We stand there, both of us breathing a little quicker than we should be after just walking a few feet. His gaze searches mine, and mine searches his. We don’t close the distance as our hearts do the silent talking.

  He moves first. His hands frame my face, eyes still dancing with questions. I reach up and place my hands on his waist.

  Still, we don’t speak.

  I’m not even sure how we moved without me noticing it, too wrapped up in what his eyes are trying to tell me. I don’t know that I’ve ever spent this much time just looking into his eyes, but it’s because of our intense stare down that I notice something else. That and maybe the overhead lights.

  “You wear contacts?” I whisper lamely.

  I wasn’t expecting the flash of panic to wash over his face, gone just as quickly as it was there.

  He doesn’t speak.

  “Drew?”

  Panic bleeding into pain flashes.

  “What’s wrong?” I try again.

  “Why did you look like that when you were talking to him?” he says, not answering and changing the subject.

  “Like what?” I ask sincerely, giving him that.

  “Like you had just been punched in the gut.”

  My hands trail up his hard chest, and we shift to get a little closer. My fingers dance across the skin on his neck, and I glance down just in time to see the goose bumps before they fade.

  I look back up and don’t break eye contact again.

  “It was nothing, honey. We were just chatting.”

  “He didn’t look at me just then like it was nothing.”

  I sigh, dropping my gaze to his chest.

  “What?” he tries again. “I can’t fix it if you don’t talk to me.”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” I mutter, and I feel those four words hit him, each one like a shot.

  “Olivia, where is this coming from?” he asks, lifting my face up with a soft touch to my chin so he can look into my eyes.

  “He’s protective of us. He’s also not stupid and can see there’s something big growing between us. With everything he’s done, lived, and survived, he was coming to me with his concerns and advice.”

  “And …” He starts, then pauses, and swallows thickly. “What did he say?”

  “That you’ll hurt me,” I answer, seeing the words as if they physically slammed into him. He doesn’t even try to keep how he’s feeling from me. “Though, he said it wouldn’t be intentional,” I add, as if that would make it better.

  “He doesn’t know me well enough to be giving you those thoughts, Olivia.”

  “He sees your pain, honey,” I mumble softly. “He thinks that I can ease that for you.”

  “You do,” he answers immediately.

  “He was coming from a good place. He’s a good man.”

  “I have not one doubt about that, but it still wasn’t his place to put those doubts in your head.”

  “He thinks I’m your person.”

  My eyes round when that comes out of my mouth. His face relaxes quickly, and I get the gift of seeing it change to a boyish expression with not one ounce of pain making it look hard.

  “He isn’t wrong.”

  “Drew,” I breathe, blown away by his words and what he’s showing me by looking at me that softly.

  “You know I have a past, but I don’t want you to doubt that I’m with you because of whatever was said. I’ve lived a long time alone, Liv. I’ve been a ghost. A shadow of myself that was hardly living. No sunlight has been able to touch me while I stayed living in those shadows. Just darkness and loneliness. You and Riley, though …” He stops, looks down at the floor, and shakes his head. “You have breathed life back in with the sunshine from both of you.”

  “Honey,” I try again, my emotions crawling up my throat, making me blink back tears.

  “Hurting you—hurting her—that is the last thing I ever want to do, babe. There will come a time that I unintentionally may and I …” He pauses, pulls me closer, and bends his head so I can see what’s working behind his gaze. “I can’t promise you that one day I might not hurt you, but it wouldn’t be because I want to or deliberate. You’ve given me a reason to breathe again, Liv … I won’t be stupid enough to give that up when I had stopped believing I would ever have the beauty of someone like you.”

  “I’m having a hard time not falling in love with you,” I blurt out, telling him honestly what was in my heart after hearing his words.

  He pulls me into his chest, arms wrapped around me, and I breathe in his scent. The comfort and safety I find within his arms tells me I’m full of crap … I’m already there.

  “Ditto,” he softly responds.

  “Feels Like This” by Maisie Peters

  Something shifted during those moments back in my office.

  Something big.

  Something so huge, it was as if the earth had shifted.

  Even now, hours later, I can feel it.

  Dinner was quick. We enjoyed an easy conversation that Riley led. We’ve been sitting on the couch watching her play in comfortable silence since cleaning up the dinner mess together. She loves being here at his place. The stark white space dances with an explosion of color with her toys scattered about. Her favorite corner of the vast room housing a makeshift bedroom for her American Girl doll might be the most colorful spot, though. Drew even went so far as going to the store and getting her a doll bed that she could keep at his place when we’re here. Not just any bed, either. He must have spent a small fortune at the American Girl store because she’s got a bed, a small dresser, and even a tiny doll-sized nightstand. When he pulled out new outfits, Riley clutched them to her chest and thanked him while happy feet danced all over the room.

  She hasn’t left the corner since, setting it up to perfection before she has to go to bed. Chattering softly to her doll as she goes.

  “Drew,” she calls from her spot across the room.

  “Right here, little princess.”

