My eyes are wide, searching his gaze, but I don’t like what I see. He looks, soft, sweet. He looks like he wants to rescue me. My stomach clenches again, and my knees physically knock together. Once. Twice. Three times.
“Your dad hurt you, sugar?” he asks softly.
“It doesn’t matter,” I grind out, attempting to pull away from him, but he’s firm and he’s not letting me go anywhere. He’s keeping me right where he wants me, and it’s too damn close. He’s seeing too much, too damn much.
Wyatt dips his chin, his nose slides along my temple and he inhales. My eyes automatically flutter closed and I lean into him, loving the gentle touch of him, the way his scent surrounds me. Loving everything about him, and simultaneously cursing myself for enjoying it so much.
He hums, then I feel his breath against my ear. “It matters, Exeter. I want you, sugar. I want all of you. I just gotta know how to handle you,” he whispers.
I bite the inside of my cheek, loving the way his words make me feel. Like he wants to protect me, like he wants me, really wants me. But if he knew, if he knew anything about me, he wouldn’t want me at all.
“I need to go inside, tell MawMaw that everything’s okay. She’s probably worked herself into a frenzy,” I lie. MawMaw’s cool as a cucumber, always has been.
The only time I ever saw her even get upset was when she found out what happened to me, what my father had been doing to me for years. She marched over to his house, shotgun in hand and held it pointed directly at him while I packed my things. She threatened to call the police if she even so much as smelled him again, let alone saw him anywhere near me. MawMaw is my damn hero. Always has been.
Wyatt releases me, but when my eyes lift to his, it looks like he’s in physical pain. Brushing past him, I expect him to leave, but instead he follows me inside. I look behind me, narrowing my gaze on him but he only shrugs, giving me the sexiest lopsided grin beneath his thick beard.
“Everything okay over there?” MawMaw asks as soon as we walk into the living room.
She’s got her stories on, which is really one of her soap operas. She’s always loved them, and I can’t hold back the smile as she pauses the television to look over at us, not wishing to miss a second.
“Yes, ma’am. My cousin found his pregnant girlfriend, and the culprits have been taken care of. I want to give you my thanks,” Wyatt politely says with a dip of his chin.
MawMaw blushes, I watch as she actually blushes from his dipped chin and white-toothed grin. “Well, I always knew that man was a bad seed, and so was his brother. I heard the rumors. I knew what kind of sick perverts they were,” she says, and I don’t miss the glance she spears me with, and I doubt that Wyatt does either.
Damn.
Wyatt turns his head, his eyes searching my face and I watch as they soften on me.
Double damn.
“Thank you again, ma’am. If there’s anything at all that I can help you with, or do for you, to repay your kindness, I would be much obliged,” he murmurs, his voice deep and rumbling.
MawMaw waves her hand. “Just glad to see they’re finally going to pay for their sins.” She nods. “I do believe I’m a bit parched, I’ll just be making my way to the kitchen,” she mutters, standing and quickly walking away, no doubt to give us privacy.
Triple damn.
“This ain’t done, Exeter,” Wyatt announces.
Then without giving me a chance to say anything in return, I watch him storm out of the house, the door slamming behind him.
“That boy is built like a mighty oak, and he’s just about to fall making the loudest noise in all of creation,” MawMaw says from behind me.
“What?” I ask, turning around to face her.
“He’s sweet on you, child.”
I shake my head, but she just spears me with a look. One that says she knows exactly what she’s talking about and she’ll argue with me until death, so I better just shut up and agree. I press my lips together, biting the inside of my cheek.
Shit.
Chapter Six
WYATT
Luckily, I wasn’t charged with anything after shooting James. Robby agreed that the fucker deserved it, in so many words. Self-defense. Apparently, Exeter corroborated that fact. Closing my eyes, I take a pull from my beer.
Exeter.
I want her, more than I’ve ever wanted any woman, I need her. There is something that is completely and totally different about her than any other woman I’ve ever met, and I want to know more—I want to know all of her.
I spend the entire fucking day drinking. I’m pathetic, a fucking pathetic mess. So bad, in fact, that when I pick up my phone, I can’t stop myself from calling someone, someone I have zero reason whatsoever to call.
“I’m nowhere near town, I’m not sure why you’re calling me,” she says as her greeting.
I grunt, knowing she moved, but still feeling weird about that fact. She has been my fallback. She has been there when I needed to drown my regret in something other than booze.
“Why, Sammi?”
She sighs. “Why what?” She sounds impatient, and I guess she has a reason to be.
We’ve been dancing around one another for over fifteen years. Somewhere lost in the limbo between love and hate, teetering more toward the side of hate more often than not.
“Why didn’t you want me?” I ask, hearing the slur in my own voice.
“You’re drunk, Wyatt,” she whispers, and it’s there in her voice—pity.
The bitch is actually pitying me, and something about that makes me feel physically ill. I nod, closing my eyes as if she can see me, but thankful as fuck that she can’t. I’m so damn pathetic, it’s no wonder she pities me.
Fuck, I pity myself.
“I know I am. I shot someone yesterday. I can’t get the girl I want to even talk to me, and you left without a fuck you. I want to know what it is about me that makes me so fucking unwanted.”
She makes a noise in the back of her throat but doesn’t speak. I wait her out, on the verge of ending the call just to save what little pride I have left. She inhales deeply then lets it out, and I wait for another moment.
“Our shit, it has nothing to do with you. Me going and doing what I did, it didn’t have anything to do with you either, not really. I was young, we were young. Think about it, what if we had gotten married, do you think you’d be happy? Truly? We aren’t the same people now as we were back then, and I’m not sure we’d even like one another, let alone love each other.”
“We aren’t the same people because of what you did,” I accuse.
She sighs again, heavily. I know I’ve beat this conversation to death, more times than necessary, it’s dead and done. There is no going back, there is no changing what has been done. There’s no bringing the dead back to life.
“I know,” she admits on a choke.
“Fuck, I’m a dick,” I slur.
She laughs, though it sounds fucking sad. “Yeah, I know that too,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry, Sammi,” I admit, my shoulders shaking as I try to hold my-fucking-self together with everything that I am.
She hums. “We’ve both been hurt, and we’ve both hurt one another. Don’t be sorry for feeling, Wyatt, and feeling deeply. It’s what makes you the best man that I’ve ever known,” she says and my heart fucking pounds so goddamn hard that I expect it to crack into a million pieces, but it doesn’t.