Under Locke(126)
Not that I should complain, but still.
Dex shifted his hips until my bottom sat right against his groin. "Can't sleep," he whispered for some reason. I couldn't be sure but I thought that he might have pressed his lips to my ear. "I've been a shit, babe."
Oh lord, I wanted to answer back sarcastically but I kept myself from doing it. I also had to keep myself from telling him to get off the couch. Which was stupid because the alarms in my head were going off, telling me this closeness was a terrible idea.
Then again, hadn’t I left my sanity in Florida? My sanity and my friggin’ brain.
"I know I'm an asshole, babe. You know I'm an asshole." Dex punctuated each statement by moving his fingertips from my ear to my chin. "’Specially when I’m pissed." He dotted the ends of his sentences with sighs like the admission was painful or awkward for him, and I'm sure it was. The number of times he'd apologized in his life had to be as small as the number of guys I'd kissed.
He smoothed his finger down the curve of my ear. "I don't know what the hell I'm doin' with you, you know that?"
Oh boy.
I shifted my head to look at him over my shoulder. "Me neither, Dex."
The look on his face was smooth and as open as I'd ever seen. He ran his fingertip around my ear again, pulling goose bumps onto my arms. He repeated the motion a few times, his breath heavy on my neck.
"Baby, you make me wanna kill every fuckin' guy that looks at you. You know what that's like?"
I remembered how awful I felt seeing him with his arm around the redhead. Ugh. I felt honest enough in that moment to nod.
He slipped a hand over my neck, palming it with the full length of his big palm. "My goddamn head hurt when you said that shit-head put his mouth on you. And you know what I couldn't quit thinkin' about? How much that sonuva bitch would’ve loved to hurt you to get back at the Club and your pa, baby.
"When you told me that you went to Busty's...I lost my damn mind." Dex ran a finger over the corner of my mouth, drawing me into a deep daze that had nothing to do with sleep. "I'm sorry I yelled at you like that. Sorry I hurt you, too. If somebody else would’ve done the shit I did to you, I'd cut their fuckin' tongue out, Ritz. Thought for sure Lu was gonna do that to me after you walked out," he chuckled darkly.
Dex let out another sigh, settling in so close he was like a human blanket. "I fuck everythin' in my life up. Always have. But I like to learn from my mistakes and fix 'em. Should’ve said somethin' to you back at Pins tonight when you talked to my pa but I couldn't. I got a hard time gettin' over people lyin' to me, babe, but you doin' that shit and Liam showin' up just about gave me a stroke. Then you go off and watch out for me with my pa, and tell me you think that everybody thinks of you as an inconvenience. It kinda kills me."
Damn it.
It was my turn to sigh into the sofa cushion smashing my face so that I wouldn't make an embarrassing noise. "I get it—but getting yelled at like that was so embarrassing."
He groaned this sound that was pure guilt. "Yeah, I know.”
I didn’t say anything, earning a low grumble.
“Won’t do it again," he added in that silky voice that wasn’t accustomed to apologies.
“I think you’ve said that before.”
The same sound made its way out of him. “Babe, I’ll try my best as long as you don’t lie to me again.”
His damn honesty got me every single time. I sighed a little more exaggerated than what was necessary, remembering the callous tone he’d used. "You sounded like you hated me," I admitted, pushing my face deeper into the sofa back.
Dex's hand reached up to pull me back, tipping my face over to see his. His gaze was strong, intent. "Don't ever think that. I might get pissed and I might take shit out on you but that—never. Never fuckin' ever, you hear me?"
His face was solemn and honest. Truth stamped onto the lines of his lips and the placement of his eyelids.
"I looked all over the city for you, Ritz. You think I'd do that for anybody else?"
Him? No. No way. And the reality of that made me happier than it probably should.
The sheer emotion that I felt from Dex, the worry, the need, the repent, was so foreign. And I was so broken in tiny ways that it made me feel small, more needy than I liked. I still didn’t understand this, understand him, but maybe I never would.
“Hey...what happened to your face?”
A low little growl curled its way through his throat. Ahh, hell. It was probably something related to me. “Let’s just say somebody else thought they could get away with sayin’ the same type of shit you do.”