He chuckled softly. “Next time I want to see it pre-brushed.”

Next time? There would be a next time? I didn’t want to get too excited. He could mean the next time he stays over and watches a movie and puts me to bed.

“I have a gig tonight about an hour away. What time do you get off work?” he asked as we stood there, my coffee forgotten in my hand. Krit’s blue eyes could make you forget your name when they were focused on you.

“Uh, four,” I replied in a little bit of a daze from his intensity. He was never this close and intense before yesterday.

“I’ll pick you up at six. I want you to go with me.”

As if any female with a beating heart could tell him no. I simply nodded.

He grinned, and his dimples came out. I reached up and touched one before I could stop myself.

His grin slowly faded as his eyes flickered with the heat I remembered from last night. “What you doing, love?”

“I like your dimples,” I replied honestly.

He reached for the coffee he had given me and I let him have it. He set it down on the counter beside him then picked me up and set me on the other counter, leaving him standing snuggly between my legs.

I wasn’t sure what he had planned on doing until he cupped my face with both of his hands and held it as if I were breakable. His eyes locked on mine then dropped to my lips. “I was gonna be good and not kiss you this morning. But I don’t think I can do that.”

I didn’t want him to be good. “Okay,” I said, almost afraid to talk. I didn’t want him to change his mind.

He moved in closer, and then his mouth was on mine and his tongue was teasing my bottom lip. I opened for him and moaned in pleasure as he slid inside. Just like before, I had to grab ahold of him for fear of losing myself somewhere. My head felt light and my heart pounded so hard, I knew he had to hear it.

My body started tingling again, and I needed to squeeze my legs together, but he was standing between them. His hands drifted to my waist, and I wanted to beg him to touch me again. Moving my body closer to him, I hoped to get a brush of his chest.

But before I could feel him, he was gone.

I opened my eyes and he was standing back just a little bit, taking quick short breaths. His eyes were still on me, and I had to bit my tongue to keep from begging him to come back.

“That,” he said, and tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I have to get control of that.”

I disagreed. I thought he needed to have less control of that. I had thought kissing Linc had been fun and had felt warm and nice. Well, kissing Krit made my body go into a wild frenzy of feelings that made me lose my mind. It was explosive.

I sat there and watched as he got his breathing evened out. Then he finally looked at me again. The smirk on his face made a giggle bubble up, and I covered my mouth to keep him from hearing it. But he heard it anyway.

“You think this is funny?” he asked, taking a step toward me. The sexy look on his face excited me.

I nodded and watched him as he battled with himself about getting closer to me.

“What if I yank that T-shirt off your body and put my hands back on those pretty titties? Hmmm? Would that be funny?” The playful look in his eyes was meant to tease me, but the way he described it made my body feel flush all over.

“No, it wouldn’t be funny at all,” I replied a little breathlessly.

“It wouldn’t?” he asked, stopping just before he was between my legs again.

I shook my head.

“Then what would it be, little dancer?”

“Wonderful,” I replied honestly, and his eyes went wide before he cursed and backed up.

“Shit, love,” he said, walking over to grip the counter where my coffee had been left. “You’re gonna drive me mad.”

I didn’t want to drive him mad. I just wanted him to touch me again. I had woken up thinking I could never let it happen again, yet here I was ready to throw myself at him. Facing the truth was hard. I could say things in my head all day long. But if Krit wanted to touch me, I wasn’t sure I could say no to that.

I felt like someone had doused me with cold water. What did that make me? I was willing to let him touch me and kiss me, and then what? Go touch and kiss someone else? Or . . . or . . . sleep with them? I pushed myself off the counter and decided to leave my coffee in the kitchen. It was too close to him, and suddenly I needed some distance.

Krit thought I was gonna drive him mad. Well, he was making me crazy.

He looked worried when his eyes met mine again. “Where you going?” he asked.

“I need to get ready. I have class in forty-five minutes,” I explained.

He nodded and picked up my coffee. “Take this,” he said.

I took it from him.

“I’ll see you at six,” he said before making his way to the door.

When he reached it, I couldn’t keep my mouth from blurting out the question that was burning a hole through me.

“What are we doing, Krit?” Because this didn’t feel like friends. At least not to me.

He paused and gripped the door handle tightly. Then he glanced back at me. “Let’s not label it. Let’s just go with it,” he said, then jerked the door open and left.

I took a drink of my coffee, then set it back down. My stomach felt sick, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that now. I wouldn’t push him for anything. That would only push him away. I would go tonight and see how things worked with us while he had all those females throwing themselves at him. If he acts like I’m just a friend and does things with them backstage or flirts, I’ll know. I will have my answer.

Krit will just be my friend. Nothing more. No matter how much I wanted more with him, I couldn’t allow myself to feel too much. He already had so much of me. And if I let my emotions get in the way and hope for more, then I could ruin what we have now, which is friendship.

