Muffin Top

“I told him that if it stopped, I’d never tell.” Oh, his dad had told him some bullshit line that it wasn’t what it looked like, but Frankie was old enough by then to know what he had seen.

“And did he?” Lucy asked.

“Yes.” He’d watched his dad like a hawk after that, always mindful, never letting the others know what was going on, never letting on that there was a problem.

The silence stretched between them as the old nightmare ghosts flooded up to the surface, along with the guilt of keeping such a secret from his family. Part of him had wanted—still wanted—to tell them everything, unburden himself, but he couldn’t. It was bad enough that his dad thought so little of his family that he could do something like that. There was no way he could do the same. So if that meant he shielded them from the ugly and ate the bile that rose each time he saw his mom look at his dad as if the sun rose and set on his smile? He’d take it. If it meant they got to live the lives they wanted, he’d take it.

“Are you sure it was a thing, or could it have been a weird moment?”

How many times had he asked himself the same, especially when there was never even a hint of a repeat or shady behavior on his dad’s part? “Even back then I knew the difference between a kiss and an I-want-to-fuck-you-against-a-wall make-out session.”

“Wow,” she said, sounding anything but impressed. “I never would have thought it.”

“Neither has anyone in my family.” He wrapped his arms tighter around her and pulled her close so the top of her head fit under his chin. “You’re the only one I’ve ever told.”

“So why didn’t you tell the others?”

“I didn’t want to see my mom hurt.” The news that Frank Hartigan Sr. had kissed another woman would be a shiv to his mom’s heart.

Lucy kissed his chest, right above where his heart beat against his ribs. “A protector to the core, aren’t you?”

“I’m loyal. I know right from wrong.” He paused, listening to the frogs or crickets or whatever other woodland animal his city ass couldn’t define sing their song. “And I promised myself on that day that I’d never do to someone what my dad had done to my mom.”

“You don’t want to be alone, but you don’t want to hurt anyone, either. Ever think of just trusting yourself rather than have a no-girlfriend rule?”

Yeah, he hadn’t really thought of it before, but that made sense. “I wouldn’t call it a rule, just more of a guideline until I met someone who really would be the beginning and end for me.”

Someone who made him laugh all the time and drove him nuts some of the time. Someone who challenged him and didn’t fall for his bullshit. Someone who got him to share his secrets while sitting naked on a floating dock because spilling his guts was the only thing he could think of to steal just another couple of minutes like this with her. Someone he actually liked.

“Frankie Hartigan, you really are the last of the romantics,” she said, her words carrying just enough bitterness to soak through the sweetness.

“You don’t believe in a one and only?”

She let out a huff of disbelief against his chest. “Growing up like I did, the child of divorce with a mother who came back and, shall we say, found solace with my father whenever her new husband had another mistress? True love doesn’t seem realistic.”

Ouch. That would definitely sting, but still… “That’s pretty damn cynical.”

“Okay, truth?”

“Yeah.” Why should he be the only one with his ass literally and metaphorically hanging out?

She tugged at the blanket’s corner, pulling it up and wrapping it around her, not as if she was cold, but as if she was trying to hide. She pushed away from him, stood up, and began pacing across the blanket spread out on the floating dock as if the words needed motion to get out. “I want that happily ever after someday, but I’m skeptical,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Reaching out to put his arms around her shoulders and scooting closer to her just seemed as natural as breathing. “You just need the right person to show you it’s possible.” Okay, maybe being around her and still on the comedown from a killer orgasm had made him a little more touchy-feely than normal.

“Are you applying for the job?” She gasped and looked at him with a look of pure, abject horror. “I didn’t mean that. I know this, whatever it is, is only fun. You haven’t led me on. I know you don’t want more.”

The words rushed out of her so fast they nearly tripped over each other as a huge swath of red made its way northward from her more-than-impressive rack. Because he was a human with eyeballs and she was a gorgeous naked woman in front of him, his gaze dipped down to her nipples, then lower across her belly and to those round hips that made his fingers itch with the urge to grab hold of all that softness and worship it. Damn, even after spilling his guts and while she was in the middle of an embarrassed ramble he wanted to toss her down and fuck her silly.