  “Do you think she will be okay sleeping out here by herself,” she questions in a serious tone. She points one small finger toward the huge windows that line his space. “It’s a really, really long way down, Drew.”

  I feel his laughter silently against my side where I’ve been relaxing and reading.

  “Is she not yours?” he asks strangely.

  “Silly, of course she is.” Naturally, she understood him when I didn’t.

  “Way I see it, she’ll be more than okay since you’re the bravest girl I know. How could she not be too? And, my girl, you love adventure, so I bet she does too.”

  At that moment, I watch with rapt fascination as Riley falls a little more in love with her giant. She looks at him with her all-knowing eyes, studying his silence and mulling over his words with a quiet of her own.

  “You think I’m the bravest girl?” she questions a moment later, her tone full of wonder and amazement.

  “Yeah, beanie, I do.”

  Her melodic giggles echo around the room, and I have to quench the urge to cry over the beauty of this moment. I love this for her, oh my how I love this.

  “Thank you, giant.”

  She leaps from where she’s standing and lands in his lap. He grunts and looks over at me, and for a moment, my heart hurts when I see the expression on his handsome face. He loves Riley, no doubt, but the fear that he isn’t hiding from me squeezes my heart.

  He’s been hurt, and while I may not know the depths of that pain yet, I know that it had to have been really bad for it to affect him in the way it has and continues to.

  His arms stay held out, but only for a beat, then he wraps them around her tiny frame and hugs her close. At that moment, I know my heart will forever belong to this man. His eyes close, his face relaxes, and he hugs my girl with so much tenderness, something he rarely gives without making sure no one is around. He’s given it to me, but this is the first moment I’ve watched him give that to her.

  It’s absolutely breathtaking.

  “Do you want to play with me?” she asks, leaning back and looking him in the eyes.

  He grunts a sound that must have been enough for her because she looks over at me with the whole world shining in her beautiful eyes—so light-green they almost look clear full of a happiness that I haven’t seen before. Which is saying something because my girl is one happy kid.

  Content to watch this play out, I settle back in my seat and watch the giant and his bean.

  My book forgotten at my side.

  After tucking Riley into the guest room, we head back into the living room. It’s not the first time that I’ve stayed over here. Riley and I have been here a few times a week for the past couple of months. I’m not even sure when it happened—that moment that told my heart it worked better when we were together. It could have been Riley and him, watching them bond, but I know it’s more than that.

  “Tell me about your family,” I request, noticing the shutters coming down over him as soon as I finish speaking. “I don’t want to pry, but honey … I want to know you.”

  He moves around the room, turning out the lights as he goes so the only thing that is shining is the city well below the windows we’re sitting next to. His home may be white and almost sterile in its vast emptiness, but when those lights go out, we sit in the sitting area that he has behind the couches and living area. It was meant to be a spot to gaze out into the world beyond his high-rise. When he settles into the chair next to mine, I expect him to remain silent, but he shocks me stupid when he pulls my arm over to his lap and takes my hand in his.

  “They’re gone.”

  My chest hurts, knowing just how hard it is to lose a family member. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have no one left. I squeeze his hand and wait for him to continue.

  “It’s been damn near two decades, and it still feels like I lost them yesterday.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  His shoulders come up as he silently shrugs. “Been a long time, babe.”

  “Might be so, but you haven’t healed. You know you can talk to me, right?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” he questions with a wink, one corner of his lush lips tipping up. There one second, gone the next, his face back to the stoic expression he had before. He takes a deep breath and holds it a beat before letting it out.

  “You know what I mean.”

  He gives me the slightest of smiles.

  “Some things are best left alone, Liv.”

  I pull my hand from his, not too gently, because he wasn’t ready to let me go and stand. His eyes track my movements the whole time. My feet take a few steps to stand in front of the chair he’s sitting in. His arms rest on the arms of the chair, head against the back, and his whole body’s held tight. He doesn’t even try to hide the pain in his eyes, not this time.

  The driving need for me to ease his soul almost steals my breath.

  I push my knee into the side of his seat, next to his thigh. His hands move to my hips just when my other leg joins in, and my butt hits his thighs. His breathing is harsh, but his touch tender. Reaching out, I dance my fingers across his cheeks until my palms rest against his bearded cheeks. I can feel the rapid beat of his heart from where my fingertips rest against his neck. The rest of him might as well be turning to stone.

  “I know loss, honey. I know that life-changing feeling only comes when you’ve lost someone incredibly special. I look at you sometimes and see the same expression I had after losing my sister. Almost six months after I first met you all that time ago, I realized what I saw in your eyes. A pain so haunting that it consumes your soul. You continue to keep that inside, it will destroy you. I’ve watched it inside you for years. You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”

  He holds my gaze, not looking away as the pain slashes so bright and deep behind his.

  “I had a great family,” he begins, his voice low and deep. I hold my breath, not wanting him to stop talking. Only when he continues do I let it slowly out. “I had a great family. That was after a shit childhood when I didn’t have that. I found my way to them. Had a great damn brother, too. Had him from the day I was born, and he protected me every one of those bad days when we were little. Even with a shitty mom, I had love because of him. It took me enlisting to find my real family, which damn sure wasn’t what the woman who gave birth to us.”

