His head shook, his hair tossing shadows against the brick walls where the yard lights glowed across his face. “Never implied you were, but you have more important things to be living for than I do.”
There was something in his voice, the twist of a knife slashing his tongue that had me swiveling my attention fully to him. My eyes narrowed as I tried to make him out better through the lapping darkness. “Why would you say that?”
Blowing out a sigh, he glanced toward the wing of the house where my children slept. “I think we both know what’s really important in life, don’t we?”
My spirit clutched in an erratic way, and a thick, solid lump formed at the base of my throat.
“I know what’s important to me,” I answered on a haggard breath.
A smile tugged at his mouth. One that was utterly sad. Beautiful and dark and invading the space.
This man that was terrifyingly beautiful and devastatingly bad.
Written in the scars he wouldn’t allow anyone to see.
“Do you want to join me?” I asked, lifting the bottle of wine I had sitting on the cool deck beside me.
Blatant enticement.
Apparently, I was wanting a few more of those scars for myself.
But I couldn’t get over the other night. The way he’d touched me. Kissed me. The way for a few blinding moments, I’d felt utterly alive.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mia.”
“Friends,” I told him. God. I was so full of shit. “We’ve been managing that, haven’t we?”
He laughed a harsh sound. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“I do.”
He blew out an exasperated sound, his face downturned, hesitating, before he finally gave and started to move in my direction. He grabbed the end of a pool lounger and dragged it over to where I was, sitting down on the very end of it about a foot away.
He rested his forearms on his thighs.
His lean, cut body on edge.
I could almost feel his spirit fluttering in the stagnant air.
“Not exactly dressed in pool attire.” He gestured to his boots and jeans before his gaze was sweeping me, my tank and short shorts, my bare legs exposed in the muted light in the water.
Hunger flashed in his eyes.
Desire and need.
Chills rolled. Goosebumps a ripple across my skin.
I cleared my throat and forced a light smile as I swiveled to face him, offering him my glass of wine. “I share as well as my son does.”
Chuckling, Leif reached over and grabbed the full bottle instead. He tipped the entire thing up as he brought it to his mouth. His thick throat bobbed as he swallowed, his lips drenched in the sticky sweetness when he pulled the bottle away.
He used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth, eyeing me the whole time.
I gulped.
Why did he have to be so sexy?
He gave a new meaning to the Law of Attraction.
His own gravitational pull.
I felt like I was orbiting him.
Wanting more but terrified to get too close.
He angled his head to study me, and I took a shaky sip of my wine like it might stand as a good enough distraction to keep me from crawling on my hands and knees to him.
“How are you doing, Mia?” His voice was serious. Hard but full of care.
God. This man. He was going to be my undoing.
I laughed out a brittle sound and let my gaze wander across the yard. “Other than the fact I can’t sleep? Jumping at every bump in the night?” Aside from the sorrow and the mourning? Aside from how damned badly I was aching to feel him?
“Great.”
He expelled a low grunt of disbelief. “Great, huh?”
“Absolutely. Look at this place. How could I complain?”
Those eyes traced, warm brown-sugar again. “It seems you’re missing something to me.”
I exhaled a heavy sound, looking out at the gentle ripples of the water before I got brave enough to look back at him. “When you lose someone you care about most, there’s bound to be something missing, isn’t there?”
“Yeah.” He said it without hesitation.
Hard and fast.
He left no question that it was from experience.
My eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “I just . . .”
I opened them to him waiting. Waiting on me. “I just can’t make sense of it. Why? Why so much violence? A beautiful life wasted . . . and for what? I . . . I wish I would have given him the money. Wished I didn’t push that panic button. He warned me not to move, and I did it, anyway.”
Guilt crushed down on my chest. A thousand pounds of rocks. Burying me.
My words rushed out with the sorrow. “If I just would have listened to him, Lana would still be here today. He told me . . . he told me if I just gave him what he was after, he wouldn’t hurt us. And I . . . I panicked, Leif.”