Page 57 of The Healing Touch

“Why?” she whispered, her teeth biting her lower lip.

“Because I can’t sleep if I don’t talk to you, I can’t write. Hell, I can’t function without hearing all that sass from you at least once during the day. You’re the only woman who’s ever done that to me. I love you, Becca. Is it the love I write about? I don’t know, but I want the chance to see if that’s what this is. I know I’m an asshole, a manwhore, and have always been proud of it, but this manwhore wants the chance to try for happiness with the one person who means more to me than anyone. Will you try,Krasivaya? Please?”

“Who are you, and what have you done with Dimitri?”

He laughed, but he knew she was serious. “I’ve always loved you, Becca. Probably since that first day I saw you skulking in the back of the library.”

“I wasn’t skulking.” Pulling her food to her, she picked up her fork and stabbed at the rapidly cooling food.

“Yes, you were.” He winked at her. “I liked it, though. You intrigued me.”

“Only because I didn’t fall all over myself trying to get your attention. You had enough of that from the idiot girls who batted their lashes and threw their boobs in your face every time you passed by them. No, thank you. I have more self-respect than that.”

“That’s why I liked you. You were a challenge. If not for me talking to you in Russian every day, I think you would have ignored me completely.”

“Probably, or I would have told Jackson you were bothering me, and he’d have had someone come beat the shit out of you.”

“He wouldn’t have done it personally?” Dimitri twirled some of the pasta onto his fork, grateful she started to relax.

She laughed, a full-on belly laugh. “You wouldn’t have been worth his time. One of his lackeys would have handled it.”

“Not worth his time?” He pouted, plastering on his best outraged expression. “I was the captain of the fucking football team.”

“Football is not God in an MC.” She smiled, and he let out a breath he wasn’t even aware he’d been holding. Relaxed, she’d be willing to talk out this thing between them.

“Then what is?”

“You don’t want to know.” She bit off a piece of bread and sighed. “Thesearegood.”

“Told you so.” He picked up his container and inhaled the delicious aroma.

They ate quietly, and it was that comfortable silence he’d never found with any other woman. He simply enjoyed being in Becca’s presence. It had nothing to do with his dick and that bastard’s lust-filled thoughts. No, it was Becca. Her personality, her kindness, her wicked humor. She soothed him.

Becca took a few minutes to process everything he’d told her. Last night, they’d both agreed to not pursue this, or at least she thought he’d agreed. She had zero desire to get her heart shattered, but he seemed so earnest. What changed?

“Why did you decide you wanted a relationship with me?” She sipped at her bottle of water. “You don’t do relationships. It’s something you’re proud of, so what changed?”

“You.” He leaned back, absently rubbing the tops of his thighs. “When you were just a voice on the phone or someone behind a text message, I never had to face my feelings. When you quit and I couldn’t get a hold of you, it was more than panic. My world crashed. I hit the first plane I could catch, and when I came face to face with you, my body lit up like a firecracker. Lust, Becca, hard and fast. I argued with myself so hard. You were someone I couldn’t screw with because if I lost you, I wouldn’t recover.”

“I think you lost that particular battle.”

He grinned his cheekiest grin. “I would lose a thousand battles if it meant I get to taste you again.”

She felt her cheeks warm. She didn’t normally blush at anything. Fucking asshole.

“When I pushed you and you pushed back, I tried again to stay away, to push the lust down, but it wouldn’t go away. I wanted you. You wanted me too. I saw it, but you were better at controlling it than I was.”

“Because I don’t want to get hurt, Dimitri.”

“I know.” He reached over and cupped her cheek. “You’re the last person I want to hurt,Krasivaya.”

“Is that why you ran when you realized how I felt?”

She studied the myriad of emotions flicking in his eyes, making them darken to an almost gray color.

He gave her that shy smile again. “For a writer, I’m having the hardest time putting this into words. Yes, I ran from it. I’d already decided I wanted to see where things with us could go, but seeing your feelings right there in front of me…it scared me. I knew we could both get hurt so badly if I couldn’t be the man you deserved. So, I ran. I needed time to think, to talk to my dad.”

“Your dad?”

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