He still didn’t meet her gaze. “I know you’re trying to help,” he explained. “With the…the stuff with Sarah, I mean. But I just can’t go back there and pull all those memories up again. They’re bad enough as it is, with the dreams and everything…”
“The dreams?” she asked softly.
“I—I used to have these dreams all the time, about what happened to my brother,” he continued, stilted. He wasn’t used to being this honest with anyone, let alone her, and making himself so vulnerable felt like a mistake. He had held it all in for so long, so how could telling the truth fix any of this? “And I thought they were done a long time ago,” he went on. “Actually, they were. Up until the night of the fire. Ever since then, I’ve been…dealing with them again. I don’t think I’ve made it through a whole night without having them at some point.”
“But the fire was nearly three months ago,” she whispered.
He grimaced. “Yeah. I know.”
She fell silent for a moment and followed behind him as they made their way back to his vehicle. It was obvious she still had a lot of questions, but he wasn’t sure he had it in him to keep answering. Even sharing that much hurt. It brought to mind all the memories of Max that Xavier had been torturing himself with for so long now.
He wished he could just focus on the good times, but every time his beloved baby brother came into his mind, it was with the harsh reminder of how he had been lost. How Xavier had been there, right there next to him, and unable to stop it. Maybehis mom had been right when she blamed him for his brother’s death.
How could he have let it happen?
Whenever he closed his eyes, that was all he could see. Fire, blood, the sudden blank look in Max’s eyes, the blooming red stain on his neck running down his camouflage uniform as he fell to the ground. Nothing could have saved him, but that didn’t mean that Xavier didn’t wish he had tried. He had been so frozen in shock and horror, he had taken vital seconds to snap back into reality, and if he had acted sooner…
He climbed into the SUV, and Hannah scrambled in the other side, not taking her eyes off of him. Gripping the wheel, he kept staring straight ahead. Had he said too much? Maybe now she thought he was weak, pathetic for being so consumed by the memory of what had happened.
But if she wanted to know, he would do his best to be open with her. She was about the only person in his life he felt like he could be honest with about this, even if he didn’t know why.
No, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly why. As much as he might have tried to deny it, it was the same reason he had been so shaken after the fire. He had seen far worse, far more violence than that, but it was the first time in a long time that he felt like he had a life worth protecting.
Like he had someone in his life he wanted to protect.
Instead of sitting in the passenger seat like he expected, Hannah got to her knees on the seat, not taking her eyes off of him. He turned to her, confused, and before he could say anything, she launched herself into his arms, wrapping herself around him, one hand at the back of his neck and the other slowly rubbing against his shoulder.
He thought about pushing her away, setting her back in her own seat, he really did. Maybe a stronger man would have, but he knew that he couldn’t. It felt too good to have her that close.As soon as she touched him, he felt everything else just fall away, all the fight he’d had to keep his distance vanishing.
“It’s going to be okay, Xavier,” she murmured to him.
He couldn’t think of anything to say back, but he didn’t need to. Instead, he slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her in even closer to him. The scent of her shampoo and perfume filled the air around him, creating this little protective bubble that seemed to keep them safe from the rest of the world. He didn’t care what anyone else thought in that moment. The only thing that mattered to him was the feel of her small, strong body pressed against his and her promise that everything was going to be okay.
Because, when she said it, he could almost believe her.
Chapter Ten
The embrace caught her off guard, but it felt so deliciously good, Hannah couldn’t find it in herself to pull back. The pressure of his strong hands around her waist, pulling her in close; the feel of his breath on her neck… All those touches that she had craved for so long but denied herself for fear that it would just drive a deeper wedge between her and her brother.
But now, here, in the quiet of the vehicle, there was no way either of them could deny it, this sweetness between them, this need. She pressed her head into his shoulder, inhaling the scent of him, and wondering how she had lasted so long without this.
When she pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes, she had no idea how he would react. Would he push her off, tell her they couldn’t do this? Or would he give her what she had needed for so long?
Her heart slammed up against her ribs as he slowly lifted his hand to her face and cupped her cheek. His thumb rubbed against her skin in slow, soft motions.
And then, at last, he dipped in close and kissed her.
It wasn’t a peck—it was a real kiss, a kiss that tingled from the top of her scalp to the very bottom of her toes. She smiled against his mouth and pressed herself into him, arching her back so she could show him just how much she wanted him. Nothing else made sense to her right now but the feeling of his mouth against hers, his tongue caressing the inside of her lip, a soft, delicious tease that made her whole body light up.
When he drew away from the kiss, he was breathing hard, but there was a smile on his face. She gazed at him, a little more nervous than she would care to admit. But God, that smile—it was everything to her. When she saw him smile, she knew there was no denying it. She was in love with him. She had been for years now, for so long she had lost track of it, but that didn’t matter.
The way he kissed her, she knew he loved her, too.
“We should get back to the sanctuary,” she murmured reluctantly. “Someone’ll notice we’re both gone.”
“Yeah, someone like your brother.” He sighed.
She pulled a face. “Oh don’t bring him up. Let me pretend we can get away with this a little longer, huh?”
