Caroline nods softly, almost as if she doesn’t believe me.
“The scent of the gauze,” I mutter, swallowing down the terror. “It reminds me of other times I’ve been hurt.” She takes it away from my body and puts it behind her back. “You don’t have to hide it,” I say, smiling widely. “I’m okay. You’re the one holding it. You could be stabbing me with a knife right now and I’d be okay.”
Tentatively, she brings the gauze back up to my arm. “If you’re sure. I’m almost finished cleaning it. Do a lot of things trigger bad memories?” she asks, not meeting my eyes.
“I don’t know until I stumble upon something that reminds me of something else. The scent of a hospital is pretty awful. Fireworks and sewage, too.”
Caroline crinkles her nose, leaning away from me.
“We travel in the sewage lines to find targets. One time it took far longer than it should have, and evidently my body revolts now,” I explain. She opens a bandage and applies it with the softest touch. “I can’t pump a cesspool on a build. That’s a messy job anyway.”
“You’re all fixed,” Caroline declares. “I’m sorry about the gauze. I wouldn’t have used it if I’d known.”
“It’s fine. I meant it. I’m not a woman. I don’t say it’s fine when really I’m a bomb of emotional destruction. I’m really fine. Now you know one of my weaknesses.”
She sighs. “If only that were the case,” she says, wadding up the used medical supplies in her fist. “Youare pretty perfect in every single way. So you don’t like the smell of gauze. A lot of people don’t like the scent of hospitals. Tell me something awful, Tyler Holiday. What is your greatest flaw?”
“Deep questions tonight, huh?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll go first. I live inside my head too much. It keeps me from truly living. I mask it by piloting planes and throwing myself into projects full speed ahead. Because really, how can a woman who flies planes be scared of everything else?” Caroline says, standing from the sofa. I watch her through narrowed eyes. Her chest rises and falls as she confesses her truths, eyes brimming with tears. “A man like you isn’t scared of anything, so it’s hard for me to rationalize what you see in me. My fear is that I’m your project. You’ll fix me and then leave me.” Taking a few steps away from me, she lets her gaze flit to every part of my body.
I stand, towering over her. “My greatest flaw? That’s what you want?”
She shakes her head. “It’s what I need,” she amends.
I look out the large window, setting my hands on my hips. “In a job interview, you’d have to say something like, I’m too ambitious or I am a workaholic. In this instance, I think my flaw is simple,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word. Shrugging, I slip my hands into my pockets, my arm stinging from whatever ointment Caroline smeared on me. She’s rapt, waiting for me to confide in her. “I’m mediocrity’s greatest opponent.”
“Explain,” she whispers, folding her arms across herchest.
I cross to her until I’m close enough to see the freckles sprinkled across her small, perfect nose. “I have to be perfect. Or whatever my mind deems as perfection. I don’t do halfway. My moral compass is set to one standard. Perfection,” I growl, shaking my head. “If I can’t do something flawlessly, I won’t do it.”
Under her thick lashes, her eyes search my face for a reason. She won’t find it, though. I know this flaw is something no one will understand unless they are like me. “That’s a little…intimidating,” Caroline croaks.
I brush her hair back so I can study the planes of her face, the high cheekbones, the bow of her top lip, an errant scar that marks the spot on top of her eyebrow. I lose my breath. “No, you’re intimidating,” I growl, bringing my lips to the tip of her nose. She slides her hands up to rest on my stomach, and my body jolts from her touch—everything springing alive with ferocious desire.
“I’m not flawless,” she says.
“You’re my definition of flawless.” I let my hands skirt the small part of her waist. “I’m going to take you into the bedroom now,” I say, my heart hammering out a goddamn symphony.
Biting her bottom lip, she grins. “Can you do that perfectly?”
The feral look in her eyes calls to me, telling me to eat her alive. “Fuck yes, I can.” I scoop her up—her light weight in my arms a reminder of how delicate and preciousthis human is to me.
I lay her down on the light pink bed and take in the sight.
“Come kiss me,” she says.
With one hand on either side of her body, I hold all of my weight up for fear of destroying this crystallized moment. Lowering my head, I rub my lips across hers back and forth a few times before taking her mouth in a kiss. I close my eyes and bask in the feelings. When I open them as I pull away from the kiss, she opens her eyes—a hazy, longing urging to give her more. The words come before I can stop them.
“I’m falling for you, Caroline May.”
Her smile is beatific, something that simultaneously takes my breath away and gives me life. “I’m flying for you, Tahoe Holiday.”
TWELVE
Caroline
The heat seepingfrom his body warms me to my soul. The way he’s looking at me like I’m some long-lost treasure solidifies everything I’ve been trying to prove to myself. Inside this huge beast of a man is a fragile, hesitant heart. I’m in love with Tahoe so endlessly and deeply, I already know no one else in my entire life will compare. The tenderness in moments he has no control over is intoxicating, his subtlety lacks, therefore it’s all on display. He sets my every nerve ending ablaze. From the roots of my hair to my baby toe on each foot, everything is vibrating with uncontrollable excitement.
