“You’re safe with me, Pip,” I whispered, eyes caressing his face. “And I’ve never lied to you.”
“But you said?—”
I pressed two fingers against his lips, stopping the words, though powerless to the instantaneous pull he wielded over me.
“My name isn’t Hero,” I said, leaning down to hover mere inches above where my fingers pillowed on his lips. It’sHiro.”
Realization lit his eyes. His lips moved, but I pressed my finger down to keep him from talking and explained. “It’s Japanese. But in English, it sounds almost the same as hero.”
He made a sound, and I stopped him again, continuing the explanation.
“I should have realized, but it caught me off guard.” My eyes strayed down, locking onto that lush mouth. My voice dropped an octave, but I swear the temperature in the room rose. “Hearing my name from those lips turned out to be the ultimate distraction.”
No one ever called me by my given name. Not since I’d left home to join the military over ten years ago. After that, I had no first name. No last. I simply stopped existing and became a ghost, a mere shadow of a man.
Hearing it from him as he lay limp in my arms set off an instant visceral reaction beneath my skin. I likened it to suspicion and mistrust instantly because that was the way I’d been conditioned. Of course, I thought he was up to no good and sent as some sort of trap.
Or maybe you knew all along, but you needed an excuse.
An excuse to stay and take care of him. To make it okay not to dump him and go.
Because the facts were out to play, and I knew almost upon first sight that this pocket-sized pip was too innocent for deception. My bestie Kieran might be convinced there was exactly zero goodness left in this world—and I would admit it was definitely rare—but I knew it wasn’t completely eradicated.
After all, why else would I do what I do?
This gem of innocence was even more rare because it was packaged up to look like my Achille’s heel. My exact type. Soft. Slight. Defiant in the face of cruelty.
Notice I did not say weak.
Because, my guy, you could not be soft, slight, and innocent in this world while also being weak. You had to be a survivor. If you weren’t, you’d be on the fast track to skeleton status.
You see now why I was so entranced from moment one. Keeping that soft innocence while also surviving was a skill few possessed. Wrap that up in blond hair, stormy eyes, anda body that fit perfectly against mine, and what you got was a loophole in my self-control.
Beneath me, Pip hummed, the sound vibrating the finger still trapping his lips. I lifted the digit, my gaze never once leaving his face.
“Hiro.” My name slid from his tongue as though he’d been saying it all his life, his pronunciation shifting slightly, putting more emphasis on the beginning and softening the O at the end (h-IH-roh).
And even knowing we’d just met, it felt like he knew me. As if he was able to look past the ghost and see the man.
Inebriated, enamored, maybe a little obsessed, I abolished the inches between us to devour what was left of me on his lips, sinking deeply into the kiss to blur the line between us so we could bleed into one.
Everything about him was soft and yielding, a perfect yes to my no. A mind-erasure to every thought that should have had me pulling away. His little moans, the way his fingers clutched at my hair, how perfectly his pliant tongue curled around mine. Everything about him made me drunk, turning me reckless until I tumbled over headfirst into a free fall to a place I was never supposed to go.
A sudden burst of sound decimated the quiet of the room, turning the fevered way he clung to me into something that felt a lot like fear. Instantly, I went into protection mode, anchoring him close and dipping my face into his neck to brush a soothing kiss across his skin.
“It’s just my phone,” I said, my voice rusty, as if it hadn’t been used in months.
His arms trembled around my neck, and once again, Iwondered how he’d survived this long alone.
“Do you need to answer it?” he asked.
I definitely needed to answer it. “No.”
The tension in his limbs released, leaving me to support him entirely, a task that was easier than breathing. The phone rang a few more times before the sound cut off and we were left with silence once more. Except it wasn’t the same. I’d been dragged under before, drowning in passion, and now I was at the surface.
I looked down, taking in his flushed cheeks, wild bed head, and swollen lips. How easily I could drown again… “How you feeling, Pip?”
“I like being here with you,” he whispered, peering at me from beneath feathery lashes that fluttered like coy butterfly wings.
