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“Bullshit,” he told her. “Yeah, you have a job that takes a certain level of strength. Mental and physical. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get scared. Fear helps keep us alive. It’s when you stop getting afraid that things can happen. That you slip up. I’d be worried if you didn’t get scared. Is that why you always put up such a hard, cold front? Because you think people will think badly if you’re afraid?”
“I know they will,” she whispered.
“Well, screw them. You should have a safe place to let the stresses and anxieties free.”
“I wish I had that. I don’t think I ever had.”
He frowned. “What about with family? Friends?”
“In my family, we’re not allowed to show weakness.”
What the fuck? He pushed that to one side for the moment.
“I get why this is frightening. You don’t know me that well. You don’t know that when I say something I mean it. When I promise something, I always follow through. And that when you’re mine, I will always take care of you. You don’t know that your trust is safe with me. But if you let me in, just a little, if you give this thing between us a chance, you’ll see all that. Trust is a delicate thing. When you have it, you can feel the safest you have ever felt. But when it’s broken, it can shatter you. I’d never shatter you, Georgina.”
She sucked in a breath. “What if I’m already broken?”
“Then we figure out how to help you. Together.”
“You’d want to do that? You’d really want to help me? Because there are things you don’t know . . . that if you did, you would want to run a mile.”
“I’m not easily scared, honey,” he told her gently. “And I’m not really a runner, I don’t exactly have the build for it.”
She glanced over at him shyly. “I like your build.”
He felt his chest puff out. Jesus, next thing he’d be strutting around like a rooster. Idiot.
“I’m the type who will stand and fight, rather than run and hid
e. Tell me why you ran after our last kiss.” He kept his voice gentle but firm. She looked like she was ready to bolt again and he knew he had to tread carefully. He was coming to see that she hid a lot of insecurities and vulnerability beneath the mask she tried to portray to the world.
“I had to go back for work.”
“But you didn’t answer any of my messages.”
She cringed. “I know. I didn’t know what to say. I thought maybe the kiss was a fluke. Perhaps I made it out to be bigger than what it was. I don’t have a lot of experience, maybe it didn’t mean as much as I thought it did. I got scared and I ran and hid. I’m really ashamed of myself for doing that.”
“Then don’t do it again. Don’t push me away. You feel scared, you feel the need to run, then you come to me. I’ll keep you safe. And I happen to make a very good buffer if you need to hide. I can keep the rest of the world at bay, even if it’s just for a little while.”
“And if it’s you I’m scared of?”
He frowned. She was scared of him? Did she think he would hurt her?
“Not physically scared,” she said quickly.
Ahh, right.
“Even if it’s something to do with me, that scares you, I want you to come to me. I want to be that safe place for you. If I do something, say something, then you get in my face and you tell me what it was.”
“Then what?”
“Then we work on fixing what’s wrong.”
“It sounds so simple. This is going fast.” She reached up to rub at her temple. He gently grasped hold of her fragile hand. The last thing he should be doing was stressing her out.
“This can go as slow as you need it to. All I ask is that you don’t run and that you try to talk to me. Come inside with me. Let me take care of you. That can be it for now.”
“No more kissing?” A look of disappointment filled her face before she slammed her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I just said that,” she mumbled.
