Porterhouse (Grade-A Beefcakes 4)

Cash.

He looked around as if searching for someone. When he saw me, he stilled in the doorway and his tense shoulders relaxed. It was as if he was relieved to find me, as if he hadn’t expected to actually see me again.

He wore a plaid flannel shirt, untucked, jeans and boots. His dark hair was a wild tangle, his dark eyes bloodshot. “Julia,” he breathed, ducking his head.

I glanced over my shoulder toward the office. Setting my mug down on a nearby table, I headed toward Cash and the door. “He’s with a client. Let’s go outside.”

He pushed open the door, let me out first. The morning was cool, the sky clear. A new day, a fresh start. I felt… different this morning. Loved. A little less lost. What Bennett and I shared made me confident in myself. Not in my work. Not in my friendships or family. In myself. What we had, this ridiculously fast relationship-thing that had no word or term to describe it, reassured me. Made me feel whole.

Looking at Cash, who ran his hand over his beard, I recognized… the old me in him. He seemed unsure of himself, wary. I didn’t like that feeling. I recognized it easily enough, and I didn’t want him to be that way.

It was because of me he was troubled, and I wanted to help him with it, but Bennett had been right. He had to grovel. At least a little bit.

“I’m sorry,” he said, right from the start. He looked at me like a starving man. Desperate. He tucked his hands in his pockets as if he had to keep himself from grabbing me.

“For…”

“For yesterday. Not a

ll of yesterday. God, being with you, being inside you, watching you with Bennett, all of it was the best thing of my life. It’s the after I’m sorry about. The part where I walked out.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, tipped my chin up. “Did you walk out because you didn’t like having sex with me?”

His eyes widened as if I’d asked him if he wanted to start a farm raising monkeys. “What?” Then he looked bleak. “You thought that… because of me. Fuck, baby.” He closed the distance between us, cupped my face with his big hands. “It was too good. It scared the shit out of me. I’m… I’m not good for you.”

I turned my head, then pushed at his chest. He moved, only because he wanted to. He was too big for me to do so otherwise. “Don’t you think I should decide that, not you?”

I knew the guys in Raines were bossy and serious alphas, but it still pissed me off when they went too far. I’d heard Ava and Kaitlyn, even Parker and Jill grumble about it.

He shook his head. His eyes roved over my face as if taking me in, memorizing me. “You don’t know me, what I’ve done. I was trying to protect you.”

Yup, an alpha idiot.

I set a hand on his chest, felt how strong he was. How big. And yet, for all those pheromones and potent kisses, he was vulnerable, too.

Still, I shoved him again. “If you’d stayed, I’d have gotten to know you more.”

He took my wrist, held my hand against his chest.

“I know you here.” I tapped my hand against his heart. I had no idea how I could feel this way, so sure of him, but I did. Still… “You big idiot.”

He lowered his forehead to mine and just breathed. “I am an idiot. Baby, I have to tell you some things about me. Things that might make you change your mind about being with me. I… I left because it was the noble thing to do. But I’ve discovered I’m not that noble at all. Not with you.”

“I don’t need noble,” I practically shouted at him. “I need you.”

He stared at me. “Fuck, are you real?” he breathed.

“I can’t forgive you this easily. Bennett said you’re supposed to grovel,” I countered, letting him know he wasn’t off the hook.

He lifted his head slightly, and I saw his smile. He was so handsome, so… virile. I breathed him in. Mint, like toothpaste, and a scent that was all Cash. Leather. Maybe even a little bit of grease and orange soap. “Am I doing a good job?”

“It’s a start,” I replied, smiling in return. “This is all happening so fast… Don’t forget I thought you were strippers not even two days ago.”

He grinned.

“We can take some time to get to know each other. You can tell me about your past, about whatever it is that’s made you turn into a moron.”

“Moron? I’ll take it. Jackass, asshole. Big idiot. They all fit.” He paused, studied me. “You’ll give me time to make this right? Tell you everything?”