Made For Loving You (Rescue My Heart Book 3) by Kait Nolan (i can read book club txt) 📕

slept in the same bed, but he’s barely touched me. He’s not really sleeping, and I can sense him spiraling. He’s been all up in his head and is spending long hours chasing…well, I have no idea what leads because he’s not talking to me. He’s shutting me out, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“That’s a tough one. He promised you’d be safe, and then you weren’t. That’s got to mess with his whole alpha-male-protector view of himself.”

“I don’t blame him for that.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like he does. Maybe he needs a confidence boost. Something to remind him that you still see him as capable.”

“Maybe.” But Paisley didn’t think it would be anywhere near that simple.

The door opened, and Ty strode in, walking straight by her, into the bathroom.

“I gotta go. Ty just got back. Give my love to, Fi.”

“Will do. Good luck.”

Hanging up, Paisley tossed her phone on the bed.

The shower started up. Maybe she could join him and get past this wall that had grown up between them. But when she tried the knob, it was locked. Resigned to waiting, she considered going back to the book, but everything she’d written the last few days had been tossed.

When he emerged half an hour later, he didn’t look any more relaxed. The strain of the last days showed on his face, in the tense line of his jaw. Needing to do something to soothe, Paisley crossed the room, wrapping her arms around him, not caring that the damp from his shower was soaking her shirt. But he stepped away, moving to the duffel bag with his clothes.

Trying not to take offense, she dropped into the desk chair. “Talk to me, Galahad.”

He flinched. “Don’t call me that.”

“I’ve always called you that.”

With fast, jerky movements, he began to dress. “I’m no knight.”

Duke whined and nose bumped Ty’s hip. He ignored the dog, too.

“I mean, right now you’re acting more like the Dark one, but Bruce Wayne is a mouthful, and I don’t think I can call you Batman with a straight face.”

The attempt at humor fell as flat as the expression in his hazel eyes. “You can really joke right now?

“When I think you’re being ridiculous, yes.” God knew, if she took this too seriously right now, she was probably going to break down. “It’s a nickname, Ty. One I’ve used for years that you always used to like.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw as he yanked a shirt over his head. “I’m not who I used to be.”

“Yes, you are. You’re still my personal hero.”

“How can you honestly look at me and say that?”

Confidence boost. Right, I can endure some embarrassment if it’ll help him get through this.

“Because it’s how always I’ve seen you. Every male lead I imagined for my books was another incarnation of you. Different features, different professions, different situations, but still, at the heart, the man I’ve always seen.”

With a look of profound disgust, he shook his head. “Then you’re blinded by your own romanticism. Wake up to fucking reality, Paisley. The world isn’t handing out happy endings. Life isn’t some fairy tale, and I’m not like the ridiculous heroes in your books. I don’t have the answers. I don’t even know the right goddamn questions anymore. I couldn’t save Garrett, and I’m never going to save you, so stop putting that on me!”

His words hung in the air between them like poison gas. Paisley couldn’t speak past the stunning pain as they leeched into her. As the silence turned long and toxic, Ty jammed his feet into boots, grabbed his keys, and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

Paisley sank down on the bed already feeling the tears coursing down her cheeks. Duke slunk over, tail tucked, and wriggled his way under her arm. Pressing her face into his fur, she held her sweet, loyal dog, and wept.

Rationally, she recognized that Ty was lashing out, taking out his frustrated impotence at the situation on her. But she was hurting too, damn it. He’d just essentially reduced her to a silly schoolgirl, one without a single toe in reality. She could take being there for his healing, if he was going to heal, but not if he was going to dismiss her life’s work. Not once, in any of her many many relationships had she tolerated a lack of respect. She wasn’t about to start now.

He wanted to be free of her expectation that he’d save her. The expectation she’d never explicitly put on him. Fine. She’d leave and lift that burden. She’d been leaving all her life, hadn’t she? Running was what she knew best. She’d believed for years that men could be enjoyed but not counted on. He was the whole reason for that belief. Shame on her for believing he’d changed.

Grabbing her phone, she tapped a text to Emerson.

Talk to Caleb’s brother.

Ty eyed his fourth shot of whiskey.

This was a bad idea. But, hell, he was full of bad ideas. Like starting things back up with Paisley. Like believing he could protect her. Like thinking he could ever possibly deserve to have her look at him as a hero.

Terrible ideas across the board.

Oh, and he couldn’t forget to add being an insecure asshole and yelling at the woman he loved and essentially calling her stupid for thinking he was anything other than the miserable, broken sack of shit he was.

Remembering the stunned devastation on her face, he picked up the glass and tossed it back. The shot burned its way down his gullet, but the whiskey didn’t burn nearly as bad as the shame. By his recollection, he needed the rest of the bottle to outrun that. Maybe more. A sketchy place like The Right Attitude probably watered down their drinks. But where else was a man going to drink himself blind on alcohol that could probably double as paint stripper? Home? No, he didn’t dare go back there. Not when he knew he’d see Paisley’s