This girl was making me crazy. I felt out of my depth with her. I didn’t know why I had this insane urge to wrap her up and run off with her. It couldn’t be healthy. I had always been protective of Harlow and my mother. But other than those two, no one else was that important to me.

Until now. And this was a league all its own.

Why her? Why was she affecting me like this? I had seen hot bodies before and gorgeous smiles. It was more than her outward appearance. Beautiful women only interested me for one thing. Reese had reached something else inside of me and squeezed it tight, from the moment I ran into the room and found her sitting on the floor surrounded by broken glass.

I had actually been pissed at the mirror for hurting her. Who gets fucking mad at an object?

“Mase?” her soft voice said against my chest.

The blood in my veins warmed and sped up with the sound of my name on her lips. Or at least, it felt like it. My whole body reacted to her. “Yes,” I replied, gently wrapping a silky lock of her hair around my finger.

“It was my stepfather,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

Everything in my chest felt like it was twisting into knots. It hurt to breathe. Holy fuck, it hurt so bad. I had to force oxygen into my lungs as the reality of what she had just admitted to me settled in. Rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced crashed through me, and I wanted to murder another human being for the first time in my life. No, I wanted to torture him slowly first. Listen to him scream in agony. Then I wanted to watch him die.

“Mase?” Reese’s voice called my name again, and I inhaled sharply, putting the revenge and hate for a man I didn’t know to the side. My girl needed me now. She didn’t need me losing my shit over this. She’d trusted me with it.

“Yes, baby,” I replied.

“I hate him, too.”

Those four words just about undid me. “I’m going to wash it all away. I swear to God, I am, Reese. One day, all you will see or remember is me and what we feel like together. I swear.”

She turned her head and kissed my chest, then snuggled closer to me. “I believe you.”

Reese

It took me a few seconds to awaken fully and remember that I wasn’t alone in my apartment. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that I was alone in bed. I could feel Mase’s absence. His warmth was gone.

But he was in the other room. The smell of coffee filled the small apartment. And Mase’s voice, although he was talking quietly, drifted through the closed door.

I made quick work of brushing my teeth and hair before going into the living room to face him after last night. The fact that he was here still amazed me. He had come to stop me from going on a date with Thad. And in return, I’d freaked out on him while doing something as simple as kissing and touching.

I opened the door and stepped into the room, and my eyes went straight to the tall form of perfection standing at the window with his back to me. He was on the phone. He was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt he’d had on last night, but his duffel bag sat on the sofa. He had come prepared.

“I’d rather not come, Harlow. I like Tripp and all, but I wasn’t planning on being here this weekend, and I didn’t come down for his party. I have other things I’d rather do tonight,” he said in a frustrated tone, although he was still talking in a quiet voice.

His jaw worked as he listened to whatever his sister was saying. It seemed she really wanted him to go to a party tonight. I started to speak up and tell him he should go.

“Fine. I’ll go if Reese wants to. But if she’d rather not, we’re doing something else. End of discussion. Now, I love you, but I gotta go. I was going to try to make some breakfast before she wakes up.”

I closed my mouth and stared in surprise at his back. He wanted to take me? To a party with his crowd? And he was going to make me breakfast? Not blurting out that I loved him was hard, because after listening to this conversation, I wanted to open the window and alert all the neighbors that I was in love with this man.

He turned, and his gaze locked on mine. A slow, sexy smile touched his lips, and I was sure I might swoon right here on the spot. “I gotta go. She’s awake,” he said into the phone, and ended his call.

I stood right where I was, unable to move, with that gleam in his eyes and the warmth of that gaze slowly trailing down my body and back up again.

“You even wake up gorgeous,” he said in a gentle tone.

“Thank you,” was my silly response. I didn’t know what else to say.

“You hungry? I was going to take inventory and make us some breakfast,” he said, as he walked over to the kitchen. “I’ve already made coffee.”

“Yes, but I can make breakfast. I make really good homemade waffles.” I followed him into the small kitchen area.

He glanced back at me over his shoulder. “Homemade waffles? Sold. All I can do is eggs and toast.”

“Then you go sit over there, because both of us are not fitting into this kitchen.”

He was pouring more coffee into his cup. Then he turned and walked back out of the corner hole I had for a kitchen. I may or may not have been checking out his butt in those jeans. I had to snap my head up when he turned back to me.

A knowing grin lit up his face, and he took a few steps back in my direction and placed his cup of coffee on the bar. “I’m going to admit something that I think you should know. I’m a bit of a caveman. The idea of you cooking for me turns me on.” His voice dropped as he said the last part, then he bent his head and pressed a warm kiss to my lips.