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His tongue stroked across his bottom lip, his gaze roiling with a dark understanding that made me want to both run and drop to my knees.
“Think you’re wrong about that, gorgeous. Haven’t been able to get you off my mind since the second you walked through my door. No forgetting you. Wreckin’ my mind the way you did.”
I inhaled a shattered breath. I should shut him down. Push him off. Tell him he was being wildly inappropriate.
But a fire roared.
One he’d lit.
Somehow, his voice lowered further. “Can’t stop thinkin’ about what would’ve happened had I actually asked you to stay. What it would have been like if you’d let me take you right on my chair. Wondering how good you’d taste. How good you’d feel.”
A hurricane of need whipped through my body. Something brand new and terrifying.
My tongue darted out to wet my suddenly dry lips, and my voice had gone haggard. “That wouldn’t have happened. I don’t sleep with strangers.”
He didn’t need to know everyone was a stranger.
His touch danced over the ink on my arm again, though this time he’d shifted his hand to play all of his fingertips over it as if it were written in Braille. Flames lapped at the contact point.
He inhaled deeply like he was drugging himself on my scent. “Smart girl. Not the kind of guy a girl like you should go mixin’ with.”
He shifted from my arm and dragged his thumb down the side of my face when he said it.
A jagged rasp climbed my throat.
“You ready, Daddy-O? I’m all done!” The tinkling voice that suddenly filled the room froze us both solid, and it took a second before River was able to tear his attention from me to look over his shoulder.
Shaking, I looked that way, too, toward the adorable little boy who was doing jumping jacks in the doorway, thankfully oblivious to what his father was implying.
My heart squeezed painfully as I looked at his precious cherub face.
“Yup. Definitely ready, buddy.”
River peeled himself back, slowly as he took a step away. My body bowed forward from the loss of support.
He suddenly shoved his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, and my eyes widened when he pulled out a wad of cash.
I was pretty sure it was the money I’d left on the counter at his shop.
Something wry played in the shadows of his turbid gaze as he reached out and tucked it into the left breast pocket of my scrubs.
He patted the spot, nearly sending me into cardiac arrest.
“There. Now we’re even.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode across the room, taking the little boy’s hand in his.
“Bye, Miss Charleigh, see you next time I take a tumble!” Nolan called over his shoulder as River led him out.
The man never looked back as he went.
ELEVEN
RIVER
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
His baby sisterwouldn’t stop trembling where she sat in the front seat of his crummy car. She was wrapped in a blanket and curled into a ball. Shivering and shivering.
