Monster Among the Roses

Isobel didn’t return to the library for the rest of the day. At first, I was okay with her absence. I mean, hell, I needed a moment to regroup, too.

I’d kissed her. Things had changed. We’d probably never get back to the place we used to be. And this new direction could either lead somewhere very good, or very bad. So, yeah, it was scary. I got that. I understood her need for a moment to herself.

Maybe even an hour or two to her herself.

But when four o’clock rolled around, it was time for me to leave, and she’d never reappeared. I had tried to place as many of her books on the shelves as possible, hoping I didn’t put something somewhere she didn’t want it to go, but it just felt all wrong doing it by myself. We’d started working on this together; we should’ve finished together.

The worst of it came the next morning at seven, when she didn’t show up at the lake to run. I stood on the running trail, our running trail, hands on my hips as I turned a slow circle and glowered at the amazing sunrise.

Dammit, she’d even ruined dawn for me. I couldn’t appreciate the pinks, and purples, and oranges in the sky without her.

Not about to let her retreat from me again, not the way she had the first two weeks I’d been here, I stormed toward the house.

I didn’t need to go inside to find her, though. As I approached the back, I saw a light on in the rose garden. So I veered that way. Even as I approached the entrance, I could see her inside, crouched among bushes as she gave her flowers a hundred and ten percent of the attention they needed.

Opening the door, I stalked inside.

“Morning,” I said, trying to conceal my anger so she wouldn’t know how truly furious I was. I hoped I sounded pleasant enough.

Her head jerked up, blue eyes blinking. Then she went back to work. “Morning.”

I watched her pluck a weed and then patiently fill the hole its absence had created with some fresh soil. Folding my arms over my chest, I chewed on the inside of my lip, silently willing her to look at me again. She didn’t.

After drawing in a deep, calming breath, I said, “Missed you on the trail this morning.”

She shrugged. The damn woman merely shrugged. “I didn’t feel like running.”

Okay. Fair enough. There were plenty of mornings I could’ve slept in and would’ve stayed in bed another hour. But I hadn’t, because I knew she’d be there waiting on me, counting on me to run with her, just as I’d counted on her to be there this morning.

And just like that, my anger snapped, fresh and new.

“Can we just talk about it?” I demanded, my tone no longer polite.

At last, Isobel glanced up. “Talk about what?”

I sent her a dry stare, not impressed by the act of ignorance.

“The kiss,” I bit out, watching her flinch at the word.

But she went back to work, using the back of a small spade to press the new earth into the old. “What about it?”

Well, at least she was allowing me to say what I wanted to say, which was exactly what I planned to do, anyway. “Everything feels awkward and stiff now. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it is. You’ve avoided me ever since it happened. And now, you won’t even look me in the eye.”

She jerked her head up, looking me straight in the eye, even though her eyebrows pulled together with annoyance.

I knelt beside her, softening. “Just tell me if you’re okay or not.”

“I’m fine.” She trilled out a fake laugh and then wrinkled her brow as if she couldn’t believe I was even worried.

I lifted my eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

Another fake laugh. “Yes, I’m fine, Shaw. Whatever you’re imagining, it must really all be in your head, because nothing is wrong.”

My shoulders fell, disappointed she wasn’t going to talk about it. I refused to give up, though. So I said, “Bullshit.”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I said bullshit. If nothing is wrong, then why do I feel so shitty? Why do I feel as if I’ve made some horrible, awful, terrible mistake? You would tell me if I had, right?”

“Of course, but you didn’t—”

“Yes, I did. Something is wrong, and it’s my fault. I don’t know how I know it, but I know it, and I can’t figure out what it is. So you just need to buck up and tell me, so I’ll—”

“Oh my God, you stopped, okay? You stopped.”

At first, I thought she was telling me to stop, as in to shut up because my rant was driving her bonkers. But then I realized she was speaking in the past tense.

I blinked, thrown all off track.

“What?”

She flushed a deep purplish red with embarrassment. “Nothing,” she was quick to say, turning away.

