Girl in Love (27 page)

“Give me two minutes. I’m gonna go grab some pants.”

“Don’t bother on my account. I prefer you without them,” he called out after her.

She did everything in her power to ignore the way her heart raced. Flirting with him was a terrible idea—one she had no recollection of deciding on and wished she could take back.

She lost control of herself around him, a control she’d worked so hard to keep her white-knuckled death grip on. Her heart was doing its best to try and warn her. It had taken it a year just to regain the ability to function normally.

It definitely wasn’t strong enough for anymore of the Trace Corbin heartbreak special.

H
E HAD
the fire started by the time she got off the bus. Giving her a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw she’d pulled her hair up into a messy bun and put on jeans that begged to be peeled right back off her.

“Um, what’s this?” She gestured to the fire as he pulled out a plastic chair for her to sit in.

“We’re having a bonfire. It is a campground after all.” Without any further explanation, he tossed the book he was holding into the flames.

“I was reading that!”

“Yeah, I know you were. That was the problem.” Trace handed her a stick. “You like s’mores, right?”

Kylie gaped at him as he pulled the items he’d gotten at the gas station from the brown paper sack.

“What are we doing?” she asked softly. The vulnerable plea softened the hardened wall he’d been holding up with all his might.

He sighed loudly as he lowered himself into his own chair.

“I’m trying here, Kylie Lou. I really am. But I don’t know what you want or need from me. And if the answer is that what you want and need from me is for me to stay the hell out of your life or pretend like I don’t give a damn, well…I don’t know if I can.”

He turned and let his stare press into her gaze. For a brief moment, he felt as if he really could read her mind. Hope, fear, and honest to God pain flashed from the depths of her wide expressive eyes. Whatever she was feeling, he was right there with her.

“Why not? I mean, why can’t you?”

The glimpse at that girl, that same vulnerable heart-on-her-sleeve girl, caught him off guard, and he had to look away to keep from taking her face in his hands and claiming her mouth as his.

“Hell if I know. I just know I can’t.”

Never in his life had he been this invested in the life of any other woman he’d been with. And of all of them, she was the one who actually had her shit together and truly didn’t need him. Didn’t even seem to want him. Or she didn’t seem to
want to
want him, anyway.

The song had been too much for her to handle. He saw that now and judging from the way she was looking at him—doe-eyed and held captive by something she was obviously terrified of—he was going to have to back it down a notch or she was going to bolt before he could blink.

He cleared his throat and made a pathetic attempt at shrugging. “Maybe we could call a truce. Try being friends. You know. People who spend time together, work together, without any old vendettas or bad memories getting in the way? Clean slate?”

Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw that she’d turned to face the fire and was staring intently into the flames. The pages of her stepmother’s book were turning to ash as the cover curled and wilted around them.

Sparks and glowing embers floated into the night sky. Trace watched them go, vanishing into thin air, and wished he could figure out a way to do the same thing to the pain he’d caused her.

“They weren’t all bad.” Her voice was so low he wondered if he’d imagined it. “The memories, I mean.”

Her confession nearly gutted him. It took him a minute to recover the playful demeanor he was hell-bent on maintaining. She’d had enough stress for one day.

“Well of course not. I’m awesome in the sack.” He turned and gave her his panty-dropping grin. The one she’d always been immune to.

Apparently she still was.

She rolled her eyes and reached for a marshmallow. He watched as she speared it on her stick and thrust it into the flames.

“Last I checked, I wasn’t so bad myself.”

It was his turn to lose himself staring at her as her full lips blew on her flaming glob of sugar before pulling it gently from the stick. He would’ve handed her a graham cracker or the chocolate bar he’d bought, but he was unable to move.

Emotions he’d never felt before—well, before her—threatened to strangle him then and there as she worked to build her s’more.

Damn straight she wasn’t so bad in bed. She was downright fucking amazing.

His head swam with the memory of parting and filling her, holding her in his arms while she let out those breathy whimpers that sounded better than any song he’d ever played. Or ever even heard for that matter.

His warm memories began to burn with the raging heat of jealousy, of knowing he hadn’t been the only one to have her that way. But the other guy had thrown in the towel and bailed on her. Just like everyone else.

He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It made him happy. It made him miserable. Knowing he was yet again responsible for something going wrong in her life twisted him into an incomprehensible mess of a man.

“Hey,” he began, “I know this is more than you want to hear right now, but I...” Panic had him choking on his own words. He took a deep breath.

Kylie regarded him warily once again. “What is it?”

I love you. I can’t live without you. I need you to forgive me more than I need to breathe to survive.

He couldn’t tell her any of that. Not yet. So he said the one thing he could.

“If there’s anything I can do to help with the stepmom situation, you just say the word.” The look on her face, the one that said she was touched by his offer, compelled him to continue. “And, uh, for the record, there isn’t a limit to what I would do to keep from hurting you again.” He swallowed hard and watched the pain dance across her face. “I’m not perfect—you know that better than anyone. And I will screw up. But hand to God, if I can keep from hurting you or keep anyone else from hurting you, I will move mountains and hell itself if I have to.”

Her mouth dropped open just enough that he knew he’d surprised her.

