up or forever hold your peace.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She wanted to get to their strong suit . . . oh how she wanted that. But she also wanted to ask about Molly before she lost her chance. Only she wasn’t sure she had a right to his past. “I spent a few minutes with your sister tonight,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” he said, nudging her back a step so he could shut the shades, closing them in against the rest of the world. Then he helped her out of her jacket, tossing that to the couch as well before stepping into her, pressing his body to hers. “She loved the mirror,” he said. “You’re a genius.”
Already breathless, she said, “It was your idea.”
“Yeah, but it was your work. You do beautiful work,” he murmured, kissing his way down her throat. “You’ve got great hands.”
She snorted a laugh but her humor drained when she remembered the rest of her conversation with Molly.
Joe lifted his head and searched her expression, his own smile fading as well. “What is it? Something’s on your mind.”
“Now’s probably not a good time to talk about it.”
“Just say it, Kylie.”
She drew in a ragged breath. “Molly told me what happened. When you guys were younger.”
“Told you what?”
“How she was kidnapped so that you could be manipulated into doing something you didn’t want to do.”
He remained frozen in place for a single second before letting out a long exhalation and dropping his hands from her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Moving away, he turned to stare out her front window. “It was a long time ago.”
“She said you blame yourself.”
He made a rough sound in the back of his throat and she came up beside him, put a hand on his rigid arm, waited until he turned to meet her gaze. “She said you shouldn’t, Joe. Blame yourself.”
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, unlike his usual calm, his gaze was turbulent and filled with bad memories. “It was my fault,” he said. “All of it. And I should go.”
She didn’t want to push him to talk about something that gave him pain. She didn’t feel like she had any right to those bad memories, but if she could lessen his pain in any way, she wanted to. “Stay,” she said softly. “Please?”
“I won’t be good company,” he warned.
“It’s okay. I’ve got ice cream, a comfy spot in my bed just for you, and Pretty Little Liars on my DVR. We can watch a season ahead of your dad and then tell him spoilers.” Then she held her breath for his answer, knowing without understanding exactly why that this was a turning point and if he left right now, there’d be no going back. She’d lose him.
Chapter 25
#YouHadMeAtHello
At Kylie’s offer, Joe heard himself let out a rough laugh. She was looking up at him with those warm, loving eyes, the ones he was starting to realize he couldn’t resist. “What kind of ice cream?”
With a smile, she turned to go into the kitchen, but he caught her hand and reeled her in. “Never mind the ice cream. All I need is you.”
She gave him another soft smile and they sat on her couch together. “It’s a long story,” he warned. “And it’s ugly. I messed things up. Badly. You sure you want to hear it?”
“I want to hear whatever you can tell me,” she said, voice low and very serious, eyes matching the tone. “Always.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Molly’s leg and back. That’s all on me. All of it and worse.” He did his best not to think about that time in his life and he was good at it. He’d never told anyone about any of it. But this wasn’t just anyone—this was Kylie—and he drew in a ragged breath. “I was stupid.”
She opened her mouth but he shook his head at her and put a finger over her lips. “Shh,” he said. “I’m going to tell you, but I don’t need you to defend my dumb ass.” He paused, remembering. “We lived in that shit neighborhood, and Molly . . .” He shook his head. “She’d drawn the attention of one of the asshole thugs hanging around. She was fourteen and I’d just turned seventeen. I’d gone along with the gang’s stupidity up until then because they promised if I did, they’d leave Molly alone. I believed them. I shouldn’t have. When they wanted me to steal a car and I refused, they took her. To persuade me.”
“Oh Joe,” she whispered. “What did you do?”
“I hunted them down and got her back. It took three days.” He hated thinking of those long minutes and hours and days, the utter heart-stopping panic over what might have been happening to Molly. “I finally found out where they were holding her. Just as I arrived, she somehow escaped out a third-floor window. She was perched on a ledge, desperately trying to reach a tree branch that wasn’t quite close enough.”
Kylie stared at him. “I’m hoping that’s where the story ends, but somehow I know that it isn’t.”
“She jumped for it and missed, and then fell to the ground,” he said. “She broke her back in two places. She’s had three surgeries but the nerves in her right leg are permanently damaged.”
“Oh my God.”
“She used to run track,” he said. “She wanted to be an Olympian. That was her dream. It was going to be her way out.”
