Love in the Light

  He was using her. He knew he was. Using her to help shut down all the bullshit in his head. Because when he was with her, when he was in her, it all went away. It always fucking went away.

  But she seemed to be right there with him. Shoving off his jacket, burrowing her hands under his shirt, jerking it up. They worked it off together.

  Their kisses were urgent, deep, rough. He devoured her—her skin, her tongue, her moans. He couldn’t get enough of her.

  “Still…too…many…clothes,” Makenna rasped around the edge of a kiss, her hands pulling at the button to his jeans.

  “God, I need you,” he said, his mind an overwhelming blur, his chest still too tight from before.

  “I’m right here,” she whispered. “Right here.”

  But for how long?

  The thought came out of nowhere and struck him stupid. He froze, then blinked. As if someone had just unexpectedly punched him in the face.

  “Caden?” Breathing heavily, lips swollen, Makenna peered up at him in the dim glow thrown off by a light mounted on the bottom of one of the cabinets.

  He hoped the dimness hid the parts of him he didn’t want her to see. Like the darkness had in the elevator.

  “Need you,” he said again, diving back into the kiss. He pulled her with him as he walked them haltingly toward her bedroom. They were a tangle of hands and kisses and shedding clothes. By the time they’d reached the bed, Caden was hard and aching and desperate to bury himself inside her.

  “Condom. Hurry,” she said.

  He couldn’t have agreed more. He had it on in a flash and then he turned her to face the bed. “Kneel,” he rasped.

  Makenna crawled onto the bed, her back arching so fucking beautifully, her ass right there and waiting. Her tattoo flashing at him from under the protective plastic wrap in the ambient light coming in through the window.

  He couldn’t wait.

  He couldn’t.

  Taking his cock in hand, he found her opening and pushed home.

  She took all of him. Just like she always did.

  Buried deep, her body accepting every bit of him, her moans proclaiming her pleasure, all the noise between his ears ceased. Just fucking went quiet.

  And it was such a relief that all he could do was give in to the goddamned incredible perfection of it.

  His hips started moving, slower at first, but quickly faster, chasing, needing. He grabbed hold of her hip with one hand and her shoulder with the other, his focus centered on her tattoo—on his C. On the way she’d claimed him when he couldn’t even—

  No.

  He slammed his eyes shut and focused on the slick friction of her body accepting his, on the softness of her skin against his. The sounds of harsh breathing and colliding bodies and the stream of moans spilling from her lips filled the room, and he focused on those, too.

  It did the job. Too well. Because out of nowhere his orgasm was an unstoppable force. “Fuck, I’m coming,” he gritted out. His cock jerked with each spasm, his hips moving in punctuated thrusts as it played out. He was almost numb from the intensity of it. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, easing out of her. It was the first time in all the times they’d been together that he hadn’t taken care of Makenna first.

  Because you weren’t really with her just then, were you?

  She turned onto her side, her smile apparent in the dimness. “Why would you apologize? That was freaking hot.”

  He disposed of the condom, then returned to her on the bed. “Let me make it up to you, Red,” he said, slipping in behind her, his hand sliding over her hip.

  “Caden, maybe you can’t see the blissed-out expression on my face in the darkness, but trust me, I’m not complaining right now.” Humor was plain in her voice, which meant she hadn’t clued in to how out of it he was.

  “I want you to come,” he whispered in her ear, making sure he didn’t press against her tattoo. It would be tender for a few days. He pulled her thigh over his, opening her core to his touch. “I always want you to come.” She was wet and hot, and her hips pressed into his fingers as they swirled in a firm circle over her clit.

  On a long, low moan, she pressed her face back against his, enough that he could make out her expression. Eyes closed, she did look blissful, happy, trusting. And instead of that making him feel better, it suddenly made him feel like a fraud. Because he couldn’t give her all of him, could he? He wouldn’t reveal all of himself to her, would he? He shouldn’t burden her with all the doubts and fears and uncertainties that had been building up inside him lately, should he?

  Eyes tightly shut, he leaned his forehead against hers and concentrated on stroking her just like she liked it. He needed to give her this. At least this. If not everything she deserved.

  She deserves better than you.

  “Oh, God, I’m coming,” she said, her hips surging. “Oh, God.” Her body shuddered through the climax, and then she sighed on a long breath. “Wow. Appetizers rock.”

  Caden had to clear his throat to get his voice to sound half normal. “Yeah they do.”

  She chuckled and turned over, burying her face against his chest. They lay there for a long moment until she finally yawned. “I’m so tired.”

  “Me, too,” Caden said, though probably not for the same reasons.

  “Can we just fall asleep like this?” she mumbled.

  “Anything you want,” he said, wishing it was true. Because he wasn’t dumb. A woman who wanted you to meet her family and who tattooed your initial onto her body wanted more. Maybe wanted everything. And he felt so amazingly privileged that Makenna James maybe wanted all that with him. But he also felt undeserving.

  Always.

  “I guess I gotta take care of the tattoo first,” she said, pushing herself up. She stroked her fingers along the tribal tattoo on his calf. “Will you help me?”

