Every Time I Fall (Orchid Valley 3)

“I feel . . .” A laugh slips out of me.

“What?”

“You’ll think I’m pathetic.”

“I really doubt that.”

I haven’t been this vulnerable with a person in a long time, but it’s been good. So why stop now? Here, naked in my bed with my head on his chest and the steady beat of his heart in my ear, I’m being vulnerable, but I don’t feel vulnerable. What I feel is less alone than I have in a long time. Maybe ever. I can’t help but wonder if he feels a little of that too. “I feel reborn. Like I’m still me but . . . better.” I sound like a nut. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

He grins. “I like making you feel good.” He reaches down and strokes my hip then up my side to my breast. “There’s nothing funny about that.”

“I’m rather fond of it myself,” I say, nuzzling his neck. The clock on my nightstand says it’s almost midnight. I know Dean has to work tomorrow, but I don’t want this night to end. I don’t want this connection to end. “Tell me about Amy.”

He grunts. “You want me to tell you about your ex-sister-in-law? What do you think I know that you don’t?”

I bite my bottom lip. Maybe I should let it go, but . . . “Tell me about you and Amy. How did that happen?”

“Booze, mostly.”

I peel myself off his chest, propping up on one elbow to look at him. “That’s a deflection.”

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath. “I’m embarrassed that it happened at all. Embarrassed that after it happened, I let my feelings get away from me and let her string me on for so long. Embarrassed that I let her screw me up that way.” He shakes his head. “Not my proudest moments.”

“I’m not judging. I mean, I did at first. Absolutely.” He flashes me a mock scowl, and I laugh. “I’m sincerely curious.”

“I care about her,” he says. “So maybe that was the reason I let it happen. Or maybe it was because of what she and Kace had? Before she left him? I was . . . envious of that.”

“Their marriage may have looked perfect from the outside, but it wasn’t. No one’s is.”

He reaches up and hooks a lock of my hair with one finger before wrapping it around his hand. “I know that. Intellectually, at least.”

“And if you wanted marriage and a family so badly, why have you always been Mr. Commitment Is Overrated?”

“That’s not who I am.”

“It’s who you were. You went for the party girls—women who just wanted a good time and nothing more.”

He groans and rubs his palms against his eyes. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have casual relationships with people who only want casual relationships.”

“Well, sure, but that doesn’t explain what happened with Amy.”

He pinches my side. “The only explanation I have for that is temporary insanity.”

Or loneliness, I think, but I don’t say it. What if loneliness is the only reason he’s found himself here with me? Would that be so bad if we both get something good out of it? All night, hope’s been surging in my chest—that we can make this something more, that maybe this doesn’t have to be temporary—and now it’s tangling with doubt. He never promised me anything and never claimed to want more than I offered. I paste on a serious expression and say, “Maybe it’s not that. Smithy says Amy has a unicorn pussy, so maybe that’s it?”

“Fucking Smithy,” he mutters, but he’s smiling now. “I promise her pussy had nothing to do with it.”

I scoff. “Okay, sure.”

“I mean it. I’m not going to pretend the sex was bad, but . . .” He rolls us so he’s on top of me, his knees straddling my hips. He slides a hand down my body and between my legs. “If we want to talk about a pussy I can’t stop obsessing over, I have a lot to say.”

I’m a little tender from earlier, but that doesn’t stop me from rocking into his hand. “Why talk when you can put your mouth to better use?”

“That’s what I thought,” he mumbles, already disappearing beneath the sheets.

Chapter Twenty-One

Dean

I don’t know why I’m surprised to see my sister waiting for me when I get to my office on Monday morning. I should’ve expected this from the moment she saw me in the hall with Abbi.

“At least now I know why you looked so frazzled when I told you about Frankie last night,” she says by way of greeting.

I blow out a breath. “Good morning, sis.”

“She didn’t tell you she’s planning to date this guy when he moves to town.” She pouts so hard her bottom lip juts out, just like it would as a kid. “Is she still planning on dating him? Because that’s screwed up.”