Page 48 of Lethal Weakness

“I’ll watch over you in case he comes back. You rest,” he murmurs, pushing my wet strands off my face.

His shirt is plastered to his torso, and I can’t stop my hands from roaming over it, gripping the wet fabric.

“You’re wet.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I won’t be able to sleep if I think you’re cold, and I’m exhausted.” I grip the bottom hem of his shirt and push it up his stomach and to his chest until he’s forced to comply, raising his arms to help me remove it.

I gasp when I see his bare chest. He has scars everywhere. Thin scars that are only an inch in length, circle scars that I’m afraid I know the source of, and a few that are deeper and probably required quite a few stitches.

His gun is holstered inside the front of his waistband, and even though I can’t help but see it, I keep my hands clear. Instead, I let them wander over his skin, feeling his muscles twitch underneath my fingers.

When I lean forward, kissing his chest softly just above his heart, his breath hitches. “Thank you for saving me.”

I kiss the other side of his chest, and then as high as I can reach, just above his collarbone, when his fingers thread into my hair at the base of my skull, tipping my head back.

“You have no idea the lengths that I would go to save you,” he states seriously, stealing my breath away. “That’s why I should stay away from you.”

His agony sobers me.

“You are my weakness, Linden.”

He wants me…

But he doesn’t want to…

And I don’t understand why.

A sad smile tips the corners of my mouth because I know he won’t tell me. I’m just the foolish girl who lives next door. “I’ll go get you a dry shirt.” Not someone anyone could care about enough to truly fall for.

As soon as my eyes drop from his, he releases his grip on my hair and lets me back away from him.

When I come back, dressed in my own dry clothes, he’s seated in one of my kitchen chairs, directly by the front door. Fully prepared to sit out here all night watching over us.

“Here. This is one of my dad’s old work shirts. It should fit.”

He takes the gray metal works shirt from my grasp and slides it over his head. It fits, though it looks a bit snug in the shoulders.

“You said that your parents are in New York?”

Did I tell him that? Maybe I did. “Yeah. My dad worked for one of the biggest metal companies outside of Albany. He lost both of his legs in a workplace accident and is medically retired now. My mom is a hairdresser that specializes in perms. It’s a dying business.” I cringe at my own crudeness, but he chuckles softly.

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him laugh.

“My dad insisted that I use his settlement check to go to college. He was a big Virginia Tech basketball fan. I went there for him.”

“How do they feel about all of this?”

“Well, they know that I’m trying to get divorced, but that’s about the extent of it. They didn’t attend my wedding, and they don’t know about all of Turner’s problems. I didn’t want them to worry. They assume that I like it here and want to stay.”

“I’m sure they would want to know the truth.”

“I know. I’ll tell them the truth eventually. But probably not until I’m out of the quicksand.”

He grabs my hand gently, rubbing his thumb over my skin, and resting it over the pulse point near my wrist.

“Are you sure you want to stay here all night?”