Page 102 of Caught Up

Too good. She was too good. I couldn’t believe she was even talking to me after the way I’d yelled at her, after the things I’d said.

I took a deep breath. “That’s not the worst part.”

“What else did he do?”

“Not him.Mydad.”

Her expression turned wary. “Do I even want to know?”

“No more lies,” I said. “Not even by omission.”

She nodded. “Tell me, then.”

“My dad threatened you, too.”

“What’d he say?”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t said so much as implied that it was good things ended the way they did before youreallygot hurt.”

“Because he would be the one to hurt me?”

“That’s the way I took it.”

She blew out a breath. “What a pair of fathers we have.”

I snorted. “At least yours is out of the picture.”

Her fingers dug into the back of my shirt. “When do you plan on telling Senior about going legit?”

“At our next family dinner.”

She bit her lower lip, eyeing me. “Can I come?”

Holy shit, was she serious?

Her smile was a small,evilthing. “I want to see the look on his face when you tell him to go fuck himself.”

I groaned and rolled her onto her back, trying desperately not to get my hopes up. “Does this mean that you forgive me?”

“Not for everything,” she said. “Not yet.”

“That’s fair.” This was more than I’d hoped for on my way over here. I’d expected her to take one look at me and call the cops.

“I do forgive you for the other day, though,” she said, wincing. “Especially since I opened that conversation by tasing you.”

I grinned. “You should see the burn on my back.”

She slapped a hand over her eyes. “Oh, god. I’m so sorry.”

I chuckled. “Don’t be. The knife wound on my side has entered the itchy phase, and it was driving me crazy to keep from scratching it. The pain of the burn is a welcome distraction.”

She let out a tortured sound.

I sat up enough to yank my shirt off, turning so she could see. “Look. It’s really not that bad.”

She was so quiet that I turned back around, and fuck, I wasn’t in the right state of mind to see her like this, sprawled beneath me, legs akimbo, heat in her gaze as it raked over me. I started to reach for my discarded shirt, but she stalled me with a touch.

“Don’t,” she said. “I want to look at you.”

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