Page 20 of Weston’s Treasure

My outburst did nothing to stop his approach and if it were possible his smile grew as he stalked toward me. My feet came unglued and I stumbled back, hitting the counter behind me, trapping myself between the Formica top and an unforgiving wall of muscle.

Weston’s hand went to the hat I was wearing. He pulled it off my head and tossed it behind me. Perfect. Great. Splendid. Now I was standing in front of the sexiest man alive with wild Jeep hair combined with hat head. What else could go wrong? I probably had bad crab breath and lettuce stuck in my teeth. I wanted to slink away, run and hide. But I’d missed my chance. Weston was so close I could feel his body heat rolling off of him even through the thick material of the hoodie I was wearing. Which got me thinking about the sweat I could feel running between my boobs. Another mortifying thought.

“Glad you understand that.” Weston’s gravelly voice pinned me in place.

“Understand what?”

“That I’m dangerous. That I will step between you and anyone who means you harm. I will protect you with my life. But the one thing you never have to worry about is me hurting you. Not mentally, not physically, not emotionally. I wouldn’t be standing here with you if I wasn’t sure this was where I wanted to be. Don’t have a magic eight-ball so I can’t predict the future. I can’t promise you a white dress and picket fence. But I can promise you I’m not looking for a quick fuck. I don’t have time for games and you don’t deserve them, so straight out, while we’re figuring out what’s going on with the case, I wanna explore what this is between us. And I mean both emotionally and physically.”

Maybe I was dead. Was it possible to be killed, then go into a dreamlike state and spend the day with a man you didn’t much like at first, but it turns out he’s a really great guy who’s simply reacting to your bitchy attitude? Then after said day, go home with him, whereupon he sets out to rock your world, say a bunch of really nice things, then tell you he wants to explore you physically?

No? That was an impossibility? Then that meant I was alive but I had to be imagining what Weston had said. No way would a man like him be interested in a plain-Jane woman like me.

Not a chance in hell. I was a nobody, a loser like my father, unsocialized, a freak, I had nothing to offer and the one thing my mother had pounded into my head was, if you had nothing to offer you were worthless. Therefore, I was as worthless as she always said I’d be.

“Silver?”

My gaze moved from the spot on his t-shirt up to his face and it hurt so damn bad to look at him.

“That’s not possible,” I told him.

“Which part, babe?”

“Everything. All of it. I’m not worth your time.”

“What the fuck?” His growl was low and menacing.

“What I mean is, I have nothing to offer a man like you.”

Weston’s face turned to granite. Hard and unrelenting. Maybe he was realizing he’d been wrong about me. There was nothing to explore.

“Again. What. The. Fuck. What does that mean, nothing to offer a man like me? What kind of man do you think I am?”

“A good one,” I blurted out. “You deserve better than me. I have nothing. I don’t even know how to act around people because I grew up alone on a boat. Growing up, my friends were older treasure hunters and drifters. I don’t know anything about family or true friendship. I’m a loner, it’s who I am and I know it. I’m toxic and I don’t want that to leak onto you. I’ve always known I’d be worthless—”

“Shut up,” he growled and my spine shot straight.

“Don’t tell me to shut up.”

“Fuckin’ hell, woman, I’ve heard some fucked-up shit in my life, seen even more. But never have I heard a good woman beat up on herself the way you just did. I’m guessing by our earlier conversation, it was your mother who put that venom in your head.”

“It’s not—”

“Sweetheart, what you just spewed was rancid. Pure poison. And the fuck of it is, I know you believe it. And that shit is so jacked it ain’t funny. So, new plan, while we’re exploring what’s between us, I’m gonna unravel that for you. I’m gonna make you see it for the lie it is. And just to warn you, it’s gonna be painful. Once you see what I see, you’re gonna know you’ve been living a lie.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want Weston getting that close. I didn’t want to face the truth of who I was.

“That sounds painful. I don’t think I want that.”

“It will be. And I bet you don’t. But it’s happening all the same. I will not have a relationship where you hide behind a mask of stubbornness and pretend to be a character in someone else’s fucked-up story. You are not what your mother said you were, and you certainly didn’t become what she told you you would.”

“I have nothing to give—”

“Kiss me,” he ordered and I jerked back.

“What?”

“You heard me. Kiss me, Silver.”