  “Of course,” Caden said, scrubbing at the scar on the side of his head. “Be right there.”

  “Okay.” She threw him a small smile over her shoulder before she got up. The light came on in the bathroom, sending a stream of brightness into the bedroom.

  Which meant it was time to shake the fuck out of it. Because just like in that elevator, the darkness was only going to hide him for so long.

  * * *

  Nausea had Makenna tearing out of bed and dashing across the room. She threw up everything she’d had for dinner the previous night and possibly some stuff she’d eaten two weeks ago given how many times she wretched.

  Damn. When she’d felt better yesterday, she’d assumed she was over the stomach virus. Maybe she ought to go to the doctor. Shuddering, she flushed the toilet, then pulled herself up to the sink to rinse out her mouth.

  Which was when it occurred to her.

  She was late.

  No, she couldn’t be—

  There’d been that one time a condom broke as Caden pulled out, but Makenna had had a period since then. True, it had been light. But her periods had always been like that—light one month, heavier the next; coming twenty-eight days later one month, then thirty-one the next. Which was why she hadn’t given the lateness much thought.

  Except this nausea had her thinking.

  No.

  No.

  Shit.

  Thoughts reeling, she shuffled back into the bedroom, completely unsure what she was going to say, to find the bed empty. “Caden? Hey? Where’d you go?” She found the other rooms dark and empty. What the heck?

  Flicking on the kitchen light, she found a note on the counter.

  Red—

  I didn’t want to wake you. Realized I needed something from the house before my shift so I left early. Talk to you later. –C

  Makenna frowned. In all the time that they’d been together, he’d never left before morning. On a sigh, she combed her fingers through her hair. Not that it meant anything. Oh, screw it, she was just out of sorts from her maybe-but-probably-not-bathroom-revelation. Back in the bedroom, she disconnected her phone from its charger
and shot off a text.

  Missed waking up to your freaking gorgeous face. Have a good day! xo

  She didn’t get a message right back, but he never texted while driving, and he was probably on his way to the station given the time. She sagged down onto the edge of the bed.

  Could she really be pregnant? Her stomach did a flip flop that made her wrap her arms around herself. Crap. There was no way she could make it through the entire work day without finding out.

  Forcing herself up, she threw on some leggings, a sweatshirt, and a pair of gray knit boots, and ran a brush through her hair. She bundled into her coat and grabbed her purse, and then she was a woman on a mission. This was one of the things she loved about where she lived—the little urban enclave of Clarendon had everything you could need, most of it within easy walking distance. Including the Walgreens, just two blocks away.

  Soon she was standing in front of a shelf full of pregnancy tests. And, good God, why were there so many? Pluses, minuses, one line, two lines, words, symbols.

  This is ridiculous. Right? I don’t need these.

  Except. Maybe I do?

  Pull down your big girl panties and pee on a stick and you’ll know for sure.

  Right.

  On a sigh, Makenna grabbed one test that claimed to be able to provide the earliest results. And then she picked another that not only gave the words “pregnant” or “not pregnant” but also estimated how many weeks had lapsed since her last ovulation. Awesome.

  She made it back to her apartment in no time flat, and for the first time since she’d met Caden, she was glad he wasn’t there. Only because she didn’t want to burden him with a possible baby scare without knowing there was definitely something to worry about in the first place. If she thought he wasn’t ready to hear I love you, she could only imagine that his unreadiness to hear I’m pregnant would probably have to be multiplied by a factor of, like, a gajillion.

  Dumping the bag out into the bathroom sink, Makenna had the oddest thought—she didn’t know what she wanted the results to say. Which made no sense given that she was twenty-five and they’d been together less than three months, but the thought was there all the same.

  With her heart in her throat, she opened the boxes and laid the plastic sticks out in a row—two of each kind. She used them all, just to be quadruple sure. And then she waited. And her pulse raced. And her belly flipped.

  And then the results came in.

  Plus. Plus. Pregnant 3+. Pregnant 3+.

  Makenna stared at the little windows like she was trying to decipher Sanskrit.

  Plus. Plus. Pregnant 3+. Pregnant 3+.

  She was pregnant. And it had been more than three weeks since she’d ovulated? How far along was she? She sank down onto the closed toilet lid and dropped her head into her hands.

  Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgod.

  Okay. Don’t freak out.

  Right. I’ll do that right after I freaking freak out!

  “Stop. Think this through,” she said out loud. An idea came to mind and she went in search of her cell phone. She called her doctor’s office and found out how to get a blood test—might as well start with confirming this.

  She quickly showered and dressed for work so she could stop on the way to get the blood test and have a chance of getting the results back before the weekend. Because even though she knew—home pregnancy tests were way too accurate to get four false positives—she still wanted the official result. And she suspected Caden would, too.

  Staring into the bathroom mirror, her gaze dropped to her stomach.

  “I’m pregnant,” she whispered to herself, as if she was revealing a secret. And she guessed she was. Because no way was she telling Caden until she knew everything there was to know.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The nightmares were getting worse. They’d tormented him during the little bit of sleep he’d gotten the night before, so he’d gotten up and paced the living room, ultimately leaving rather than face Makenna’s knowing eyes in the morning. And during the long period of no calls they’d had during today’s shift, he’d drifted off, only for the nightmares to come at him again.