“So…I just wanted you to know that.” The obstinate fist that constantly gripped his heart in her presence loosened. Breathing slightly easier, he leaned back and began to roast his own marshmallow.

“I can’t go to Macon tonight,” she announced into the darkness without looking at him.

Her words were soft but even. Firm.

“Kylie, I know we—”

“No, Trace. You just said you wouldn’t hurt me if you could help it. So I can’t go.” Her chest rose and fell with the weight of whatever she was about to tell him. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It hurts being there, in that place where we were…you know.”

He knew he might have imagined it, but her hands appeared to be shaking. He wanted to grab them and hold them more than anything. Hold her. Reassure her. Love the ever-loving hell out of her.

“Okay, Kylie Lou. We won’t go then.” He returned his attention to the fire. Without waiting for her response, he confessed his darkest secret. “But the truth is—even if you never set foot on that property again so long as you live—you’re always there.”

S
HE WA
s dead on her feet by the time they finished with their messy marshmallow roast. But he was pretty sure her stepmother’s bullshit excuse for a book was a distant memory.

He walked her to her room wondering if he lived a normal life, if this was what a date might be like. After his suggestion of friendship and everything that had happened the past few weeks, he knew better than to expect a goodnight kiss. Didn’t keep him from wanting one. Badly.

But when he wiped the sweet, sticky remnants of dessert from her lips, a hint of a smile played on them. He smiled back because, even though he wasn’t getting a kiss tonight, he’d accomplished his goal. He wanted to make her smile, help her forget, even if it was just for a little while.

His fingers ached to remain on her skin, but they’d turned a corner tonight. Sure, they’d mostly sat in peaceful silence. But there had been no anger and no blatant hatred rolling off her in his direction. And he was desperately hoping that damn wall she kept between them was coming down slowly but surely. So he removed his finger from her soft lips and took a step back.

“You don’t have to stay. Security team is in place. I’m fine, really.” At least that’s what her mouth said.

But Trace was catching on. Her mouth said,
Go, I’m fine
. Her eyes said,
Stay, I don’t want to be alone
.

He was also smart enough to know she would hate that he’d figured that out.

Doing his best to not lay it on too thick, he let a yawn out and stretched his arms over his head. Gripping the top of the doorframe at the entrance of her room, he leaned forward.

“Eh, I’m kinda beat. Too tired to be driving anyway. The crew will make their way back in the morning without me.”

“So you’re staying then? On the bus?”

There it was, that mix of hope and fear that tended to show in her eyes when she was trying so hard not to appear vulnerable.

“That okay with you? I’m just gonna crash in my room. I’ll try not to snore too loud or have any disruptive nightmares.”

Hope and fear turned to pity. Which he hated.

He scoffed. “It was a joke. It’s not a big deal. Unless it really does keep you up. I could sleep on the—”

“Trace,” was all she said.

It was enough to shut him up. She walked toward him with a determination that would’ve made a lesser man retreat. Or worship on his knees. The sight of her hips swaying gently made his entire body stand at attention.

“Thank you,” she said, catching him so off guard he couldn’t respond right away. “For tonight. For what you said and did. For…coming back.”

She was close enough that her sweet honey-vanilla scent surrounded him. Close enough to touch. Close enough to pick up and press against the wall. To tear her clothes off and sink himself inside her.

He blinked the images away and focused on the present. Or tried to at least.

“I’ll always come back.” He hadn’t meant for the truth to slip out like that, but he wasn’t sorry that it did. He didn’t even have time to wonder if she recognized them as her own. Her reaction was immediate.

Judging from the tears that sprang to her eyes and the way her entire body jolted, those words were an unwelcome reminder.

“Well, um, goodnight,” she said quietly, turning away, dismissing him and busying herself by searching for something in her dresser.

He sighed, certain that he’d screwed up his mission not to hurt her once again. “Goodnight, Kylie Lou.”

“Y
OU’RE SERIOUSLY
telling me nothing happened?” Her best friend gaped at her in disbelief. “Like nothing as in no
bow chicka wow wow
, or nothing as in absolutely nothing? Not even a kiss or one of those damn spine-tingling, shiver-inducing, panty-combusting one-liners he’s so good at?”

“Nothing as in nothing, Lu. He tossed Darla’s book in the fire. We roasted marshmallows. We ate s’mores. We went to bed. Separately. The end.” Kylie kept her voice low as her friend did her makeup. She hoped the girl would take the cue and lower her voice as well before someone heard.

“Well, that’s…disappointing.”

Kylie snorted. “Sorry. Guess you’ll have to try and be satisfied with your own love life since I don’t actually have one. Speaking of which—”

“Nope. Not talking about it. Don’t even ask.”

Kylie leaned back out of her friend’s reach. “What the hell do you mean you’re not talking about it? I tell you everything!”

Lulu nodded. “Exactly. And I have this theory.”

“You and your theories,” Kylie grumbled under her breath.

“Yeah. And they’re usually right. This one I’m serious about.”

“The theory or the guy? ’Cause, Lu, I gotta tell you, Mike Brennen is a—”

Lulu put a blue glittery manicured hand up in front of Kylie’s mouth. “Nope. This is what you do. You overthink things, which is something I never thought I’d say about you. But ever since—”