It was Boone.
“I liked those guys,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t have given them chunks of my life if I didn’t. And in the end, they treated me like trash.”
His fingers still around mine squeezed.
“My own father stood me up for the Kiwanis club father-daughter dance.”
His face softened.
Man.
Seriously.
That face?
I was totally at my end.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Or whatever club it was, I don’t even know because I didn’t really know my father because he wasn’t around often enough to get to know and that was his choice.”
“Ryn.”
“Bad Dom thought he could do whatever he wanted to me.”
“Ryn.”
“My brother’s an alcoholic. I lost him years ago. He let his wife go, his kids. He let me go, Boone. He didn’t just slip away. He let us go.”
“Christ, baby,” he whispered.
“I can’t with you,” I whispered back. “I just can’t with you. Because you’re beautiful.”
He stilled.
“You’re so beautiful, sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe my eyes.”
Closing his own eyes, he turned his head to the side, lifting my hand and pressing it to his mouth so I could feel his lips against my palm.
Really he did not get that I could take no more.
And he needed to get it.
“I need to be wanted,” I told him. “I need to be loved. I need to be won. You have another woman. I’m already second runner-up. A man like you…with a man like you, I can’t, Boone. I can’t have and not have a man like you. It would tear me apart. I can’t have and maybe win and then maybe lose a man like you. That would destroy me. So I just can’t.”
His fingers closed around mine tight and he put my hand to the base of his throat, turning back to face me, and God.
I could live forever in the green of his eyes.
But I couldn’t.
Because I wouldn’t.
If I started this with him, he wouldn’t even be mine.
But I simply couldn’t start, because I wouldn’t be able to take the end.
I was winding up to the finish, which I hoped would lead to him leaving so I could shave my head or shove needles under my fingernails or something infinitely more enjoyable than getting it through Boone’s handsome but thick head that we were not gonna happen.
So I said, “I’m good with what I’ve got. I’d rather have nothing than take a risk at losing everything.”
“All right, Kathryn.”
And there you go.
He was just giving up.
And I got it.
I wasn’t worth it.
Dad had taught me that a long time ago.
And since Dad, the hits kept coming.
So it was just going to be me.
The stripper in the shitty apartment with a rotting house she never had time to fix up.
But I was going to find the time.
I was going to make something of myself.
Just for me.
“Baby?”
I stopped feeling sorry for myself and focused on Boone.
Not five minutes before, I’d made note not to lose focus on Boone.
And there I was doing it again.
I should not have forgotten.
His mouth came down on mine.
I thought maybe it was some weird, kinda-friends, kinda-not, should-be-lovers, but-weren’t, never-gonna-happen good-bye kiss.
I realized it was not when his tongue came out and he traced the crease of my lips with the tip.
They opened.
Really, there was no way I could have kept them closed.
Just a taste.
I’d give myself just a taste.
A taste of Boone.
Even if that tasted like never.
He slid his tongue inside, and he didn’t taste like never.
He tasted rich and decadent and heady and hot and male.
And he kissed like Boone.
Man and alpha and strength and protector and Dom.
Without a fight, without even a thought, I submitted to his tongue and his mouth and his kiss and him.
I was holding on to him, yielding to the plunder, my legs trembling, my breasts swelling, my nipples tingling, my sex drenching, when he lifted his mouth from mine.
With an eyeful of nothing but green, I heard him say, “Lock up after me, sweetheart. Get some sleep. I’ll catch you later.”
And with that, he let me go, left me swaying in my living room.…
And he was gone.Chapter FourOne of a KindRynConsidering it took forever to settle down, I had no idea how long I’d been asleep before my phone rang.
What I knew when I opened my eyes and saw my bedside alarm was that it was ten o’clock (so my guess, I’d had maybe two hours of sleep).
I looked to the lit screen of my phone and it said BRIAN.
I was not in the mood for my brother.
But listen up.
This was the thing about people who had people they loved who had an addiction to alcohol.
There were fear factors that dogged your every thought.
Mine, around Brian, included him being out of it when he had the kids and they inadvertently got into trouble, or hurt, having to look after themselves while their dad was unable to do so.