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“I…you don’t know anything about me.” There she went, throwing up more barriers that couldn’t quite stick.
“Then how about you let me? Show me who you are.”
She searched my face. “You warned me last night I should stay away from you.”
My stomach fisted. “Might not be able to have you the way I want…the way I’ve been aching to do…but everything about you tells me I’m supposed to be here, right now, in front of you.”
The lure she emitted thrummed, stretching tight between us, keening like the roll of a tightly wound drum.
Yielding to it, I edged forward, unable to stay away.
I got near enough to her that I could reach out and run my fingers along her trembling jaw. The words fell low as I murmured, “And if you need someone? If you get scared or want to give into whatever the fuck happened last night? If you want to run like I know you were planning to do? Then you come to me. You understand? You don’t have to be afraid.”
A shiver streaked through her body, rocking her feet and nearly pitching her into me. Took my all not to loop my arm around her waist and hold her up. Bury my face in her neck.
Take a little more of what I knew better than to be taking.
This woman was dangerous. I couldn’t let her slip through the cracks and the fractures lined inside me. But I wasn’t sure how to stop it when the only thing I wanted to do was slip through hers.
Invade.
Possess.
Her veil slipped, and her expression turned wholly vulnerable. “And what if being afraid is the only thing I know?”
“Then you give that fear to someone who can hold it.”
“Is that what you want? To hold it for me?” It was half a plea. Half a challenge.
I didn’t get the chance to respond before a shrill squeal pierced the air.
“Charleigh! What are you doing? I thought you’d already be out on the trails like the masochist you are, contending with the bears with your bare hands!”
My sister’s voice rang through the morning air, a full tease, and both of us jerked to look that way. Raven was striding up the sidewalkwith Nolan trotting along beside her, their hands twined and swinging between them.
Looking of light and life.
Hope for the hopeless.
Charleigh tried to straighten herself out. Hide the evidence of the trauma I could see stamped all over her.
Concealed but in plain sight.
I shoved my hands back into my pockets to keep myself from making some brazen move like slipping an arm around her waist, staking a claim, and I let a scowl take to my face so Raven wouldn’t be getting any ideas in her pretty little head with the way she was looking between the two of us right then.
“Hi, hi, Miss Charleigh!!!” Nolan shouted as they approached. “What are you even doin’ here? I woke up and my auntie said my Daddy-O went to the bakery to pick up some goodies, but I told her I wanted to go with him, so we had to leave really, really fast.”
It was just then I was noticing my son was wearing his pajamas and slippers, and he was waving that knitted puppy over his head.
It still fucked my head all up that she’d been so thoughtful.
Raven lifted a casual shoulder as she glanced at me. “I tried to text you to let you know we were going to meet you here rather than you picking up breakfast since my favorite little man woke up, but I didn’t get a response.”
At that, my sister tipped her head like she was making an accusation. The mess of black hair that she had tied up high on her head flopped to the side. She had mascara smeared under her eyes, and I realized she had on slippers, too.
Fuckin’ hell. My sister was a damned disaster.
“But I see you might have gotten distracted,” she prodded.
