Tears she’d fought spilled over and she pressed her face into his shoulder, hiding them. After all these months, she should have healed more, should have been coping better. The heart-wrenching grief hadn’t loosened its hold. “Yes. It’s why I’m alone.” Without her father, her world had fallen apart. Her good friend had died in a car accident. The people she had trusted left her. Mark had betrayed her. Her life as she knew it had ended.
Detective Truman stroked her hair gently and reached for a tissue on the side table. He palmed her chin and dabbed at her eyes. “You’re not alone anymore.”
Everything in her responded to his words. Her heart surged and her mind cried out with pleasure. As desperate as it was, they were words she had longed to hear. She didn’t need forever; she needed not to feel this lonely for a little while. So many reasons to keep her distance from this man and yet she reached for him, skimming her fingers down his arm to his hand. He tensed slightly but didn’t pull away. He was too handsome for his own good, said all the right things, and his confidence drew her, awakening her slumbering desire, tempting her to touch him, taste him.
She moved her hand under his. “Detective Truman?”
He looked at their joined hands. “Reilly. Just Reilly.” His voice was gruff. She affected him. It sent a secret thrill across her belly.
“Reilly.” His name rolled across her tongue. “Why are you doing this?”
He swallowed hard. “Doing what?”
She leaned closer to him. “You don’t have to take care of me.” But she loved that he was.
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
“Gut feeling.”
She moved her fingers to interlace with his, in part to test his reaction. His jaw flexed and he looked at her. His eyes were filled with emotions she couldn’t read.
A second later Reilly came to his feet, pulling his hand away, and she fell forward on the couch, catching herself on her hands. Her arm burned, slamming her back into reality.
He looked blankly away from her at some point on the wall. “We need to get moving.”
What had she been trying to do? Touching him that way had been a mistake. She was lonely and hurting and she’d made an error in judgment. His rejection stung worse than it should have. She stood, humiliation darkening her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you.”
Reilly waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t mention it again. You’re going through a rough time.”
Carey swallowed hard and blotted out the sense of longing he’d roused. She’d been going through a rough time for too long. She couldn’t explain it, not without sounding like an overemotional lunatic, so she stayed quiet and followed him to his car. Working to put herself together, she focused on getting out of the city and where she’d go and what she’d do next.
Staying with Reilly wasn’t possible, not without one or both of them getting hurt.
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