But I caught her shoulder and urged her back around. “No. You said I stopped. I stopped what?”

Closing her eyes, she bowed her head. “Nothing,” she insisted. “It’s stupid and silly, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Isobel,” I murmured in quiet reprimand, leaning toward her until our brows were nearly touching. “I don’t care if it’s the wackiest thing in the world, I want to know. I need to know.”

Finally, she looked up, lifting her face to show me the fear and uncertainty in her blue eyes. “You stopped kissing me,” she said in a low voice that shook with nerves. “You stopped and pulled away and then apologized like…like you regretted it.”

My lips parted as shock punched all the air from my lungs. “No,” I gasped. “Oh, God, no. Isobel…Jesus, no, that’s not why I apologized. I didn’t regret kissing you. I don’t regret it even now.”

Her eyes looked so blue, and large, and confused. “Then why did you say sorry?”

“Be-because I was worried I had offended you.”

She shook her head, frowning. “Huh?”

I laughed. But when her brow puckered as if she thought I was laughing at her, I sobered. Tenderness and even relief filled me.

“Oh, you crazy girl,” I murmured, cupping her face in my hands, one palm settling against smooth warm skin, the other cradling ragged, torn scar tissue. “If only you could look into my head right now and see how much I think about you, see what I think about you, you would never doubt my willingness to kiss you ever again. You absolutely own everything about me. I would not regret kissing you at any time, anywhere, in any sense. I would kiss you in the morning or at night, or in the dark or full daylight.”

With a laugh, she buried her face in the front of my shirt. “You’re starting to sound like Dr. Seuss.”

Since it’d made her smile, I ran with it, murmuring in her ear. “I would kiss you in a box with a fox or on a house with a mouse. I would kiss you in a—”

She cut me off by lifting her face and smashing her mouth to mine. Then she grabbed two fistfuls of my hair, anchoring me to her. My surprised grunt was muffled against her lips, vibrating between us. Then her tongue touched mine, and I was gone. Done. Lost in passion.

She smelled so good, felt so soft, tasted like fruit—something citrusy—and made the most fetching whimper to ever touch my ears. I swear it reached right down into my pants and bitch slapped my dick awake. I was suddenly hard and throbbing, focused on nothing but her. She gasped my name and this primal urge to feast on her filled my senses.

I broke my mouth from hers, working my way down her neck. I couldn’t even tell you if I was on the scarred side of her throat or not, I just knew she felt amazing against me, still clutching my hair and tipping her head back to allow me better access. I wanted all of her right then. My attention went lower, and she made a hiccupping sound of surprise when my lips touched the swell of her breasts through her shirt.

Blinking myself somewhat back to reality, I looked up into her face. “This okay?” I asked.

She nodded, breathing heavily. “Yes. Of course, I just…we’re so out in the open. I feel exposed.”

I looked around, realizing where we were. Immediately, I whipped my hands off her. “Oh, shit. We’re in the…I’m at work. I’m making out with someone on the job.” Not just someone, my boss’s daughter.

Henry was going to kill me and then fire me for this if he ever found out about it. Probably in that order.

Isobel merely grinned. God, why did she have to look so beautiful when she smiled like that?

“You don’t technically start work until eight, and it’s barely seven thirty now.”

I stared at her, listening to her words, but for some reason, they didn’t make me feel better.

“I need to tell you something,” I blurted, not even planning to say that, but my mouth…the stupid fucking thing had a mind of its own. “And I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

God…damn. Why couldn’t I just keep my trap shut?

Isobel sank away from me, her eyes going wary and untrusting. I reached for her without thinking but she evaded my touch.

It gutted me. I hadn’t even confessed yet, and she was already withdrawing.

Pretty sure I was about to fuck myself over majorly, but unable to lie to her in any way, not even a lie of omission, because my guilt would drive me insane, I pulled my knees up toward my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I probably looked like a lost little child about to confess my deepest fear, but I sort of felt like one too.

“What?” she demanded. “Just say it.”

Closing my eyes, I admitted, “I was brought here because of you.”