Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
Lake
“You’re a bitch.”
That hits Nova hard, even though we’re walking away from her sister and that asshole of an ex.
I see it.
The entire bar can see it.
And…I’ve had enough.
It’s vitriol. Bullshit. I knew what bitches—I have plenty of them as exes—act like.
And a big ass one is standing in front of me as I release Nova, spin back around to face her sister.
I lift my brows. “Really?” I say, shifting over to block her when she tries to move past me.
“If there’s even a small part of you who wants your sister in your life someday, don’t spew out whatever bullshit is in your mind right now.
Just turn around, go off and live your life, and maybe someday you’ll get a clue, get your shit together, and grovel to your sister enough that things will be different. ”
Her eyes narrow. “Look, asshole—”
“Yup, I’m an asshole. One who’s not going to cut a check. Not today or tomorrow or ever. One who’s not going to stand by and allow Nova to give you anything else.”
She scowls.
“So, yeah, I’m an asshole, and I’m the asshole who’s going to have your sister’s back.” I spin away, cutting off whatever retort she might have made, taking Nova with me.
“But—” Nova whispers, eyes shimmering with hurt when she looks up at me.
I start walking. “Don’t give her another moment of your time.”
“Why is she like that?”
“I don’t know, baby.” I shake my head, tuck her closer, and draw her further away, thankful when Riggs and Leo stand up and step between us, stopping the idiotic duo from following as I draw Nova away from the bar and out the back door.
She immediately shivers when we step onto the snow-covered patio.
Dumb. But it’s not like there’s a lot of places in a bar where we can go to have a moment of quiet.
She’s shaking, and though I know it’s not just from the temperature, I shrug off my hoodie, tug it over her head, and draw her against me. The material and my body aren’t enough to keep her warm for long.
But it will be long enough.
I exhale, know this is another of those put up or shut up times. “You know about my mother.”
Her body goes very still.
“You know about the ex who threw knives at me.”
A breath—hers, mine, I’m not really sure which of us it belongs to because my pulse has started pounding hard in my ears, and the memories—shouting, piercing screams, palms smacking against my cheek, nails digging into my skin—are right there.
Fresh.
Painful.
I fucking hate it.
But Nova’s wounds are open and fresh too, and—
I need her to know. I need her to understand what I barely do myself.
Her palm settles over my heart, and it’s such a gentle touch, so much like what I didn’t get growing up, in the relationships with all the women before, that it’s jarring.
And it jars the rest of the words out of me.
“But you don’t know about the one who stole from me to fuel a drug habit I didn’t know about, and you don’t know about the one who would punch and kick and hit me if I did something to upset her—and I upset her a lot.”
“Lake,” she whispers, eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“And you don’t know about the ex who thought she would convince me to marry her if she was able to get pregnant.”
She sucks in a breath.
“I figured out the condoms had holes in them eventually, but not before a pregnancy scare.”
I thought then that I didn’t want kids, didn’t want the lifelong tie to a woman who might very well make my life miserable. Now…
I watch a tear slide out from the corner of a pine-green eye, and I know I want something different.
Something more.
“I’m so sorry that all happened to you,” Nova whispers.
I know she is.
Because she’s not them.
“Hey now,” I say, brushing the tear away. “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad, butterfly. It’s so you know why I close everyone out, even”—I cup her cheek, tilt her head back so I can stare into her eyes—“a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart.”
Soft. Warm. For me.
This time I’m expecting my heart to make its roll.
Especially when she nibbles at her bottom lip. “But we didn’t—” A wince. “Those first couple of times, we didn’t use protection and I’m not on anything—”
I brush my thumb along her mouth, freeing that lip, that truth coming to me too.
God. I’m so fucking oblivious, a damned ostrich with my head in the sand.
I never fucked a woman without a condom, but with Nova, I didn’t even blink about doing it.
Twice. “I know,” I tell her gently. “It was stupid on both our parts, but I think, for me, I knew you were different even then or I wouldn’t have ever taken the risk. ”
Her shaking exhale coats the tip of my thumb. “I think”—a breath, her eyes filling with the slightest bit of mischief—“that I wasn’t much thinking at all.”
My dick twitches even as amusement ripples through me. “And that too,” I say lightly. “There wasn’t much thinking going on by either of us.” I slide my hand back, cover her cheek with my palm, holding her head in place. “I’m sorry.”
She covers my hand with her own. “It took two of us.” And proving she had those moving forward skills, she squeezes my fingers. “If something comes of it, I’ll figure it out.”
I drop my forehead to hers. “If something comes of it, we’ll deal.”
Her eyes go warm again, and her body melts against mine.
Fuck.
But this is a woman I can love. A woman I do love.
She takes a breath and then curls into me again, arms wrapping around my waist. We stand in the quiet, the waves of the lake lapping against the dark shore behind us, the world quiet and reduced to just the two of us.
She’s still shivering, but when I’m about to hustle her back inside, she lifts her head and whispers, “You asked Jer to make contact with a gallery.”
I freeze.
“He gave me the card at the vet today.”
I wind my fingers into her hair at her nape, the silky strands dancing over my skin. “The world deserves to see your photographs.”
Her eyes slide closed, forehead dropping to my chest.
Then she exhales. “You really do have that soft side, don’t you?”
I kiss the top of her head. “It’s nothing. I—”
She presses her palm to my chest, whispers, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Thank you for the hoodie and the console table and sharing your Twix bars. Thank you for the gallery and letting me stay with you even though I was an unwelcome intrusion. Thank you for standing up for me with my sister and George and…” She takes a breath and I find myself holding mine.
“Thank you for giving me the courage to stay right here.”
“Butterfly,” I whisper, touching her jaw. Her teeth chatter beneath my fingertips, and it’s fucking freezing. I need to get her inside, but I don’t have the strength to pull away in this moment.
“You have to know,” I murmur.
She glances up at me, eyes warm, face soft. “Know what, honey?”
“That everything I’ve done, that everything I’ll do”—I lean close, cup her cheek—“it’s all for you.”
She exhales, bottom lip quivering, and is quiet for a long moment. Her response, when it finally comes, is barely above a whisper. “I want to run away from this feeling.”
Always moving forward.
Toward the future. Away from the terror of the present.
I draw her closer, wind my fingers in her hair again. “I know.”
I’m not going to let her go so easily.
I’ll follow her if she goes, trail after her to the ends of the earth and back, until she knows that her place is here.
With me.
“But I want to stay here with you more.”
Surprise ripples through me, but only for a second. Because courage. That’s Nova too. My heart rolls over in my chest. “Fuck, butterfly.”
“I know,” she whispered, pressing her face to my throat. It’s icy cold, but I don’t push her away, don’t bring her inside, not just yet.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her close.
And I keep her exactly where she needs to be.