Page 83 of Match Me if You Can

“Yeah,” she whispers.

“Well?” I ask when she leaves it at that.

“Well what?”

“Well, are you going to fucking tell me?”

She glares over her shoulder at me. “Are you going to get pissed if I do?”

I growl. “Woman, I’ve got your gorgeous ass pressed against my dick, your tit in my hand. What the hell do I have to get pissed about?”

“Um,” she says tartly. “By your tone, you’re pissed right now.”

Well, that’s annoying.

Both that she’s right and pointed it out.

I exhale, gentle said tone. “Just ask me, baby.”

A quiet sigh. “I was just going to ask if you were okay.”

I blink. Then do it again. When that doesn’t have my befuddlement clearing, I say, “You were really worried about asking me if I was okay?”

“Well”—she pushes at my hold again, but because it’s so she can shift in my arms and we’re face-to-face, I allow it—“you got pissed at me, stormed down the hall, and gave me the surly hockey star treatment when I asked it. So yeah, I wasn’t really keen on engaging in that conversational landmine again.”

Her blue eyes are edged with frost.

But I can also see the fire…and the heart.

She may try to be cool and controlled and untouchable, but it’s an impossible battle because her heart is so fucking big.

Josie and her nephew. Tanya. Her clients. My mom. Telling me that her childhood was tough on everyone when it was the toughest on her.

Yeah, her heart is so fucking big it’s a miracle it fits in her chest.

“It wasn’t the question. Or, well, it was,” I add when disbelief slides through her expression. “I hadn’t been home in a long time because the last time I was here my dad and I got into it and then Oakes and Lex and I got into it. My mom tried to calm everyone down, shit was said.” Her eyes flicker and I emphasize, “Shit was really said, and I took off. So between the pallor of that and my mom trying too fucking hard to try to smooth things over so I wouldn’t stay away and my brothers being pigs and assholes to you and my dad treating my mom like he does…” I sigh. “Then add in the contract and my agent, Ally, pressuring me to create this perfect image of a family that’s so far away from this shit”— I wave a hand out, indicating the house as a whole—“to secure that contract and I wasn’t in a good head space. I wasn’t okay in the least. And clearly, I took that out on you. I’m sorry.”

She blinks.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re sorry?”

I frown. “That’s what I said, baby.”

“You’re sorry?” she asks.

“Violet,” I warn.

Her lips twitch and the tension that has been ratcheting itself up inside me loosens its hold.

“I do know how to say the words,” I mutter.

“Most men I know don’t have that skill.”

My mouth hitches up. “I have many skills.”

She giggles. “So you say.”