I handed her a glass and Tenley took a tentative sip. Her nose scrunched up in disgust.

“You don’t like it?” I asked, holding back a grin.

“It’s fine.” She took another sip, but her lips puckered as she swallowed.

“Don’t be a martyr. I’d rather you not force it down to be polite.”

“Sorry.” She passed me the drink, and I poured the contents into my glass.

“It’s an acquired taste. I’ll get you something else.” I stood up. “And I want to take care of those scratches.”

“Okay.”

She was so timid sitting there on my couch, curled up in a little ball, all the fire stolen out of her. I wanted the old Tenley back, the one who was frisky and snide. I poured her a glass of red and left her with TK sprawled over her lap.

I retrieved the first-aid kit from my bathroom, then wetted a facecloth with scalding water and wrung it out. By the time I got back to the living room, it would be cool enough to wipe her scratches.

“Let’s check the damage.” I sat beside her, getting in close so I could have a good look at what was done to her face.

“It doesn’t feel bad,” Tenley said softly, setting her wine on the coffee table.

The sleeve of her hoodie shifted with the movement, exposing part of her forearm. There were marks there, too. I took her hand and pushed the sleeve back. She flinched, even with the gentle contact. The bruises were old, faded to greenish yellow, wrapping all the way around her wrist. Like a manacle.

“Where did these come from?”

“They’re nothing.” She kept her eyes down as she pulled her sleeve over her wrist.

“Don’t bullshit me.”

She recoiled, and when she looked up, I could see her trepidation. She swallowed and clasped her hands. “Trey got a little aggressive.”

“Aggressive how?” My imagination threw out all sorts of scenarios, and all of them made me want to run him over with my car. Repeatedly.

“He grabbed my wrist harder than he should have. It wasn’t intentional, and I bruise easily.”

“Are you making excuses for that cocksucker?” I asked, incredulous.

“No. You asked what happened, and I’m telling you.”

She was still too timid. I didn’t like it, and her explanation had a lot of holes. “Did he leave any more marks?”

She shook her head. “Just the ones on my wrist. Do you want to look at my cheek now?”

I let it go. For now. While I inspected the scratches, she sat perfectly still, the model patient. It reminded of when I put that little cupcake tattoo on her, an inch to the left of her kitty.

I tilted her chin up and angled her head. She shifted closer, and her shin pressed against the outside of my thigh. Her hand came to rest on my knee. I jerked at the contact, and she pulled away. I wanted to reach over and put her hand back, but didn’t.

“Sienna has sharp nails,” I said. She’d raked them over my skin more than once.

In a couple of places, blood had welled and dried. The paranoid side of me wanted a doctor to check for tetanus and worse, but no bodily fluids had been passed—so Tenley was probably safe.

I hated that my past was the cause of this; Tenley had already dealt with enough. We both had. This wasn’t how I’d envisioned her return. I ran my fingers gently along her cheek, and she jumped.

“Does that hurt?” I asked, worried.

“No.” It came out a little breathless.

I dabbed at the scratches with the facecloth, wiping the blood away. Then I sprayed them with disinfectant and used a Q-tip to apply antibiotic ointment.

When I was done, Tenley shifted to the side, hissing at the movement.

“You need to get your hip checked out—it’s a mess.”

“It’s just achy.”

“Don’t lie to me. It pisses me the fuck off.”

She shied away, which was understandable. I was irritated and taking it out on her. So much for sidelining the anger.

I slid my arms around her, pulling her against me. Her back hit my chest and I dropped my forehead on her shoulder. “You don’t have to front if you’re in pain. It doesn’t help either of us. Just let me take care of you.”

The stiffness in her body eased, and I closed my eyes as her fingers drifted along the back of my hand to my forearm. God, I missed the way it felt to be close to her; to touch her, to be touched by her. Up, up, up her hand went; over my biceps, my shoulder, my neck, until it reached my hair, sliding through the strands. I lifted my head, my nose skimming her collarbone. I barely resisted the urge to follow with my mouth. We had too much to talk about to go there yet.

She turned into me. “I missed you.”

Her palm rested against my cheek and she urged my head up higher. Her mouth was right there.

She was the one who leaned in.

She was the one who drew me closer.

Her lips pressed against mine. She tasted just as I remembered . . . but it wasn’t the same.

7

TENLEY

What I was doing to Hayden wasn’t fair. I owed him a conversation in which I allowed him his anger. One where I accepted responsibility for leaving without an explanation. But it had been weeks since I’d felt anything good at all. His arms around me gave me the first true grounding since my return to Arden Hills.

So I kissed him. With a noise somewhere between despondency and acute need he dragged me closer, crushing me against him. TK’s little claws dug into my thighs as she jumped off my lap; she mewed at being displaced onto the floor. The ache in my hip flared as I moved to achieve more bodily contact, but I ignored it.

I might have started the kiss, but Hayden took control of it. I quickly found myself laid out on the couch, Hayden hovering over me, one leg working its way between mine. His mouth was hard, those steel rings biting into my lip. One hand went to my hair, gripping it so he could control the angle.

I needed the connection, physical and otherwise. The glorious weight of his body settled over me; his erection pressed against my hip and I moaned. With one hand firmly on the back of his neck to keep him close, the other traveled down to the dip in his spine.

I slid my palm beneath the waistband of his jeans and met bare skin. No boxers barred the contact. I dug my fingernails in the soft skin over hard muscle and pushed down. Familiar warmth rushed through my limbs and funneled straight between my thighs. He tensed and I held on tighter, terrified of what was coming. I was desperate for him, and he was going to stop this. I could tell in the way he slowed the kiss.

“Fuck.” Hayden scrambled away from me. “We can’t be doing that.”

“It’s okay.” I sat up and reached out for him.

Hayden shot off the couch and grabbed his scotch. “No, it’s not okay. We have shit we need to work out, and that kind of business isn’t going to help a damn thing.”

He was right, of course. Not that I would say it outright.

“I know you’re angry with me.” I touched my lips. They were still wet.

“Angry? You have no idea what the past three weeks have been like for me.” He headed for the kitchen, putting distance between us.

“Yes, I do.” At least I could imagine.

We’d been in a similar situation before, I realized. After the engagement party at Lisa and Jamie’s, when I found him in the bathroom with Sienna and that other woman. One of us putting up walls for protection; the other looking for a way in. This time I was the one seeking forgiveness, while Hayden donned his armor.

His hand came down on the counter with a heavy thud. “No. You don’t. You left me—not the other way around. So don’t tell me you know, because you don’t. It fucking ruined me.”

“Do you think it didn’t hurt to leave?”

“Oh, yeah, it must have torn you right up. So much that you didn’t even bother to call. Not me, anyway. Not once.”

This was what I had been expecting; the anger, the hurt. “I couldn’t call you.”