  They all started the same.

  It was the endings that were different.

  In one, it was him and Makenna in the backseat when the car flipped, and it was Makenna who didn’t survive while he did. He called her name over and over, but she never answered.

  In another, Sean morphed into Makenna from an earlier version of the dream. It was her eyes that accused him. Her voice that said, “It shoulda been me. I shoulda been the one to live.”

  In a completely new spin of his subconscious, Caden became his father and Makenna, his mother. When the car flipped, Makenna suffered his mother’s fate, her head battered against the side window, her neck breaking, her death instant. And not only was Caden trapped hanging upside down knowing that everything he’d ever loved was gone, but knowing, too, that it was his own fault.

  He’d lost control. And she’d paid the price.

  So by the time a call came in to the station, Caden’s head was a fucking wreck. Which probably explained why he had his very first on-the-job panic attack while responding to the scene of an accident. It was the hair that did it. The female driver’s long red hair.

  His mind had done its usual thing, and for several long moments, he’d been absolutely sure his worst fears had come true. Makenna was dead in that car. His chest went tight, his breathing shallowed out, and he froze.

  It didn’t matter that Makenna rarely drove her car. Nor that the car in the accident hadn’t been the same as Makenna’s little Prius. Or that there was absolutely no reason why Makenna would be on Duke Street near Landmark Mall at four o’clock in the afternoon when she worked miles away in Roslyn.

  His brain didn’t trade in logic in moments like those.

  Embarrassment aside, it was even worse that he could’ve jeopardized a patient’s life. In the end, the woman’s injuries weren’t that serious. But that wasn’t the point. He was fucking out of control, and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. He hadn’t been this bad in years.

  Then again, he hadn’t had anything to lose in years, either.

  Now he did. And he was losing it.

  When they returned to the station house, his captain called him into his office.

  Exhausted and strung out, Caden dropped into the chair in front of his captain’s desk. In his forties and prematurely gray, Joe Flaherty had been Caden’s supervisor all nine years he’d worked in this house, and he was aware of Caden’s background. A few of the guys were.

  As a rule, Caden didn’t flake out—he showed up early, he left late, he picked up extra shifts, he covered for the guys with families, he left his rig clean and well stocked, and he did the job to the best of his ability. They all knew he was solid. Well, until today.

  “What happened out there, Grayson?” Joe asked, his voice concerned, but not unkind.

  Caden scrubbed at his face. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” Caden said. “Nightmares about the accident have been coming back lately for some reason.” He shook his head, wanting to be honest, but not wanting to say more than he had to. He met Joe’s gaze head on. “When I first saw the woman, I thought it was Makenna.”

  A thoughtful expression on his face, Joe nodded. “We all see someone we love in the face of a patient at some point, so don’t beat yourself up about that,” he said. “You talking to someone about the nightmares?”

  He shook his head again. Caden hadn’t sought any kind of therapy in years. He’d worked things out. Gotten himself under control. Learned ways to handle his shit.

  Only, clearly, that wasn’t all true anymore, was it?

  “Maybe you need to consider it. Given your history, I always expected you to have issues responding to MVAs. The real miracle given the life-threatening nature of your accident and your PTSD is that you didn’t. And I watched you.”

  Caden knew that was true. And he’d understood why.
On some level, he’d actually appreciated it. Before his first times out there, he hadn’t known how he might respond either. But he’d been so driven to repay the debt, to help how Talbot had helped him, that he’d never had an issue. Accident scenes had never been a trigger for him the way they could be for other crash survivors.

  The accident had scarred him physically, but the emotional trauma stemmed from its consequences. From losing his family. From surviving what they hadn’t. From being alone with their corpses—because he hadn’t known until later that his father had actually lived. From being left alone, in the car and all the years after, when his father checked out on him. From the fact that it took so long for someone to come help him that he hadn’t known they were real.

  Caden nodded. “I hadn’t realized things were getting to me as bad as they apparently are. I’ll handle it.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to go it on your own. If your PTSD is flaring up enough to cause nightmares and give you a panic attack, something is stressing you out. Go talk to someone. That’s an order. Don’t make me pull you off shifts.”

  A rock parked in his gut, Caden rubbed a hand over his scar. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Now go home,” Joe said. “Get some sleep. And ask Makenna when she’s gonna bring around more of those chocolate-iced brownies.”

  “I’m still on,” Caden said.

  “And I’m telling you to cut out. C-Shift will be on soon, so we’re covered. That wasn’t a suggestion.” Joe arched an eyebrow.

  Well, fuck. Caden hadn’t been sent home once in nine years. And even though nothing in Joe’s tone or expression made him think there was anything punitive or even irritated about the command, Caden still felt he was letting down his captain, his station, his family—the only one he had.

  This was the one place where he’d always had things together.

  Standing took way more effort than he wanted to admit. He came to attention, spine straight, head up.