I glance at my throbbing hand with no regrets.
She scrapes a forkful of linguine. “I know this is a big place, but I haven’t seen a piano.”
“I’ll give you a tour another time. Finish your dinner.”
She inhales the remainder of the pasta and follows it with gulps of sweet tea.
I finish mine soon after and slide the dish away. “I made a doctor’s appointment for you.”
Her fork clanks against the plate, her voice quiet. “I don’t have insurance or the money to pay for that.”
My hand flexes. I want to hurt her mother and every other person who’s never been there for her. “It’s covered.”
“I can’t—”
I slam my fist against the counter, rattling the china. “You will go to that appointment and get a full examination, for the sake of your health and for my peace of fucking mind.”
Jaw clenched, she pitches me a stubborn glare.
She can scowl all she wants. I’m not finished. “From this point forward, the words I can’t are no longer in your vocabulary.” I angle forward until all she can see is my eyes. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Oh, you’re clear.” She holds my gaze. “And abrasive and surly. You have a terrible temper.”
A playful kind of youth twinkles in her eyes, but there’s something else there, too. Her lips separate to allow for the climb in her breaths, and she’s not blinking, like she’s forcing a mask of toughness and bravery.
Deep down, she’s scared. To stand up to me? To disappoint me? To put faith in what’s happening between us?
I close the inches between us and kiss her mercilessly on the mouth. Cupping her head in both hands, I work my tongue against hers, fusing us together, licking and biting and flooding her with every last drop of fervor I feel for her. I love her strength in the face of fear, her determination despite all her roadblocks, and fuck me, I love her mouth. The way the hot, wet suction of her lips wraps around my tongue and hardens my cock.
She tips back in the frame of my hands and searches my eyes. We stare at each other, chests heaving, suspended in the energy pulsing between us.
After an endless stretch of heartbeats, she blinks. “I have the money to pay you for the textbooks…but…I can see…” She cringes at the heat rising in my face. “Now is a bad time to bring that up.”
I stack the dishes and carry them to the sink. “By tomorrow night, I want a list of your bills and all the things you need.” I throw her a hard look over my shoulder. “Things I won’t know to buy.”
She joins me at the sink, her expression pinched in frustration.
I rinse a plate and hand it to her. “I know you’re strong enough and brave enough to stand on your own. Hell, you’ve been doing it for years.” I brush my fingers over her stiff jaw. “But now you have help. I’m here to make your hardships a little less hard. You will lean on me.”
She stares at the rack in the dishwasher, sets the plate in the wrong way, studies it for a moment, then turns it. “Like this?”
I nod. The realization that she’s never loaded a dishwasher makes me appreciate a lot of things in life, putting her at the top of that list.
With a stoic expression, she helps me finish the dishes in silence. I give her the time to think, to weigh her pride against mine. When the cleanup is completed and the counters are wiped down, I turn to her.
She stands just out of arm’s reach, her small frame swallowed by the t-shirt as she stares at her bare feet. “The thing I value most doesn’t cost a dime, yet it seems to be the hardest for people to give.”
Friendship? Protection? Love? My head swims, searching for the answer. “Name it, and it’s yours.”
Her eyes find mine, and she steps forward. Another step, and her arms encircle my waist. She presses her cheek against my chest, skin-to-skin, and releases a heavy sigh.
A hug. That’s the thing she values most.
My ribs tighten as I embrace her, crushing her as close as possible without bruising her soft skin. She’s a head shorter, too short to feel her heart pounding against mine. So I catch her beneath her knees and back, swoop her up, and hoist her against my chest.
I flick the light switch with my elbow and head for the stairs.
She snuggles against me, hands snaking over my shoulders and sliding into my hair. Her entire body relaxes in my arms as she nuzzles her face against my cheek, touching, breathing, feeling me. “I should tell you to put me down, but I like this too much.”
Good thing, because I’m not letting go.
As we reach the bedroom, she murmurs against my neck. “I need to go home in the morning to get clothes and feed Schubert.”
I bite down on my smile. “Do you feed him brains?”
“What?” Her startled expression eases into a glimmering smile. “Not the dead Schubert. My cat.”
“We’ll swing by your house before school, but you don’t need clothes.”