to put my hand between her legs. She gasps, but instead of stepping away, she drops her head to my shoulder, wraps one arm behind my neck, and uses the other to brace herself against the counter. Just this—her letting me touch her, her responding to my touch like this—is enough to have me hard and aching against the fly of my jeans.
“I wonder if you have any idea how often I think about this.” I scrape my teeth against her ear and chase the guilt away by telling myself this is for her. I can’t stand seeing her moving through life like the walking dead, and if all I can give her is this . . .
I tug her panties down so my fingers can explore the sensitive flesh between her legs. Again my brain treats me to flashes of the night at the lake and the next morning when I spread her out on her bed and put my mouth between her legs.
“Do you feel that?” I ask as I take her clit between two fingers. And I know she does, because her hand tightens around the back of my neck, her nails biting into the skin. But I want an answer, so I graze my thumb along that swollen piece of flesh and ask again, “Does the numbness go away when I touch you?”
“Yes.” She lifts her hips, pressing into my hand in a wordless plea that I’m helpless to resist. I slide a finger inside her and hear