Page 82 of Love… It's Wild
She heads outside, followed by Jesse, who looks at me with an apologetic and downtrodden look.
The door closes behind them, and Rob walks up to it, slamming the main door closed too. It’s just us in the vacant house with silence filling the air, like a screaming inferno that’s about to blow.
Rob glares down at me.
His typical visage is contorted with a storm of emotion, transforming his attractive features into a portrait of anger. My racing heart drops to my stomach, and I have a wave of butterflies in anticipation of what he’s about to say.
“Why did my son send you a pin at one o’clock in the morning from the slums of Castleton?”
I gasp at his question. I was bracing for something horrible. An injury or a death. Thoughts of Melissa and the baby in trouble crossed my mind. I wasn’t prepared for the urgency to be about Jesse.
“You’re not asking a question. You’re insinuating.”
His usual warm eyes—which, hours ago, sparkled with allure—are now narrowed and ablaze with intensity. The smooth lines of his face are drawn taut, accentuating a furrowed brow and tightened jawline.
“Goddamn it, Tara. Just answer the question.”
“He needed me to know that location.”
“Why?”
He steps toward me, feet heavy, making the wood creak. I press my lips into a long, thin line. After the week we’ve shared—heck, the month we’ve lived—I’d have thought he’d at least talk to me like an adult, be rational, knowing I would never do anything to harm his kids. I can understand why he’s upset and, more so, worried as a parent.
His accusatory tone and condemnation, instead of him first learning the facts, are crippling.
“Damn it, Tara, stop lying to me and tell me the fucking truth!”
“Stop yelling and just talk to me about what you figured out instead of making me grovel in the form of a story you already know the ending to.”
“Why does life always have to be a game with you?”
“It’s no more of a game than you’re playing with your vague, shouty texts, ushering me back here like I’m one of your kids and not a woman you just fucked yesterday in a dirty shed.”
The words pain me as they come out. The moment we shared yesterday didn’t feel dirty at the time. Now, it feels downright filthy and in the worst way.
His steps draw closer. I can practically feel the testosterone on his skin with how wild his body is raging.
“I’ll ask again, why did my son drop you a pin after calling you on Friday night?”
His tone is so condescending that I go on the defensive. “How do you know he called me?”
“I went through his phone.”
“Your trust issues know no bounds.”
“I’m his father.”
“Did he hand you his phone to go through, or did you just pick it up because you have serious issues?”
“I pay the bill; therefore, it’s my phone. If I want to look through it, I will.”
“Great. You looked and saw he called at one o’clock in the morning and then sent me a pin. You’re a real detective, Rob. Congratulations.”
I storm past him and head into the kitchen, stopping at the far end of the island and turning around to face him as he takes his stance on the opposite end. The eight feet of granite is a large barrier between us, yet the way he’s looking at me with fierce disappointment is so powerful that he might as well be standing right next to me.
“I should have known you’d keep secrets. I told you this was my concern on that first day in the game room. This was a bad idea. You knew what my kid was up to last weekend, and you hid it from me. Just like you hid what he did at driver’s ed.”
I blink up at him with a slack jaw, my hands gripping the cold stone of the granite to ground the adrenaline coursing through me. “How do you know about that?”