Awakening Her Racy Passion [Racy Nights 9] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Tara Rose Page A

answer to his questions was to take a chance and just say it.
    He glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs, feeling like a giant shit, but she was waiting for an answer and he owed her that, at the very least. “I know you’re having dinner with Wyatt, and I know this must seem like a shitty thing to do, but we have a problem here. I like you, too, and I want to get to know you better. Much better. I want to help you with this because…well…this is the part about being a Dom that I love. Taking an issue that a woman wants to change about herself and helping her find a solution. Helping her become a better person.”
    She looked like someone had just told her that they’d help her find nirvana. “I don’t know what to say.”
    He realized that he knew next to nothing about Ria’s dating past. Did she even have one? Had no one ever offered to help this girl overcome an aspect of herself that she obviously hated? Or was this realization on her part recent because of what she’d done last summer?
    As he watched the emotions pass through her pretty, dark eyes, he honestly thought she was going to cry, and he wasn’t sure how to react because he didn’t understand why what he’d offered was so extraordinary.
    So he trusted his instincts and scooted closer, placing an arm across her shoulder. The immediate effect was to make his dick as hard as a rock again, but how could that be helped? This woman had fascinated him for a long time, and to be this close to her now, in relative privacy, was too much for any man to resist.
    “No one has offered,” she said. “You need to understand that. They’ve judged, and criticized, and told me what a rotten person I am, but no one has offered to help me figure out how to fix this.”
    The corners of his mouth turned up, and he kept his voice soft on purpose so she wouldn’t think he, too, was chiding her. “You already know how to fix it. Deep in your heart, you know what you have to do.”
    “I need to talk to Marisol.”
    “Yes. For starters.”
    “How? What do I say?”
    “You could start by apologizing to her.”
    “What if she won’t talk to me? What if she hangs up on me?”
    “What if she doesn’t? Are you more afraid of taking the first steps back toward your friendship with her, or of something else?”
    He watched more emotions cross her face, and just before fat tears splashed over her lids, the most vulnerable and insecure look he’d ever seen on a woman’s face passed across hers. It made him want to hold her all night, kiss away her tears, and protect her from the world. He was in deep, deep shit here.
    She swiped at the tears. “I’m afraid I’ve waited too long. I’m afraid I’ve not only lost Marisol’s friendship, but my brother’s respect. Both of them. I’m afraid I’ve lost any chance of being part of…of a circle of friends with everyone who attends Maddox’s club. I feel like a pariah, and I’m not saying they have no right to treat me like one, but I don’t want to be in this spot anymore. It’s horrible. I’m afraid I’ve lost any chance I’ve ever had of climbing out of this pit.”
    He started to speak but stopped when she wiped away more tears and shifted her weight so that she was facing him, because it was obvious she wasn’t finished. “I know I brought this on myself. I know that. I understand now what I did. It wasn’t just to Marisol and Rafe. It was to all of them. To all of you. But I have to live there. With my parents, I mean. I have no place else to go, and I sure as hell don’t make enough money working for Luke to afford a condo or an apartment on my own. I’m stuck.”
    “So you play the dutiful daughter because you need a roof over your head.”
    “Yes. Exactly. It’s awful having Teresa there. The second bedroom in the apartment had all my stuff in it, and now all that crap is shoved into every corner so Teresa can have a place to sleep. Her shit is everywhere, too, and she cries all the time. I