She beamed one of those smiles that could bring an entire town to its knees.
“It’s pretty now.” She waved it around.
He smiled this afflicted smile that stabbed and slayed.
My stomach tipped and my heart did that unforgiveable thing. The thing that went haywire whenever I got into his space. That thing that made me vulnerable and weak.
“Daisy…what do you say for the shoes?” I reminded her.
She threw herself at him.
Okay, that was so not what I meant. A simple thank you would suffice.
He caught her. Awkwardly at first. Then he hugged her back about as hard as she was hugging him.
Those strong arms wrapped around that little girl like he didn’t want to let her go. His eyes closed and that spirit I’d always felt weeping something mad.
God. Was that all deceit, too? The way I’d felt like I’d known him to the very core? Tapped into his darkest, most private places?
Reluctantly, he released her, his voice rough with emotion, “You’re welcome. But those are from my mother and my sister, too. Don’t forget about them. My ma will have my hide if I take all the credit.”
Her brow quirked in question. “Your hide? You been hidin’ out? I want to hide. I love hides and seeks.”
Richard barked out a laugh, and those eyes were searching for me from across the room, that warm sage spilling out with disbelieved affection at this child.
In it was an apology.
Something so stark and rippling with the secrets that I felt them knock me at the knees. I reached out to the back of the couch for support. To force myself to stay standin’ right there before I went and did something stupid like dropping to them right at his feet.
But this was my husband we were talkin’ about.
The man who was etched on my body, etched on my skin, etched on my soul.
The man who was supposed to share my life. Be the other half of it. There through every success and strife. Through all the joys and the sorrows.
The one who’d left me but never quite set me free.
That jaw clenching, he ripped his attention away and shifted it to Daisy. “Would love to play hide and seek with you sometime. Just be careful. I’m wicked good at it. I bet we could even talk Rhys into playing with us.”
“Oh, I would love that to the moon.”
She grinned up a plea.
He brushed back her hair.
Slay. Slay. Slay.
I was so not gonna make it through this.
Affection made a wistful dance through his expression.
I fidgeted. Shifted my feet. Hugged my arms over my chest. All of it a vain attempt at shielding myself from the potency of this man.
“Daisy, why don’t you go have Nana sign your cast? You know she’s gonna feel left out if she doesn’t get to,” I coaxed her. Desperate to put an end to this.
“Oh, yes! Good idea.”
Daisy clamored off his lap and darted passed me up the stairs. “Bye, Mr. Richard. See ya tomorrow unless you want to have a sleepover tonight so we can play.”
Uh.
Yeah.
No.
Richard seemed hesitant to stand, that gaze immediately latching onto me as he pushed to standing.
A snare.
Hooks.
I gulped.
“Need to have a word with you, Violet,” he said, his voice nothing but smooth, cutting seduction.
My father grunted, reminding us that he was still there. I’d almost forgotten he was.
“That is, if it’s okay with your father.” Richard didn’t seem all that much to be asking, though, the force behind his voice when he pitched my father a steady glance.
“My daughter is a grown woman and can make her own decisions,” he said, though he looked at me like he was begging me to deny the request.
I should.
God, I should.
“It’s fine, Daddy.” Saying it again was nothing but heresy.
Because that storm whipped and blew and howled. Frigid cold against the flames that leapt.
Richard took the few steps back for the door. Hostility blazed from my father as he passed.
He paused, wavered, like he was going to say something before he seemed to think better of it and stepped out onto the porch.
I inhaled a couple shaky breaths, gathering myself, fortifying myself for whatever he had to say. Then I lifted my chin and started after him.
My father stopped me by grabbing onto my elbow. “Mija.”
I looked to the worry carved on his face.
“Be careful. That man holds secrets. Ugly, dark secrets. I can feel them.”
I swallowed down the fear that slicked across my skin.
The awareness of that truth.
The only thing I could do was tell him the same lie. “Don’t worry. It’s fine.”
I slipped out into the brilliance of the day, to Richard who had paced away on the porch, the disturbance amplifying with each step he took.
Pieces of his long hair at the top whipping with the gust of wind.
His shoulders wide and the muscles in his back rippling with strength. The colors painted on his arms twitching and curling with the vibrations that rocked from his bones.
Reticent, my daddy clicked the door shut, and I took a couple shaky steps farther out onto the porch.
Richard turned around.
Energy snapped.
Electricity sizzled.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, the words cracking when I took in the ferocity that hardened his eyes.
Something feral and ruthless taking him over.
“This.” He erased the space in two steps and swept me off my feet. One arm banded around my waist and the other bunching in the disaster that was my hair.
That was the very same second his mouth descended in a plundering, mind-bending kiss.
Eighteen
Richard
I curled my arm around her waist as I gave myself over to what I’d been dying to do since the second I’d stepped through her door. Gave myself over to the fierce, unrelenting need to consume this girl.
Taste her and take her and touch her.
“Violet,” I rumbled as I held onto the curves of her gorgeous body.
Lust blistered through my bloodstream. Careening through every cell. Thumping madness into my veins.
Violet gasped a throaty, needy sound, and instantly, our mouths went to
