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“He told me that life was hard, and if I expected it to be easy, I was bound to be disappointed and disillusioned. He taught me that having true friends was more important than having money, and treating others with respect was the measure of a good man. Most of all, he taught me that when the time came, and I found a woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, that my job was to protect her . . . not because she’s weak, but because she’s important enough to be protected.”
She held up her hands. “Hey, all I did was ask if he was your date. It’s probably a good thing Susan isn’t home,” Maria said, gesturing to the door next to her own. “She’s even more protective than we are.
“Not me,” Skylar said emphatically. “If I had friends who I was as close to as you guys seem to be, I’d want to go into business and spend all my time with them too. Family isn’t necessarily a matter of blood relation. It’s the people who would bend over backward to help you, no matter what time it is or if they have to drive a thousand miles to get to you.”
Skylar’s lips quirked upward, and she shook her head. “I’ve had slow. I’ve had nice. That was . . . I’ve never had that, and I’m not sure I can ever go back. I think I talked to angels, I came so hard.” Bull chuckled and couldn’t help but feel ten fucking feet tall. “So . . . I corrupted you?”
He made a mental note to make certain she knew how much she pleased him in the future. It was unacceptable for her to not be confident in her ability to turn him on.
It had been a while since she’d been home, and when they pulled into her neighborhood, Skylar had a moment to be thankful that she’d grown up where she had. After living in her apartment for a few years, she was more than aware of the white privilege afforded her, living in Carmel.
Growing up in Carmel had been good. Great, really. She loved her parents, and they’d worked hard to give her a good start to life. But coming home also made her uncomfortable sometimes because she couldn’t help comparing her childhood to those of the students in her class.
Then Carson kissed her lightly. It was a casual kiss, one that demonstrated more intimacy than anything else he could’ve done. She loved that he touched her so much. That he didn’t feel awkward about holding her hand or pulling her into him. Or kissing her in his car in her parents’ driveway.
“We tell her that there’s a man out there who needs her brand of goodness. Someone who will let her be who she is . . . a little naive and a lot generous. If you’re with my girl to get off or because you think she’s an easy mark, you can walk out that door right now. It’ll hurt her a lot less if you end things now than after she’s fallen head over heels for you. I refuse to sit back and let her be taken advantage of anymore. If you aren’t prepared to have Skylar fall in love with you, you need to rethink things. Because as her dad, I can tell for certain, she’s almost there.”
This morning, he’d gotten up before her alarm had gone off and made breakfast. He’d woken her up with a gentle kiss and a steaming-hot cup of coffee. She hadn’t wanted the morning to end, but of course the time had come for her to leave to go to school.
“Right,” Tiana said. “You judge people by how they treat you, not by what they look like, the color of their skin, or their past. It’s one of the things everyone around here really likes about you. So I have to wonder . . . why are you that way with your friends, but not your man?” Skylar blinked in surprise.
