She didn’t meet his eyes when she said any of that. And he knew she really was sorry, and that she was afraid that she’d overstepped. But he also knew she’d meant it all. And it had hit its mark.
“We’re fine,” he told her, because it was the thing he had to say to get sex. And whatever he felt, he knew he still wanted that.
“Good. I don’t normally spill my guts like that. Normally I listen to other people do it. That’s kind of why I do it. Did it.”
“Therapy?”
“Yes. Because I got to give it to other people and sort of turn over their own issues and never think of mine. I mean...it hurts. That memory hurts. I think it always will. And I’m projecting. I know that. I...wished someone would have seen, Eli, and in my head, because you were so tangled up in that night, something in me made that person you. My patients do the same thing and I know better. But you know...it’s a ‘doctors are terrible patients’ kind of a thing.”
He could hear what she was saying, and he even believed her to an extent. But it didn’t change the way that heavy mass of emotion felt in his chest. Didn’t make breathing easier or his throat less tight.
“Let’s forget that it happened,” she said. “You know. You’re basically the only person who knows. And...I think we should just...go to bed.”
“It’s six o’clock.”
“So?” she asked.
They were standing outside his house. And he’d never had her in his house before. But he’d had her in his patrol car. And that was, in some ways, more intimate.
“I guess I can’t think of a reason.” Mainly because the blood had all rushed down south of his belt. A chronic, Sadie-related issue.
“Oh, good,” she said, looking relieved. “I don’t want things to change.”
Neither did he, but he was afraid that they had.
“We’re on the same page, then.”
“Your house or the car?”
“House,” he said.
“Probably for the best. In hindsight, it was a pretty poor use of the people’s property. Doing it in a county-owned vehicle.”
“Excuse me,” he said, the tension in his chest easing slightly, though not the tension in his cock, “you started it.”
“True. But then,” she said, putting her hand on his chest, a smile curving her lips, “I am a criminal. A very bad girl. And you are so good.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist and drew her fingertips up to his lips, sucking one into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip. Then he closed his teeth lightly over her skin and released her. “Am I?” he asked.
He didn’t feel good. He felt like a failure. Like a man who’d let another man beat this woman near to death. Like a man who couldn’t protect the weaker people around him, even though he tried with everything in him.
There were tons of people who never let their fathers drive off in a drunken stupor and die. And those people probably didn’t try half as hard as he did.
Sometimes he wondered if he was destined to fail everyone around him, no matter how hard he tried to be acceptable. To be good enough.
So if he was going to be bad, maybe he should just embrace it.
“I think you’re underestimating me,” he said. “Still. And I’ve had you in handcuffs.”
“I don’t know, Eli.”
“Sadie,” he said, gripping her chin, kissing her firmly on the lips. “Get your ass in my bed.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SADIE WASN’T SURE what was happening, or why it felt so different. It wasn’t about sex. She knew that much. Well, it was about sex, but it was about something more, too. Something deeper. Something she really didn’t want to guess at.
Eli had only let her in his house that night she’d used his shower when she’d burst the pipes. Never since.
They had sex at her house. And then he returned to his space. His neat and ordered space.
She walked through the front door, her heart hammering hard. Everything was like she remembered, identical, really, to the only other time she’d ever been here.
Neat, clean. Verging on shiny.
For a man who worked with farm animals and criminals, he sure kept his space spotless.
Maybe that was why.
“You know where my bedroom is,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Get upstairs.” There was a hard, determined light in his dark eyes. Like a switch had been flipped. There was so much electricity arching between them. So much heat. And so much intense meaning.
Things had changed. She’d changed them by telling him her story. By telling him he should have protected her.
She wasn’t sure yet if she’d made things better or ruined them, but she was sure she’d changed them. She’d felt it then, standing isolated in the woods with him, and she felt it now.
