See? Teenage boy.
She stares at me. “Why aren’t you running? Surely only insane women have conversations like this with a man they’ve slept with once.”
“Twice,” I correct her.
“What?”
“It’ll be twice in about an hour.”
A small, genuine smile breaks through her defensive mask. She tries to pout to hide it, but it’s too late. I see her.
“And I’m not running because I just came off a longshift, and my feet are killing me,” I tease, moving closer. “Plus, I’m fairly certain I’m the only one who can handle your psychological warfare without crying.”
She shakes her head. “Asshole.”
She grows quiet then, her gaze dropping to the floor. I saw her mother today. I saw them coming out of that department, and I know there are things she isn’t ready to say. It’s probably a weight she’s been carrying so long, she doesn’t even realize it’s there.
“I spent so much of my life being a parent, Beckett,” she says. “I think I’m just… tired.”
I don’t need the full story to understand the exhaustion in her eyes. I’ve seen it in the mirror after a bad week.
I step into her space and lift my hand to her jaw, my thumb brushing lightly across her cheek.
“You don’t have to explain yourself.”
Her hands start moving again. “It’s just that people expect—”
“Madison,” I say her name firmly enough to stop the spiral without bruising it.
She looks up at me, and for a second, she’s not the ice queen she claims to be. She’s just a woman who’s been carrying too much for too long.
“Come here,” I tell her.
She blows out a long, shaky breath and sags into my arms, resting her forehead against my chest.
“So,” she mumbles into my shirt, “I haven’t scared you off yet?”
“Oh, you scare the life out of me,” I say, resting my chin on the top of her head.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes shimmering. “I’d advise against it, Doc.”
“Against what?”
“Getting too close to me. I’ve been known to chew men up and spit them out. I’ll move on and forget you. It’s what I do.”
I see exactly what she’s doing. She’s building the exit ramp. She’s preparing for the break before it even happens because it’s safer that way. No words will quell that doubt. Not tonight, anyway.
So I don’t use words.
I curl my fingers under her chin, tilt her face up, and kiss her. She sighs into my mouth as her hands tangle in my hair at the nape of my neck.
I sweep her up before she can say something reckless, and this time we don’t make it anywhere near the bedroom.
Her back meets the kitchen island with a soft thud right before her legs wind around my waist like they were made for it.
I don’t give either of us time to think.
The silk cami slips over her head, and the sight of her in the low kitchen light—flushed, wide-eyed, already unraveling—makes something dark and possessive tighten in my chest.
