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His eyes dart away from mine for a second to somewhere in the room behind me that I can’t see from this position, but when I turn my head to follow his line of sight, he grips my chin, keeping my focus on him.
He opens his mouth to say something, likely to argue more about everything that has led up to what happened last night and to make more apologies he needn’t, but I lean closer, into his firm grip, ensuring he sees the truth of my words from earlier.
I am not afraid of moody, enigmatic Weston Barker.
He is so much more than the label people have placed on him as The Beast.
There’s no denying he’s done horrible things, acted violently in the Barker name, killed and maimed in ways I don’t even want to think about, but that isn’t all he is.
Over the past few weeks, he’s demonstrated his kindness, his ability to be gentle, his innate need to care for me, even if it means disrupting his routine and making himself uncomfortable by having to interact with me when he clearly didn’t want to.
He’s the kind of man who truly has two natures, but one seems natural, the other more learned, ingrained behavior he can’t control.
Most people see the one side.
I see both and choose to focus on the one who has made my stay here so far different from what I imagined it would be when I came. He erased my fear of The Beast and replaced it with a longing for Weston Barker.
Even if he can’t understand why or wants to ignore it happening…
“I may be a lot younger than you, Weston. I may spend most of my time holed up in the library or with my face buried in a book, but that doesn’t make me naïve or stupid about the real world or what’s happening here. It doesn’t make me incapable of saying what I want and taking it.”
That fear in his hard gaze solidifies, darkening his eyes. I straddle the lap of the man everyone in Montana fears, who I did only two weeks ago, his hard cock pinned between us, but it’s actually him who is afraid of me. He’s petrified of what I’m doing to him and his inability to make it stop.
He slides his hand from my chin to cradle my cheek, brushing his calloused thumb across it reverently. “I’m terrified for you, Callista. You have no idea what you’re involved with.”
“You keep saying that—”
“Because it’s true. Because even if your father—”
He cuts himself off, like he realized he was about to slip and reveal something he shouldn’t.
Even if Dad what?
A huge part of me wants to keep digging, craves to ask him what the fuck is going on, who or what Rosewood is, what my father actually did to deserve the ire of the Barkers, the ire of this man, but I know pushing will only make him retreat farther and close himself off more completely.
The same way he did last night.
It broke through that heady afterglow.
Like a switch being flicked, the look in his half-hooded eyes shifted from content to panicked. Desire morphed into regret. Need to be that close became a rush to get away, to put as much distance between us as humanly possible, as fast as his feet could carry him.
I wanted to chase after him, to tell him he had absolutely nothing to regret or feel bad about. Far from it. I was a more than willing participant. The instigator of the very thing he fought against so hard. But my trembling legs wouldn’t let me leave the safety of the shelf behind me, my grip on it the only thing keeping me upright.
Even when I was steady enough to find my clothes and return the books to their places, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house to search for him.
Not because I fear what he says lurks in the woods at night but because each time I push the man, he retreats from me more.
He needs to be the one in control of situations, and since I arrived, he’s been thrust into endless ones where he isn’t directing the course. Like me straddling his lap when he’s trying so damn hard to push me away with his words.
The slow drag of his rough fingers over my skin brings a shudder and memories of last night. How those rugged, coarse hands brought me endless pleasure.
Weston wraps his other arm around me, tugging me closer, even though his eyes scream to stay away. He’s a living, breathing, frustrating contradiction, and I’m already starting to wonder how I’ll walk away from him once Dad makes his amends. “It can’t happen again, Callista. I won’t let it.”
I shift on his lap, ensuring my core is aligned perfectly over his hard cock. “It doesn’t feel like that’s going to be a problem.”
His chest rumbles with a low warning growl. “What my body may want is completely different from what should happen, certainly the opposite of what’s wise.”
“And I suppose you’re going to say that because you’re so much older than me, you’re wiser and can understand things that I couldn’t possibly grasp at my young age.”
