With that freedom came the ability to let go and stop hiding her emotions. They burst out of her with a noisy sob, but she didn't try to stop it, letting her tears stream down her cheeks like a mess of tiny ice cubes.
If she wanted to reclaim her life, the first thing she had to learn to do was stop pretending for everyone else’s sake. She just wasn't sure she knew how.
Chapter
Eleven
January 6th
4:29 P.M.
Damn it, she was crying.
Sobbing.
Dragon froze, his confidence floundering. If Cassandra had come out here to her special place to cry, it would stand to reason that she’d want to be alone. Maybe he should leave, head back to the house, and try to talk to her another time.
He’d already turned and taken a few steps in the direction he’d just come when he realized he was running all over again. It was cowardice, pure and simple to never fight for Cassandra to stay. Now he was doing it again. Finding any excuse to delay a conversation he knew had to happen.
Do you want to lose her for good?
The question flitted through his mind with a mocking tone. It was daring him not just to admit that he didn't want to lose Cassandra from his life, but that he wanted an actual life with her. Wanted to find a way to become someone who wouldn't hurt her, who could maybe even cherish her. He had no ideahow to be that person, but the more time he spent in Cassandra’s presence, the more he couldn’t lie to himself about it anymore. He wanted to figure out how to be what she deserved.
Which meant he couldn’t give in to the urge to run and hide. Not this time.
Resolutely, Dragon turned once again and stepped out of the trees, alerting Cassandra to his presence. He knew the exact second she saw him because she choked on a sob, and he thought she was going to quickly stuff her feelings down, wipe away her tears, maybe offer him a small chuckle, or at least some words to convince him that she was okay.
But she wasn't okay.
Not even close.
Only this time, Cassandra didn't try to stop her tears or offer him a smile, their gazes met, and she held his, allowing tears to continue to flood down her cheeks.
Those tears did something to him, tore something wide open inside his chest. A rush of emotions he could identify but wasn't sure he’d ever experienced before came flooding out. Tenderness, affection, softness, a desire to go over there and wrap her in his arms, kiss away those tears, then hold her on his lap so she would know she wasn't facing the uncertainties of the world all alone.
Still holding her gaze, Dragon closed the small distance between them. Instead of pulling Cassandra into his lap, he sat on the rock beside her, close enough that their bodies touched, and he soaked up the feel of her against him.
“I never told you this before, but this was where I always used to come when I needed to be alone, but also needed the grounding of nature around me,” he admitted. Growing up in a mafia family, there was no time to play or enjoy the beauty of the grounds surrounding the family home. Besides schoolwork, he was expected to learn the family businesses, shadow hisfather, and work out in the gym. There had been no time for his caged soul to fly free, not until he moved out there and had the freedom to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to do it.
“This is your special spot, too?” Cassandra asked, lifting a mittened hand to brush away her tears.
Snapping out a hand, his fingers circled her wrist before she could get the moisture on her gloves. In the cold temperatures, that small amount of moisture would freeze into icy little crystals, making her hands too cold.
Her surprised eyes stared at the fingers gently holding her wrist, then his other hand as it reached out to capture her tears. Like it was mesmerized, her gaze didn't break away as he brought his fingers, covered in her tears, to his lips. If he could take her pain that easily he would in a heartbeat.
What was more pain and suffering when it was all he’d ever known?
Cassandra was pure, she was innocent, she was light. Anything that dared to touch her made him want to tear the entire world down to punish it.
“My special spot,” he agreed as he kept his hold on her, only letting his fingers slide down to hold hers rather than her wrist.
“I never knew that, you never told me.”
“Never told anyone.” The guys all had their spots around the house and grounds that they escaped to when the raging fire inside them got too big to handle and they needed to disconnect and get themselves back under control.
It was in the first weeks of living there that he’d found this small waterfall. In those earlier days, he’d struggled to tame his anger in a way the guys hadn't. They might not have all lived perfect lives before they joined the military, but none of them had been raised to be the head of a mafia family. None of them had their childhoods stolen from them, and the resulting seed of anger long since planted.
Finding Cassandra at the spot where he sat when he needed to calm himself filled him with a sort of pride he hadn't been expecting. It was almost like she’d sought it out because it was his, even though he knew she couldn’t smell his scent there the same way he could smell the lingering scent that marked this place as his.
