Page 105 of By A Thread

And now I was fucking hard again.

I needed to see a doctor. This wasn’t normal.

I dragged on my sweat pants, shoved my head and arms through the t-shirt, and returned to the bed where I sprawled out and waited for her.

She came out a few minutes later, fresh-faced, hair damp. My clothes hung on her frame. The urge to pull her to me and hold her was overwhelming and pissed me off all over again.

So I picked a fight instead.

“How did you get into a financial mess bad enough that tonight was your only option?” I asked. “Are you that irresponsible with money?”

“Oh, good. I’d worried you’d turned human on me while I was in there,” she snapped. She climbed onto the mattress and sat cross-legged in the corner farthest from me.

I wanted her closer. I wanted to hold her and run my fingers through those wet curls and promise her that I’d fix everything. And I couldn’t do any of that.

“I saw your face on the roof and on that stage. You didn’t want to be there. You didn’t want to do it, but you did it anyway.”

“I had to.”

“Why?” My frustration was loud and clear.

“Labelmessed up my paycheck. It didn’t get deposited, and it couldn’t be fixed until Monday. I needed the money now.”

“What’s the money for?”

She gave me a long, stony look. “Bills.”

“What kind of bills?”

Ally said nothing for a long beat. Bored, Brownie belly-crawled over to her on the bed.

“Why does it matter to you?” she asked me finally. She stroked a hand over Brownie’s head and down his back. Long, slow strokes. I wished it was me she was touching.

“I care about you.”

“You’re so lucky I’m exhausted because I would love to tell you how absolutely stupid you’re being right now,” she said.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I insisted.

She shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“You say you care about me. You’re obviously attracted to me. And as much as you bitch and moan about me ruining your life, I think you actually like me. But not enough to want to be with me. And because of that, I can’t trust you, Dominic. I’m not going to open up and share my life story with you. You haven’t earned that access.”

I pinched my nose between my finger and thumb. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Ally.”

“I don’t understand what right thing you’re going for.”

“There are rules,” I said. My frustration was rising again.Why couldn’t she just give me what I wanted?

“I know, Dom,” she said gently. “What I don’t know is why those rules mean so much to you. Because where I sit, you don’t seem like the kind of guy who would let a piece of paper tell you how to live your life.”

“Those rules are there for your protection,” I snapped.

“I don’t need to be protected!”

Brownie lifted his head up and gave her a doofy, confused look.