I saw his head jerk slightly to the side at my nasty words but I was done with this conversation, so done, and I was leaving.

Therefore, I whirled and dashed to his room but by the time I grabbed my coat and purse, he was standing in the doorway.

I stomped right to within two feet of him and stopped.

“Out of my way, Creed,” I demanded. “I’m going home.”

“He suits you, not me.”

I went still and stared at his face, feeling his quiet, strangely husky words burn all over my skin like acid.

Then I lifted a hand, planted it in his chest and shoved him before I got close, tipping my head way back and glaring up at him, hissing, “Tucker Creed, for a smart guy you are so… very… stupid.”

His hand came up, fingers curling around my wrist, holding it to his chest and he whispered back, “You know it. I know it. Everyone in the county knows it.”

“I know no such thing,” I bit out.

“Bissenettes and Dixons, you two get together, it’d be the wedding of the century.”

Was he crazy?

I ripped my hand from his, stepped back, twisted my torso and threw my coat and purse on his bed before twisting back and semi-shouting, “You’ve gone totally insane!”

“Winona Creed’s son with anyone, not the wedding of f**kin’ anything.”

He had. He’d gone totally insane.

“You’re crazy,” I snapped.

“Am I wrong?” he asked.

I put my hands on my h*ps and returned sharply, “No, you aren’t wrong. Absolutely not. If a Bissenette married a Dixon in this county, it would be the wedding of the century.”

I watched his jaw get hard and it hurt to see pain slash through his features but I kept talking.

“But it’ll have to be some other Bissenette, Creed. Not me. I belong to you. You belong to me. If I married Jason, it might be the wedding of the century but it would go against all that was meant to be. Even back then when I was dating him, I hoped, heck, I prayed no girl would catch your eye before I got old enough to make you see me and how much I wanted you for mine and the first time you kissed me I thought finally, finally everything was as it was meant to be.” I threw up my hands. “The earth might stop rotating around the sun if I left you or you left me and I did something crazy and got together with Jason. So if I felt like that then, and, head’s up, Creed, I felt like that a year ago and two years ago and ten years ago, why would I ever give something that important to a guy like Jason Dixon when, from the minute I understood it was mine to give, I knew it was you I wanted to have it?”

“It’s mine to have?” he whispered.

Oh my God!

Why wasn’t he listening to me?

I planted my hands on my h*ps again and felt my brows draw together. “Yes, it always was and always will be… until you take it, of course. Which, by the way, if it was up,” I leaned in, “to me,” I pointed behind me to the bed, “you could take it right now.” I leaned back and threw my arms out to the sides. “But nooooo, you say we wait until it’s legal. So that’s on you,” I pointed at him, “not me.”

“Baby, don’t tempt me like that.” Creed was still whispering, his eyes intense, burning through me. It didn’t feel like acid this time but a whole lot different.

But I was sick of waiting. I was sick of necking and feeling his hands over my clothes and not on me. Feeling his heat and his hard muscle through his clothes and him not allowing me to dip in, get skin and not feeling Creed. Feeling all he made me feel, sitting at his kitchenette eating his spaghetti or on his couch watching TV and just doing that, knowing I had most of what I wanted, what I needed, what I’d longed for what seemed like all my life but wanting everything.

I was sick of it. Sick to death of waiting.

“Warning, Creed, from here until my eighteenth birthday there’s going to be a lot of tempting,” I shot back. His body moved like he was going to take a step toward me but he halted, his big frame rocking and I watched his hands ball into fists.

“It burns,” he said low and the way he did, I held my breath. “Every time. Every time I walk you to your car and watch you drive away from me, it burns.”

I let out my breath in a whoosh and whispered, “Creed.”

“It burns, knowing you’re goin’ back to a Daddy who doesn’t give a shit. Goin’ back to your stepmom who’s a worse drunk than the woman sleepin’ across this house, she’s just better at hiding it. Goin’ back to listenin’ to him take his hands to her, still, f**kin’ still.”

He leaned forward on the last word then sucked in breath before he leaned back and went on.

“It burns that you gotta listen to them talk the way they do, cuttin’ each other to the quick, layin’ into each other until they bleed, daily. It burns I can’t protect you from that. I can’t protect you when I see you in town in a dress he wants you to wear, a dress that’s not my Sylvie. It burns so deep, the need to take you away, put you in my truck, deliver you from that shit and I can’t. All I got… all I got, Sylvie, is livin’ for the nights you’ll come to me. The nights I can make sure you got a decent meal in your belly because that bitch sure isn’t gonna f**kin’ feed you and your Daddy doesn’t care. The nights I can show you someone, one single person on this whole goddamned earth loves you, lives for you. Your Momma married that man, gave up on you, moved to California and now you get a fifty dollar check every birthday and Christmas and maybe a phone call, if you’re lucky. You got no one, like me. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been. So I live for the nights when I have you because I’m all you got, and baby, you’re all I got too. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it always will be.”

“You protect me,” I told him softly.

“Not enough,” he retorted harshly.

“Creed –”

“So, baby, don’t,” he talked over me. “Don’t do anything to f**k this up. We got seven months. Seven months to wait it out then we’ll be free. Free of your Daddy. Free of my Ma. Free of this hellhole. Free to just be.”

“Okay,” I whispered instantly.

We stood, me in Creed’s room, Creed in the doorway, staring at each other.