@kaycejdutton contin. from >here<
Cara’s eyes seemed to soften even more when she heard Tate was with his grandfather. Family was hard but it was good that they had it. Every time Cara thought about her own relationship with her adopted family, the brothers and her lover – Casey’s father – and their poor excuse for a mother who had been more a crime syndicate boss and enabler than an actual maternal figure, she couldn’t help thinking she’d never have that. Casey would never know what a family unit was really supposed to be. She would never know the love of a grandparent. “That’s nice.” She was leaning against the door talking to him now. “My kid’s grandma is only gonna love her ‘til she grows tits. Then she becomes a threat…just like me.” Cara’s rueful smile faltered and there was a lot of pain there. More story for another time.
Her tattoos painted her arms and places under her shirt he couldn’t see. She came from a different world where tattoos were more commonplace. She saw he had a couple on his forearms but couldn’t see more. Either way, the ink on porcelain skin was dark like paint; her body, the canvas. “I’m sure. If you’d like to.” She stepped forward, pairing the distance between them down to nothing, reaching up. Soft fingertip pads slid over his cheekbone, back toward his ear and then down to his jaw. The action displaced some of his long hair but it was ghostly soft, slight. She didn’t want to scare him right out of here but…God, she never did this. A shoulder shrugged up at the final question. “She hasn’t ever woken up to any man in my bed but her father…and that’s dead and gone for me. I can’t ever go back there. For myself. For her. For the future.” Her eyes never left him. They vacillated looking between his dark eyes and his mouth, his hair and his body from the chest up. “But we don’t have to do anything.” Her hand that had been at his face rested easily against his shoulder now. “We can just talk until the sun comes up. Whatever’s comfortable… I just want to know you… And I want you here.”