Kylie slid closer to him, pressing her body to his as if she knew he needed warmth, her warmth. Not that he deserved it, but he wasn’t strong enough to push her away, so instead he pulled her in close.
“She told me it wasn’t your fault, Joe,” she murmured. “She believes it.” She tipped her head up to his. “And so do I.”
She was giving him way more credit than he deserved.
“So is what happened to Molly the reason why you tend to be so . . .” She trailed off.
“Crazy?” he asked.
“Well, I was going to say overprotective,” she told him with a small smile. “Is this why you won’t let me all the way in, because you’re afraid your lifestyle will get me hurt?”
He stilled at her incredible—and accurate—assessment.
“Joe . . .” She paused as if searching for the right words. “I get that you’re out there saving the world, trying to help people and maybe clean up your karma at the same time, but no one seems to think it needs cleaning except you. You’re too hard on yourself.”
He knew that later he’d be going ten rounds with himself in his own head about this, about telling her the whole story. It was bringing it all back to the surface and it wasn’t a good time for that, not with the countdown on and only days left to figure her shit out.
But Kylie wouldn’t understand that. She didn’t bother hiding her emotions like he did. She had no interest in keeping herself in control. And actually, her willingness to let go was one of the things he loved about her. There was just something incredibly appealing about how she put herself out there, not worrying about outcome or the possibility of getting hurt.
Which made her the brave one, not him. Honestly, he had no idea why he even bothered to try to resist her. Resistance was futile with this woman who’d gotten under his thick skin when he hadn’t been looking. She thought he held back with her, but he’d been fooling himself because he wasn’t holding back at all.
Just thinking about it made his chest tight. So did imagining her not being in his life. He’d learned firsthand what it was like to have her all to himself. He was getting used to sharing his free time with her, and his personal space. He even loved sleeping with her after they made love, holding her all night, allowing himself to give in to his selfish need to keep her close.
All of which was forcing him to face a fact he hadn’t seen coming—his solitary life was starting to feel just a little too solitary.
He knew he should walk away right now, before he got in any more over his head. But who the hell was he kidding? It was too late. He was already going down for the count.
Kylie slid her hands beneath the hem of his shirt and paused with her fingers splayed wide ove
r his bare skin.
He went hard and sucked in a breath. “You know I can’t think worth a damn when you have your hands on me.”
“Huh,” she said, not taking her hands off of him. “Didn’t know that.” She gave him an innocent look and bit her lower lip.
With a groan, he hauled her in flush against him. He knew he’d given away how badly he wanted—actually, make that needed—her, because when their gazes met, the look in her eyes was enough to make his heart stop and his lungs run out of air.
She needed him too.
He stared into her face, searching for what, exactly, he had no fucking clue, before he closed his arms around her. Kissing her hard, he lifted her up, and when she wrapped her legs around him, he carried her to the bed.
He tossed her down on it, leaving her free to gasp for air as he stripped and then crawled up her body, tugging off her clothes as he went. His emotions were a chaotic mix of things he couldn’t get a grasp on, though lust and passion were high on the list. When he’d condomed up and was poised between her legs, she tipped her head back, her eyes closing in anticipation of what was to come.
“Kylie,” he said softly. “Look at me.”
Her head came up and her eyes opened slowly. They were glazed with passion and he had to use all of his self-control not to dive into her right then. “Can you feel what you to do me?” He pressed into her lightly.
She sucked in a sharp breath and nodded as her nails dug into his shoulders. “Yes.”
“I’ll never get tired of this.” He pushed in another inch and bent to kiss her. “I’ll never get tired of how you make me feel.” He rolled his hips and slid all the way home.
With a low moan, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tightened her legs on him. As he began to move, her hips rushed to meet his every thrust and when she came, she took him right over the edge with her.
They were still gasping for air when his phone—from his pants somewhere on the floor—alerted him to an incoming text. He dropped his forehead to hers and concentrated on the only thing he could—breathing.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” she said, her hands in his hair, her body still quivering beneath his.
“Maybe.” But they both knew it wasn’t. He took the time to give her a soft kiss and then another. And another . . .
She pulled free with clear regret. “You have to go,” she said.
His laugh was short. “Story of our relationship.” He was halfway out the door when he heard her ask the room a question.
“So we have a relationship now?”
He glanced back, really hoping that was a rhetorical question. But she was looking to him for an answer.
At whatever she saw on his face, a rough laugh escaped her. “Okay, so maybe not,” she murmured.
