“Are we talking no lights or a fire hazard?”
“The latter,” Karen said. “Maybe not for years. Maybe sooner. No way to tell.”
Fucking A. This was not what he needed. He could afford to get it fixed, several times over, but getting the earl to agree to the work that would mean a lot of holes in a lot of walls was going to be like punching himself in the face repeatedly for months. Every time he’d brought it up, the old man had glared and said he was earl and would decide what was to be done.
He no sooner had the thought than the earl came steaming right at them. Karen, her sense of self-preservation obviously well honed, didn’t bother to stick around. She just gathered her stuff and got out of there faster than a race car on the last lap.
The earl took one look at Karen’s retreating form and launched into a verbal attack. “Whatever it is, absolutely not.”
Christ on a cracker. He was not in the mood for this bullshit. “The electrical needs to be updated.”
“I’ve told you repeatedly, it’s fine.” The old man narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his thin chest, daring Nick to argue.
It was all so unbelievable—no, wait, totally predictable. “Why do you have to stick your heels in the dirt about everything?”
“Don’t be impertinent.” The earl waved a hand dismissively in the air.
“You’re right,” Nick said, actually feeling the moment when the last thread holding his temper in check snapped. “I shouldn’t give a rat’s ass about this place. God knows no one who ever lived here gave a rat’s ass about me.”
“That’s not true,” the older man said, his face ashen. “Your father—”
“Left.” The single word landed like a punch that hit both of them.
His grandfather winced. “He couldn’t stay.”
And they both knew why.
Lost to the fury only an abandoned child can feel, Nick said, “Because. Of. You.”
Temper snapped in the old man’s eyes, and he straightened to almost Nick’s height, staring his progeny in the eyes. “Because he had responsibilities.”
To an old pile of rocks that was more important than Nick’s mama or him? Good to know, not that he didn’t anyway. “You know what? You’re right. The electrical in this dump doesn’t need to be updated.”
Without waiting for the old man to utter another word of bullshit, Nick strode out of Dallinger Park, powered by a visceral anger that had spent too many years swirling under the surface. The old fury, it hadn’t ever gone away. It probably never would. The gravel drive crunched under his boots as he cro
ssed to the stable house, a single light shining from a window. He stormed in through the front door and slammed it behind him.
Brooke stood in the hallway, light from the kitchen outlining her form and casting her blond hair in an ethereal halo.
“Nick,” she said, her voice soft and unsure. “Are you okay?”
No, he wasn’t. Not even close. He was across the room before he knew it, every part of him aching to lose itself in her, in the sweet oblivion of her silky skin, her breathy moans, and the tight grip of her orgasm as she came all over him. He needed to feel her, to touch her, to make her want him. Still, he kept his hands at his sides, knowing that touching her, even once, would break the resolve he was holding on to with the last ounce of his tenuous self-control.
“Say the word and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t ever bother you again. We’ll just be friends,” he said, hating every single syllable coming out of his mouth. “Say it. Tell me you don’t want me the way I want you.”
Chapter Twenty
The rawness in his words and the untempered need in his dark eyes stole the breath from Brooke’s lungs. Even if she’d been able to deliver that lie right now, she would have hated herself afterward for it. The truth was that she wanted this man and she was done pretending otherwise.
“Please, Brooke.” He closed his eyes, his entire body coiled so tightly that the tension within him buffeted her like a gale-force wind. “Say the words.”
She pressed a palm to his chest, over his quickly beating heart. “I can’t.”
His eyes snapped open, and she had no idea how in the world she didn’t burst into flame from the intensity of the want she saw there. In that half second, the world stopped turning, her heart stopped beating, and breathing became optional. Then she was against the wall, his strong hands cupping her ass and holding her up so her feet didn’t touch the ground as his mouth crashed down on hers in a kiss that should have burned the whole stable house down.
Wrapping her legs around his waist, she angled her body so her core rubbed against his hard cock trapped inside his jeans. Electric sensation threatened to shatter her as she circled her hips, his hands digging into her ass. It was good, but it wasn’t enough. Desperate for more, she tore at his T-shirt, yanking it from his waistband. There wasn’t enough room between their bodies for her to make much headway when it came to feeling the bare heat of his skin. Just the sensation of his happy trail against her fingertips was all she could get and she wanted—needed—more.
Nick broke the kiss, not letting her go but resting his forehead against the wall above her shoulder. “Damn, Brooke. We shouldn’t—”