“No wonder you’re always at HQ.” She didn’t say safehouse, and he appreciated that. He let out a hard breath.
They walked, his fingers still tangled in hers, his chest still tight from everything that had come loose. The trail narrowed, winding through dense trees and cool air. His feet followed hers like muscle memory, like he’d always meant to walk this path.
He wasn’t sure if he could talk yet. Not without falling apart again. But he didn’t let go of her hand. “I thought you left me because you were angry.”
She stopped walking, swinging in front of him, blocking his path. Her eyes softened, and her mouth went so tender, he couldn’t stop himself from tracing it with his thumb.
“No,” she said softly. “I would never do such a thing.” She cupped his jaw, her touch like pure heat shooting into his system. “I don’t run from hard stuff, Kelly. My trip was planned. I went to Vancouver to see my little sister Emily’s ballet debut. I was giving you the time you needed to work out whatever was going on with Ayla. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
It had been like he was suffocating, but he couldn’t get the words out. They sounded so weak inside his head.
“I was thrown…horrified, Blair. She’s like a little sister to me.” His throat tightened, and he looked away. All the things he wanted to say got caught between his pain and the emotional fallout. He took the easy way out. “I hurt her. She acts like I didn’t, but I know I did. I can’t control how I look to women.”
She scoffed. “It’s not your looks, babe, although you are gorgeous. It’s you, and you don’t even know it.”
“What?” He blinked several times. Now his chest was tight for a whole different reason. He was confused, turned on, and wrecked all over again. “Me? How?”
Blair smiled then, slow and devastating, like she knew exactly what he needed to hear and wasn’t going to let him escape from it.
“You’re intense,” she said, voice low. “You walk into a room and everything in it tilts toward you. But then you crack some dry, ridiculous joke, or hold a horse like it’s your best friend. You read a room like it’s a battlefield, and somehow still have enough left in the tank to check on other people when they’re hurting. You’re not just hot, Kelly. You’re present. That’s rare as hell.”
His breath left him in a staggered exhale.
“You’re loyal. Brave. Kind in ways you don’t even recognize. When you look at someone, you see them. Like…all the way down to the bone.” She stepped closer, resting her forehead gently against his. “That’s why women look at you. Not because of the muscles. Not because you’re lethal. Because you make people feel like they matter, and half the time, you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”
He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”
Blair pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, her hands still warm on his jaw. “Well,” she said, with a soft smile, “it’s about goddamned time someone did.” She shifted, not letting him go. When he looked away, she grasped his chin and turned his gaze back to her. “You hesitated twice,” she said quietly. “What aren’t you saying to me?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His throat locked up, the words clattering against the walls of everything he’d built to survive.
Blair didn’t press. She stepped in closer, soft but unflinching.
“This is me teaching you that your heart is safe with me,” she said. “You can say anything to me, you sweet, unbearable man.”
He swallowed hard. She was so beautiful. Too much. Too bright. He wanted so much with her, his chest threatened to cave in from the weight of it. The feelings came crashing down again, fierce and sudden and impossible to escape. But she didn’t move. She didn’t waver.
She just reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, then let them trail slowly down his throat, over the frantic pulse hammering at his skin.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. “When you left,” he said, voice wrecked and low, “I felt suffocated. Panicked. Like a stupid fuck-up. I thought you might be done with me.”
She didn’t laugh. Didn’t soften it.
She just moved, pressing her body flush against his, her arms looping around his neck as if she’d always belonged there. Then she kissed him. Soft. Gentle. Just truth, pressed to his mouth like a balm.
He groaned, soft and broken, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight, absorbing her into him like she was the only miracle he’d ever been given.
He couldn’t breathe without her, and when he was with her, she took his breath away.
How the fuck was he ever going to figure this shit out?
He broke the kiss, his mind and body washed in heat. He was drowning again, senses overloaded, nerves frayed, and he needed to override his body’s primal demand for more.
His breath came ragged. When he saw that flicker of green spark in her eyes, hungry and certain, it nearly undid him all over again.
God…she wanted him. And that was…not good. Not yet.
