Before the thoughts could settle, he was moving—pulling out of her body, turning and gathering her up carefully. He dropped back onto the couch, cradling her across his lap. His chest was slick with sweat under her cheek, and his heartbeat thudded steadily beneath her ear.
His arms tightened around her, smoothing down her spine in long, steady strokes.
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Lily,” he said eventually when their breathing had returned to normal.
“What was that?”Lily asked quietly, her cheek still pressed to Rush’s chest.
Rush closed his eyes and sighed, bone-tired and more sorry than he could find words for. His hand kept moving, slow strokes down her back. Her hair brushed his chin, and he breathed her in—light and clean, lavender and soap, along with the raw edge of warm female skin and hot sex. Comfort wrapped in sin. Just like Lily.
“We had a domestic violence call out at Cedarwood early this morning,” he said finally. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, scraped raw. “Came in around seven, just after my shift started. Guy had just finished an overnight at the factory. His girlfriend said he came in swinging even before he took his boots off.” He rubbed the bruise on his jaw absently.
“When Ben and I got there, he was piss drunk and tearing the place up. The kids were upstairs, crying so hard you could hear them from the street.” His jaw locked, the muscle twitching under the bruise. “It took both of us to pull him off her.”
Lily reached up, brushing her fingertips lightly against his jaw. “Is that where this is from?”
He caught her hand and pulled it away, knowing what she was offering, just as certain he couldn’t accept it. “He caught me with an elbow, but she took the worst of it,” he said matter-of-factly.
“After we cuffed him and had him in the car, sherefused to press charges or go to the hospital—kept saying she was fine.” He laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. “Two black eyes, a dislocated shoulder, and she was still trying to protect him.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “Finally convinced her to take the kids and go stay with her sister.”
“Rush…” she whispered.
“Don’t.” He shook his head, eyes closed. “It’s part of the job.” The words were supposed to sound steady. They weren’t. “Calls like that… they stick, because I’ve lived it.”
She went very still against him.
“My mom was with someone like that after my dad died.” Rush kept his gaze on the fire. “She was with a guy who drank too much and hit her. One night, she packed us up, me and Sarah and Rachel, and tried to get us out.” His throat worked. “A tractor missed a turn and hit us. Crushed my mom inside the car. I helped get the girls out then watched while they cut her free.”
Lily didn’t say anything, and he was grateful. He didn’t want pity. Didn’t want comfort. He didn’t want to feel anything at all except the clean hit of a punching bag or the numbing distraction of sex. Both were simple—heat and friction—a way to bleed out what was coiled too tight in him.
She just looked at him, green eyes gentle, softer than he could stand, and he had to look away. Didn’t she know what happened to people who cared that way? Didn’t she understand you couldn’t go around loving people, not when love didn’t stop fists, didn’t stop trucks from crossing yellow lines, didn’t stop death? There was no armor for that kind of pain.
“I know what you mean,” she said softly after a moment. “I grew up in Cedarwood.”
That made him raise his eyebrows. Annette Hart’s home was known in Northfield for its charm, itscomfort, and its money. Not the kind of wealth that started out in seedy apartment complexes.
“Yeah, it’s wild, considering what she’s built.” Lily nodded, accurately guessing his thoughts as usual. “But that’s where she started. Where we all did. For years, when we were younger, after my dad left. It wasn’t the same as what you went through, but I remember Evie and me hiding in the closet in our room just to get away from the neighbors screaming at each other. I remember my mom working herself raw just to keep us fed and safe.”
Her hand tightened on his. “I respect her so much for that. She kept going when it would’ve been easier to give up. Just like your mom, she wanted a better life for her kids.” She swallowed hard, her eyes shining. “I think your mom would be proud of you, Rush. To know you grew up to be the man who protects people. To know you kept your promise to her.”
Something deep in his chest threatened to split wide open. He wanted to tell her not to give him pieces of herself he couldn’t be trusted with, but the words stuck. He wanted to tell her to guard that soft heart of hers, to protect herself. But still, the words stuck, cemented behind a wall he wasn’t even sure he could scale anymore. Or if he wanted to.
What he could do was this: he could apologize when he fucked up. He looked her in the eye unflinchingly. “I’m sorry for being an asshole.”
She sighed, too and reached up to press a kiss to his throat. “You’re not an asshole, Rush. You’re just a man.”
He wrapped his arms around her, as if that could erase what he’d done. Lily deserved better. Better than him. But he didn’t want to let her go. Not yet.
He was an asshole for that, too—too selfish to let her go and too fucked up to stop holding on.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Ms. Lily,”Bash said, tugging on her arm at the end of the pageant rehearsal, the red-and-blue-Spider-Man mask he refused to take off, sliding down to cover one eye. “Watch this!” He twisted his wrists and crouched, pretending to shoot webs across the studio floor.
“Nice, Bash,” Lily said, suitably impressed. “Although the three wise men traditionally bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh, not Spider-Man webs.”
Bash puffed up proudly. “Yeah, but if Baby Jesus needed saving from bad guys, I’d totally handle it.”
“I’d smash a bad guy with my Hulk fists—” another boy started, pounding his fist into his palm for good measure.
