I got out and did just that.
All the while wondering if this was anywhere near as bad as my head and heart were making it out to be.
• • •
Hours later, with a new license in hand, updated insurance, my motorcycle, and a brand-new cut on my back, I walked up the front walk of Blaise’s place.
It was nice.
Very nice.
And the place that I was likely going to rent, which wasn’t ‘next door’ as much as ‘down the road’ seeing as there was only a house every half-mile or so, was just as nice.
I knocked on the door, felt my heart in my throat, and waited for her to answer.
I heard the ‘click-click’ of dog nails, and then a menacing growl.
I grinned, happy that Blaise had that.
“Oh, Sarge,” I heard Blaise call, “give it a rest. It’s probably just the mailman, like it always is.”
“So not the mailman,” I said to the woman that opened the door without, might I add, looking through the peephole to see who it was.
She blinked at me. “What are you doing here?”
I gestured to the dog that was now growling at me from much closer than I was comfortable. “You mind?”
“Sarge,” Blaise said. “Get back here.”
Sarge backed up into the house, but he kept his eyes on me.
Just the sound of her voice was sending tingles down my spine.
And don’t even get me started on the fact that my cock was now raging.
Thank God I no longer had shitty prison pants on, though.
That, and I had on real underwear—boxer briefs might I add—that felt like heaven after all those years of boxer short hell.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated.
I looked at her, then allowed my gaze to slide down the length of her body.
She was wearing black yoga pants—the kind that were tight at the ankle and not flared—a black t-shirt that was loose that said, ‘Talk to me Goose,’ and a pair of black ankle socks that looked to have quite a bit of brown hair stuck to the bottom of them.
My eyes went back up to her abdomen where our baby lay.
“I’m here to talk to you,” I said softly, allowing my gaze to once again meet hers. “We have a lot to talk about.”
She rolled her eyes. “You were pretty clear.”
“I was?” I asked, confused.
Honestly, her telling me was a blur.
Over the last four days, I’d replayed our entire interaction in my head, up until she left and didn’t turn back around.
I’d decided that she’d heard me when I’d called her name.
There was no way in hell she hadn’t.
The guard had heard me.
So she would likely have heard me, too.
Which had made me mad.
How the hell are you going to put that on a man and then walk away?
“Drummond told me what you said when you left,” she explained. “I can take a hint, you know. I’m fully capable of doing this on my own.”
The thought of talking to another man about me made anger start to boil in my stomach. Innocent talking or not, the thought of her being around another man at all was enough to send me into a jealous rage.
She was my woman.
Had been mine for a really long fucking time, actually.
I tilted my head slightly to the left as I looked at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She licked her lips. “If you wanted to get transferred out because of me, that’s fine. I can take the hint. You don’t want me around. But I can also take care of myself. I know that I can do it on my own.”
My brain clouded in confusion.
I shook my head to clear it. “Babe, I don’t know what you think you heard from Drummond, the dumbass who has had a crush on you for a really long time, but whatever it was was bullshit. I would never tell you anything through him. Can we go inside? I’d like to hear what I supposedly said.”
She rolled her eyes, but stepped back, putting her hand on the dog’s head.
“Sarge,” she said quietly. “Let him in.”
She and the dog backed up simultaneously, allowing me entrance into her place.
There were boxes lining all the walls, and the only thing that was ‘out’ was a television that was on the floor against the wall straight in front of me.
“This is a nice place,” I said. “Cora rented me one that’s literally right next door to yours.”
She hissed in a breath. “The one that’s the first house on the right?”
I looked at her. “Yes, why?”
“My brother told me that one was a bad place. Cursed,” she said. “Something about being in a flood plain, a murder taking place there, and a woman committing suicide.”
My brows went up. “They didn’t say that to my sister-in-law when she went to sign the lease papers.”