Every woman he’d ever known including his own sister fought like this, with battles he never saw coming. And he’d never received a copy of the rule book. He wanted to keep walking out the door. He wanted that a whole lot more than he wanted to have this conversation, but this was Kylie. He couldn’t just walk away from her. Wouldn’t. He blew out a breath. “Kylie—”
“No, wait,” she said. “Me first. I know I let you think I was okay with this, with just this physical thing between us. And I was. I really was.”
His heart kicked hard. “But . . . ?”
“But now . . .” She let out a long breath and shook her head. “Suddenly, I’m not.” She met his gaze, her own steely but also hurt. “I’m worth more, Joe. I’m realizing I want to be with a man who’s capable of giving me that more. Maybe even capable of giving me everything.”
He stilled. “Are you dumping me, Kylie?”
“I guess I’m asking if you’re ever going to want to be that man.”
Hell. If she wasn’t dumping him, she would be soon, because he was going to be honest, the only way he knew how to be. “Being with you on the job, or as friends, or in bed . . . it all works for me, Kylie. Every second of it. But if you’re asking me what we have or need me to promise more right now, I can’t.”
“I get that,” she said. “I can’t make you want to be with me just because I discovered that’s what I want.”
His heart pinched. He wanted to put words to the feelings bouncing around in his chest, making him miserable, but if he did, she’d realize just how emotionally challenged he really was. He wasn’t talking mild-to-moderately emotionally challenged either. He was talking severely emotionally challenged here.
But he’d discovered things too. Such as when he was with her, he felt . . . alive. And when he wasn’t with her, all he thought about was being with her, about the things he wanted to do with her. And to her . . .
He was a solitary man by nature who as a rule didn’t do serious relationships. They were messy and required things he couldn’t give. But thinking about Kylie and how comfortably she fit into his life didn’t make him feel threatened at all. It actually made him feel . . . mellow. At peace.
In truth, she felt like the best thing to have happened to him in a long time—which didn’t mean he’d relax his stance. He couldn’t. And knowing that, he fought to control his emotions.
It was shockingly hard, which was proof that she could turn him upside down without even trying. And that simply couldn’t happen. “I want to be with you too,” he said. “And yeah,” he added when she looked at him in surprise, “I didn’t see that coming either. But we both know why I can’t. I honestly don’t know if I even can open myself up for more, if I’m capable of it.”
“Are you sure it’s that?” she asked. “Because maybe you just don’t want to be so emotionally invested that you’re left vulnerable again.”
Look at her calling him on all his bullshit. He was both proud and horrified that she knew him so well, that he’d let her know him so well. “It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about you. You’re the one I’d be putting at risk and I won’t do it.”
She sat up on the bed. “You’re talking like you’re still Special Ops. But Joe, you’re home now. You’re no longer in that line of work.”
“No, but what I do now can be even worse,” he said, “because my guard’s down. Something can still happen—”
“I’m not a helpless fourteen-year-old girl,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to get drawn into something bad because of your lifestyle.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Joe, you can’t keep the people in your life safe from everything,” she said.
“Maybe not, but I can sure as hell try.”
She stared at him for a long minute and he knew a whole new level of terror when her eyes got suspiciously shiny, before she wrapped herself up in the sheet and went into her bathroom to shut the door.
The click of the lock sent a message loud and clear.
He told himself he was glad. It’d had to be done. He should be relieved that she finally fully understood him and where he was coming from.
But relief was just about the opposite of how he felt as he headed into whatever tonight’s work emergency was.
Chapter 26
#ElementaryMyDearWatson
Half an hour later Joe found himself hanging off a roof with his team, posing as window washers fifteen flights off the ground.
Apparently window washing at night was a real thing. They’d needed the cover because they were in stealth surveillance mode for a criminal investigation involving a million-dollar embezzlement suit. And as was the case about 90 percent of the time on a stakeout, things were annoyingly quiet.
So quiet that he was thinking too hard about, what else . . . Kylie. He just kept seeing the look on her face when he’d spelled out how he wasn’t going there with her. And where was all the work action to take his mind off the things he’d said? Because right about now he’d have preferred being flung twenty-five feet in the air through drywall again over thinking this hard. When his phone vibrated with an incoming text, he jumped on the distraction.
Dad: I’m going to watch an
other episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Joe: It’s the middle of the night. And wtf, you keep watching without me.
Dad: Do you want to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer or not?