  I move in the seat, my knees hitting the back of the chair, and try to pull myself closer to him. His hands at my hips flex before pulling me toward him the rest of the way. I stay silent though, letting him run the show. My hands move to his chest and I wait.

  “I’ve seen a lot of dark shit in my fifty-two years, Liv. Seen a lot of stuff that would take a lesser man out at the knees and he would never get back up.”

  He glances away and I feel the loss of his eyes.

  “I never thought that I would have this though,” he whispers into the Boston skyline. “I never allowed myself to believe I had anything left to wake up for than whatever I had on my workload. I’m not the man I was before I lost them, Liv. The heartache of that doesn’t go away.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I agree emphatically. “I’m sorry for what you lost. I wouldn’t wish losing family on anyone, but you didn’t die, honey. You don’t need to keep that hurt locked away anymore. You don’t need to keep them locked up, not with me. I’m here and I want to help you carry that so it doesn’t slash so deep into you.”

  “You do.”

  I smile sadly at him, my hands now resting on his chest don’t miss the rapid pounding I feel.

  “One day, you’ll be able to remember them without pain,” I vow.

  “Hasn’t happened yet, baby. Not sure it’s possible.”

  “The first thing you have to do is let them out so their memory can bring you comfort and not pain. Think of all the good times you had, and you hold on to them with all you got in you. It won’t happen overnight, but it does eventually get easier to remember them without it feeling as if your very breath is trapped.”

  “Ash, my brother,” he starts and just those three words sound like it was hard to get out. “He would have loved you for me.”

  My smile draws his eyes and my heart picks up when I realize he won’t stop.

  “I had an incredible family at the end, Liv. It kills me not to have them anymore.”

  “They’re always with you.”

  This time, his eyes come back up and he looks gutted. “No, no they aren’t.”

  He moves us, standing with little effort despite the fact that I was in his lap. He helps me steady myself on my feet before he moves to stand at the window. Looking down at the city below us. I walk the few steps and to stand behind him and run my hands around his middle and press my face against his back. Silently giving him my support while he runs with his thoughts. He relaxes slightly when my head presses against his back but tenses up when my hands hit his abdomen. Not the first time he’s done that. I feel the reason against my palm. The little bundle of scar tissue that I notice every time we’re intimate.

  “How did you get this scar?” I question, something I haven’t done before now.

  He places his hand over where mine is resting above his scar. His silence follows my question. I wait, seeing if he will answer me. I don’t know what I was expecting. Well, that’s a lie, I was expecting him to ignore my question and change the subject.

  “I was shot.”

  With a gasp, I jump slightly, and he tightens his hold of my hand above his scar.

  “It was the day that I lost everyone that I considered my family.”

  Oh my, this man. My heart breaks for the pain that he carries with him, especially knowing this. No wonder he wears that pain like he does.

  “Honey,” I breathe and he turns in my arms.

  “It’s been a long time, Liv.”

  “Yet you still have the pain of that riding you every day as if it was yesterday.”

  “I always will, babe. It’s just the reality of it.”

  “You’ve let it change your life though. You’ve let it keep you from living.”

  His gruffly grunts. “They haven’t kept me from living. I do what I do for them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never had someone other than the guys ask me to explain something I’m not able to explain. You know I work with the government, but it’s all top secret stuff, Liv. I can’t tell you more than that. Everything I do for them is in the name of the family I lost.”

  “I understand that’s what you think, but you’re not doing it for them if you’ve been stuck living half a life while you do your hush hush work. Do you think they would want you to have held yourself back from others all this time?”

  “Might have been a good change of pace from the old me they knew.”

  “You’re still that man, Drew.”

  His body jolts. “Coop. Don’t … just, please. I can’t right now.”

  I lift a brow. “You aren’t naked, honey. Pretty sure the rule was ‘only while your cock is out,’ or something like that.”

  My heavens I love the heat that takes over his handsome face when I talk like that. There is no doubt in my mind that he loves getting me to talk dirty. A welcomed reprieve from the hard conversation we’re having. His lip quirks at the corner and he leans down to press his forehead against mine.

  “When my cock is out, I plan on doing my best to make you forget your name as well as mine long enough for you to call my name when you give me your sweetness.”

  “Coop,” I breathe, leaning my weight into him.

  “Yeah, baby. Your Coop.”

  We don’t break eye contact, so much unspoken between us. He lowers his head to take my mouth in a deep kiss, and starts walking up toward his bedroom. I know the moment to continue this conversation is over. There’s only so much pain from the past someone can handle at once.

  One thing’s for sure, I’m going to work my tail off to remove that pain from his heart.

  “Broken” by Seether

  “You’re being fucking reckless. Are you even watching out for Ray’s slimy ass anymore? Because there hasn’t been a single sighting of him in weeks.”