KRIT

My plan for going back to bed had failed. Blythe’s question was hammering away over and over in my head. She’d asked for something. It hadn’t been the way most women did it, but she’d done it nonetheless. She had wanted me to make promises.

Terrified of saying something I would regret, I had gotten out of there as fast as I could. If it had been any other female, I would have laughed and told her nothing. We’re doing nothing. But Blythe—I couldn’t be flip with her. She’d been honestly asking me for an answer. I hadn’t given her shit.

Which made me feel like shit. She deserved more than this.

“You get any sleep?” Green asked as he walked into the living room in a pair of boxers and his hair sticking up all over the place.

“Yeah, some.”

Green squinted against the sun coming in through the blinds I had opened. “You must not have come up with an answer you like,” he said, then yawned. “ ’Cause you look like you’ve been punched in the stomach. Ain’t no man who has had sexy little Blythe in their arms should look like that.”

Green was an even better choice for Blythe. I hated to admit it, but it was true. He was going to be a lawyer. He wasn’t terrified of commitment, and he didn’t screw around as much as me. He’d actually done a relationship before. One that worked. Not one he’d f**ked up.

Banging on the door jerked me out of my thoughts.

“What the hell?” Green growled as he stalked to the door.

His angry snarl immediately evaporated as my sister pushed him aside. “Go put on clothes,” Trisha ordered him, then swung her gaze to me. Shit. She was pissed.

“You,” she said, pointing a finger at me like I was five f**king years old, “had better tell me you fixed that mess from last night.”

“Not your business, Sis,” I replied. She didn’t have her scary-as-hell husband there to stare me down and dare me to be a smart-mouth.

“Maybe it’s not. But I’m making it my business because I love you,” she snapped.

“How do you figure that you barging into my place and yelling at me means you love me?”

She glared at me and shook her head. “Sometimes I want to slap your face and knock some sense into you.”

I would threaten her in return, but we both knew I wouldn’t lay a hand on her. I loved her bossy ass too much. “What do you want? To know I took Blythe home and apologized? Well, I did. I brought her home. We talked, and I told her I was sorry even if her stubborn ass thinks it was her fault, which I can’t for the f**king life of me figure out why she is convinced of that. She took up for me, Trisha. She f**king took up for me. Who the hell does that? What is wrong with her?” I could see by the look in my sister’s eyes that she saw too much. So I shut up. I was talking more than I should.

Trisha let out a deep sigh and then laughed. “It happened,” she said as tears started filling her eyes. “I didn’t think it would. I knew it wasn’t Jess. I love that girl, but I knew it wasn’t Jess. I even told Jess that one day the right girl would come along and you’d know. She’d rock your world. That she would heal you. Fix what they did to us.” A tear slid down her face, and she sniffed.

“We deserve to be loved, Krit. I got that a lot younger than you did when Rock came into my life. He showed me unconditional love, and he healed me before I was jaded and hard. But you”—she covered her mouth as a sob escaped—“you didn’t. I left with Rock to get away from it all, and there was no one to save you. No one to show you that you were worthy of love. I was too young to know what you needed. I failed you, and you got jaded. You built walls. You learned to use all those good looks to charm girls out of their panties and good sense, but it meant nothing to you. They weren’t filling your void.” She stopped and wiped her face.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to accept this. She was wrong. This was wrong. My past and what I was were too twisted for anyone to fix. I didn’t want to be fixed.

“She fills your void,” Trisha said when I didn’t say anything. “Don’t lose this. Fight for it.”

“I’ll only hurt her,” I said because it was true. “And I’d rather die than hurt her.”

“Oh, Krit. She sees it. Why can’t you?”

I didn’t want to hear this anymore. My head was already a mess.

“She sees what?” I asked.

“She sees where she belongs.”

I shook my head. Only my sister would think that I was worthy of Blythe. Anyone else who knew me knew that wasn’t true. “I can’t.”

Trisha looked like I had kicked her puppy. We stood there in silence for several minutes. I expected her to fight me more, but she had given up already.

Green cleared his throat, and I turned to see him standing there with clothes on and his arms crossed over his chest. “Well, I sure hope that preacher’s son is worthy of her then, because if you don’t snatch her up, he’s waiting in line. If it’s up to her, you’re the winner, but if you bow out, then Linc has an easy in.”

Once I had thought I understood jealousy. I had seen the girl I was sure I loved in the arms of another man. One she wanted. One who she deserved. But that hadn’t been jealousy. It had been loss. Jess had been a lot like me. Hell, Jess may have been just like me. When life had felt lonely, I knew Jess was there.

This burning possessive fury that was pumping in my veins at the thought of Linc touching Blythe or seeing her orgasm or kissing her lips was all consuming. I’d never felt this before.

“Krit, meet jealousy. It’s a bitter bitch,” Green said with an amused grin.

Chapter Fourteen

BLYTHE

Pastor Keenan had just stepped out to go to lunch with his wife, when a white paper bag was placed in front of me. I had been so focused on typing up the letters that Pastor Keenan had left for me that I didn’t hear Linc come in.