He wasn’t sure he was capable of loving anyone. He wasn’t sure it was safe for him to love anyone. Anyone he loved, Manny would come after, and it could put Kenzie and her twin in serious danger.
He cared about her. More than anything in the world. But love. He didn’t like the word.
“Are you going to answer that?” All the sweet passion was out of Kenzie’s tone. Her face had gone a careful blank, and she was reaching for her robe.
He’d absolutely seen her like this before. When she was unsure, she could put up a hell of a front.
No. He shouldn’t answer. He should talk this out with her. He slid his phone back on the side table. “Kenzie, I care about you.”
Her lips turned up, and if he didn’t know better, he would think she was fine. But her eyes lacked the sparkle they always had when shelooked at him.
He’d never realized how good it felt when she looked at him like he was the sun in the sky.
“Good. I care about you, too,” she replied, her voice carefully controlled. “I’m going to head to the locker room and get dressed.”
“I thought we were meeting Kala and Cooper for drinks.”
“I think I’m going to make it an early night.” She chuckled, though it was all performative. He knew the sound of her laughter, and this was tinged with bitterness. “I think sitting on anything that’s not a bag of something frozen would be a mistake.”
“Did I hurt you?” He thought he’d been careful. He’d insisted on preparation. Should he have taken longer?
When he tried to reach for her, she turned away. “I’m fine. I’m sore but fine. It’s been a long week. I think I’ll get some sleep.”
Fuck. He’d fucked it all up. His phone went quiet. All the intimacy of moments before now felt awkward, and he had to find a way to save this. “Kenzie, those words are kind of loaded for me.”
She pulled the robe around her body and gathered her corset and thong. “Of course they are. I’m sorry. I got carried away. I won’t say them again if they bother you.”
She wouldn’t. Kenzie was a giving woman, but he got the feeling she was one of those women who gave and gave and gave until she was done. She wouldn’t beg for his love. She’d shown him. She’d told him. It was up to him to accept it or not.
He grabbed his leathers, ignoring his cell for the moment. This was a conversation they needed to have. He wished they weren’t having it now. Wished he’d handled this in a way that left them cuddled up in bed. “Baby, I’m fucking this up. I need you to understand how much it means to me that you care about me. If you want to call it love, I’ll get used to the words. I’ll figure out a way to say them.”
Her head shook, and he would bet money she was fighting back tears. “I don’t want you to give me words you don’t mean. But I would like to know where you see this going if we’re not in love.”
Not in love. He didn’t actually like the sound of that, but there was a part of him whispering. His parents “loved” him until he was inconvenient. Deanna “loved” him until she found someone who could give her more. Manny was supposed to be his best friend. How many times had Manny said he “loved” him like a brother?
His brain buzzed with warning alarms.
This was a woman who read romance novels like they were her lifeline. She talked about epic love and swooned over weddings. He would lose her over this. Why hadn’t he fucking said the words? They didn’t have to mean anything. Hell, he didn’t like rom coms and yet he sat there and watched them to make her happy. She had zero interest in what she called sportsball, but she laid with her head in his lap while she read a book and he watched the Blue Jays play so he could stroke her hair and have her close. Couldn’t he say a couple of dumb words?
She took a long breath and put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it now. We’re just having fun.”
Not what he’d told her. He gripped her wrist, unwilling to let her walk out. Not like this. He needed to get her back in bed. He was good in bed. Fucking terrible at this. “We agreed we were serious. When we met that day at Top, we agreed we would give this thing a try. Are you threatening to leave me over a few words? I didn’t once say we were just having fun.”
“And when this mission is over?” Kenzie asked, and now the tears filled her eyes. Her blue eyes that kicked him in the gut every time he looked at her.
The cell buzzed. A text. He ignored it. If it was Joseph, he could talk to Tim. “I don’t know. We both go back to work and see each other when we can. We work together a lot.”
“We work together when it comes to Huisman,” she said. “If we take down Huisman, I think you’ll find there’s not a lot of work for us to do. What if I decided to work less? With my sister moving into a supervisory position, I was thinking it might be time to look at the private sector. Maybe it’s time to open an office in Toronto. My dad always wanted one in New York, but this could be better.”
Kenzie in Toronto? He liked the idea, but what would they do? What would he do? He’d joined CSIS to take down Manny. What would he do when the job was done? Would the job ever be done? Could he marry Kenzie and have kids, because that woman would probably want kids. He didn’t have anything to offer kids. He couldn’t bring his family into it because he would never trust them again. He could still hear his father telling him to look them up once he’d solved the problem and maybe they could talk then.
He would never speak with them again, much less introduce themto children he loved so they could fuck them over, too.
Why was she pushing this? He wasn’t ready for any of this. “I think you should hold off on making decisions like that. You like the job too much. We can work things out. We’ll be good.”
If they weren’t living together, they wouldn’t have to deal with the whole kids and marriage thing. He could still be her Dom. They could meet up and play and spend long weekends together. He wasn’t sure he would be a good husband. She deserved a good husband. She deserved the kind of life her parents had, and he wasn’t sure he could give that to her. Certainly not until they handled Emmanuel Huisman.
She pulled away, and this time he let her. “All right, Ben. I’m going to clean up and I’m going to stay with Lucy tonight. I need to think.”
