Page 60 of Sterling Heat

“I didn’t go to college, Enya.” There’s shame in his admission. “I worked at Seed and Soil, sinking deeper and deeper into the drugs, thinking that place would be my entire life. Slinging mud, like my name suggests.”

Only his name doesn’t mean mud and I’m about to correct him when he continues.

“Then shit got heavy. I’d been in trouble for breaking and entering, but I wasn’t a fucking thief.” His voice drops lower. “Then someone tricked Vale.” He shifts his head, and an intense gaze meets mine. “He promised her things he couldn’t give her, and he wanted to do things to her a brother should never hear. He’d brought her to a party she shouldn’t have been at. Thankfully, she got away from him. He didn’t get away from me, though. He ran to this abandoned farmhouse and . . .”

He swipes both hands over his face again and jackknives upright, startling me with the sudden movement. “I should go.”

Reaching for his forearm, I squeeze his warm skin. My touch is cool from the story he just told and the fear inside me that someone intended to hurt Vale, violate her.

“But you don’t have to.” I don’t want him to leave, and I don’t want him to feel his confession changes how I view him. He’s still a hero, despite his past. Maybe even his past is the reason he’s heroic now.

“Don’t romanticize me,” he warns, his tone sharp and surprising, as he watches me, reading me. “I’ve done terrible things. I hurt my family. I got kids hooked on drugs. I killed a man,” he reminds me, and I make my own connection between his admission and what I’ve just learned. My home was the abandoned farmhouse. Only it isn’t abandoned now. It isn’t even the same blueprint.

“Is it difficult to be here?” Can he not enter this place without thinking about what happened here once upon a time?

Slowly, I release my hold on his forearm and adjust Adara. She’s fallen back to sleep, and I swipe at her languid mouth with my finger. Shifting her to my shoulder, I gently pat her back, hopeful for a burp to prevent gas.

Sebastian doesn’t answer my question. He also doesn’t make a move to leave the bed.

Once Adara gives a little belch, I gingerly rise from the mattress and set her back in the bassinet. Then I turn to face Sebastian.

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable here. The house’s footprint is very different than its original layout, but I understand if you feel like ghosts are still present.” I don’t mean literally that spirits haunt my home, but if the memories disturb him, I’ll have to accept he won’t want to visit me. “I don’t want you to feel bound to stay.”

I won’t be an obligation to him. He doesn’t owe me anything. If anything, I’m indebted to him.

But it’s more than feeling beholden to Sebastian. His kind heart drew me in. The chemistry between us makes me want to keep him.

He’s been nothing but a genuine gentleman, offering up his home, playing Adara’s dad, and now this, staying the night to keep us safe.

The part I need to keep in check is how insanely attracted I am to him. His settling presence. His strong embrace. His silent comfort.

The way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m a puzzle he wants to piece together. Or maybe a craving he won’t allow himself to taste. But I’ve already made a fool of myself over him. Twice. I kissed him months ago in momentary celebration and instant attraction. Then I asked him to kiss me again, and he refused.

He’d done the honorable thing. He wants to be friends and I’ll take him any way I can. If that means holding at bay the yearning I have to be touched by him, the longing I harbor to experience him, then I can do that.

Because I don’t want to lose Sebastian.

My fear is bigger than my attraction. I’m afraid he’ll walk out of my life because he’s sick of playing hero to my hot mess. He’ll leave behind a gaping hole in my heart.

Turning toward the bathroom, I need a minute to collect myself. But the sudden rustling of the bed and then strong arms around my middle stops me in my tracks.

Sebastian’s nose presses into the side of my neck. “It isn’t you, Enya. It’s all me.”

My eyes close, recalling similar words rearranged and said by another man.

You’re just too much, Enya. And it just isn’t in me to give you what you want.

What I’d wanted was my boyfriend of eleven years to love me. To propose to me. To give us a family.

How had I been so blind? Why was I doing it again? Clinging to someone who has been open about what he can and cannot handle.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I awkwardly state to break this weird tension between us. Plus, I don’t know how to respond to his statement. It isn’t him. Sebastian is the one who has done nothing wrong. He’s been open from the start on how he felt about fatherhood and family. He’s also been here for me in ways no one else has. Even Cadence had to leave early. I’m the one left feeling like it’s always me who wants too much, too soon, too fast.

Although I wouldn’t call eleven years of waiting too much, too soon, or too fast.

Now, I’m the one wanting things, wishing on spent dandelions, for a seed of hope that Sebastian won’t walk out of my life.

When he releases me, I take a moment to gather my thoughts and pee. When I return to my room, I don’t expect to find him still in my house, let alone in my bed. But he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, waiting for me.