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When Scotch brushes his mouth against my ear and murmurs, “My world feels right again with you in my arms,” I freeze.
I almost make a horrible EEEP sound.
When I get my chest working again, I’m in full panic. Sensing my unease, Scotch chuckles. A deep rumble in his broad chest. “That was an interesting response.”
I spin on the leather bench and grab the back of the seat with one hand. “You can’t just say things like that. I’m unprepared. I can’t reciprocate or whatever the hell they call that in English.”
He smiles that sexy, disarming smile of his and brushes a knuckle down my cheek. “Babe.”
“Scotch. Listen. I’m not that girl. I’ve got a broken L past. My parents destroyed any and all hope of me ever having a functional relationship.”
He leans toward me. And before I can pull some hidden lever and eject myself from the cab, he kisses me. Just enough to remind me that my body is fully onboard with any and all madness that has to do with Jameson Scott, M.D..
I gasp for air when he lets me loose.
Okay, when I do my part in ending the kiss too, because maybe I was in on it as well. Fifty percent.
“Look, this is serious.” I grab his arm and squeeze it hard, as if the sheer pressure of my grip will convey the depth of disturbance he’s caused me.
“I don’t know what your past is, but you need to know this about me. I’m not made for L—, you know the word. Anyway, I’m the girl that had a father that left his wife and daughter out of pure anger. Boiling with hate, bitterness, and contempt, he was a walking time-bomb. Whatever happened between my parents was a seething, ugly thing that fouled both of their lives and tainted me forever.”
Scotch simply curls his fingers with mine, tangling them up as he listens.
I sigh as I prepare to dump everything ugly out there for his good. “I was young but I knew too much. Even if I didn’t fully understand what was happening. Within a year of leaving, he lost a street fight to a monster. And… well, he paid the ultimate price.”
His steady brown gaze holds mine. “I’m sorry, Simona. That’s a terrible thing to experience.”
I shake my head. “That’s not all. My mother spiraled down into one crisis after another. Finally, one day, eleven months later, I was called from class.” I take a shaky breath. “No thirteen-year-old should be told her mother’s dead in the cold concrete hallway of school.”
But it didn’t surprise me. It seemed to fit with the way my life always was. Stark. Cold. Starved for the most basic human kindnesses.
Some part of me wants to shock Scotch. To scare him away. To show him how totally messed up I am, so I tell him the rest of the ugly truth. “I was already digging in the garbage for food by that point. Mom wasn’t really a mother anymore. And if I wanted to eat, I had to take care of it. After she died that day, living on the street wasn’t much of a stretch. So, when I walked out of the school that day, I never went back to the tiny dingy apartment where my life had been living hell. She was gone. I was gone too.”
Scotch is so much stronger than me, I wouldn’t be able to resist him pulling me onto his lap. Even if I wanted to.
He’s silent for a long time as the driver carves his way across the most romantic city in the world. When he finally speaks, his voice is like warm, golden honey soothing my jangling nerves. “So much makes sense now.”
I laugh, it sounds a little bitter. “So, the doctor has me all figured out. What makes sense now?”
“Your fierce independence.”
I bury my head in his shoulder. “It’s a defense mechanism.”
“We all have them.”
He might say that, but I have yet to see what his might be.
The cab pulls to a stop in front of a simple hotel. Scotch helps me out, offers his arm. He’s unusually quiet as we cross the lobby and ride the small lift.
When he opens the door to a suite, he says, “My room is to the right.”
“Andre’s staying here too?”
“Yes, we’ve been here for almost a month.”
“I’m sorry.”
Scotch slips the jacket from my shoulders. “You were worth the wait.”