Page 48 of Serve ’N’ Protect

Her stomach hardened as she grasped the horrors he and his sister must have endured. “Didn’t you and Kelly have any other relatives nearby you could go to?”

She felt rather than saw him shake his head, his hair brushing her forehead. “No, and Steven pretty much alienated everyone around him except for those who stroked his ego.”

“Wait.” Something he’d said puzzled her. “You said you got your degrees online while you were in the marines. Why didn’t you accept any of those athletic scholarships? That would have gotten you away from him and out of the house.”

“I couldn’t. I had to turn them down. If I’d gone away, Steven might have turned that belt on Kelly. She’s two years younger than I am. I couldn’t escape until she was ready to leave for college herself. By that time, all my scholarship offers were null and void.”

“So you stayed.” And missed out on what should have been one of the most exciting and wonderful times of his life.

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” He squeezed her hand. “Life is full of twists and turns. I found another path, and I’m good with it.”

Was he? Sometimes, she wasn’t so sure. He kept so much of himself tucked away in a secret compartment that he never opened. No wonder he was incapable of expressing his emotions. His bastard father had seen to that.

“Go to sleep, Cassidy,” he whispered, dropping a light kiss on her forehead.

Easy for you to say. Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts about the man whose body she was so securely and protectively snugged against.

No one had ever shown him what it was like to be cared for and to be loved. From what he’d just told her, quite the opposite was true. And she thought she had baggage. He had enough to fill a cargo ship.

But as the seconds ticked by, her eyes became heavy, her breathing deeper. As she drifted off, she could have imagined Markus’s lips again brushing the top of her head.

…

Markus was in hell. Hot, burning, satanic hell. God had dropped him there as payment for all the sins he’d committed in his life, of which there were too many to count.

Thick, wavy hair tickled his nose, the earthy-sweet scent of honey was in his lungs, and the soft curve of Cassidy’s waist lay beneath his hand. All of which was enough for a one-way ticket to an all-nighter of sexual frustration. Being so close to her without kissing or touching her the way his body craved was absolute torture. Can anyone say giant boner?

For the third time in the last few minutes, he shifted, desperately searching for a more comfortable position that didn’t worsen the ache beneath his sweatpants and finding there was no such position.

Cassidy’s chest rose and fell evenly. The sound of her breathing was quieter than a butterfly’s wings.

Holy shit. For the first time in his life, he was waxing poetic, which forced him to face another unsettling factoid. He was in deep, deep trouble.

Being on top of the covers had seemed safer. If he was under the covers, he’d be sorely tempted to do all kinds of things he shouldn’t, things that would only end in emotional disaster. Her emotions, not his. Sometimes, he wondered if he really had any.

Still asleep, she sighed and turned onto her back. Moonlight illuminated the adorable slope to her nose and the lushness of her lower lip. The top of her camisole had risen up a few inches and now his hand rested on totally bare, completely soft, tempting-as-hell skin. It was all he could do not to lean down and kiss that creamy patch of her abdomen.

When she inhaled deeply, his gaze riveted to her chest, and his boner went stiffer than a Marine Corps cadet’s salute.

Breasts fuller than he’d realized she had mounded against the camisole’s thin fabric, the nipples jutting upward like two plump little berries. Enticing didn’t begin to describe how he’d begun viewing her. Somewhere along the way, things between them had begun to change.

Cassidy didn’t wear gobs of makeup or sexy clothes. She didn’t drape herself in expensive jewelry or spray cloying perfume on her neck. Nor had she ever thrown herself at him. Yet she was the sexiest, most desirable woman he’d ever met. Rather than actually shake his head in confusion as to why, he settled for a mental eyeroll.

When she’d asked him to stay with her, he should have said no. Dumbass that he was, he never should have gone to her door in the first place. But she’d been traumatized and he’d known the signs. Having been through it before, how could he not, and how could he have left her alone when she’d asked him to stay?

He couldn’t have, no more than he could ignore his feelings for her. Feelings he couldn’t put a label on, but they were there, inexplicable and confusing as hell. She had a way of pulling some of his worst shit out and afterward he always felt a little bit better. As if some of the weight that had been dragging him down was a pound or two less. Wasn’t his gut-spilling, TMI-moment proof of that? Until tonight, he’d never told a soul what Steven had done to him.

Again, I’m in deep shit. Because nothing had changed. Not where it counted, deep down inside the blackened, hollowed-out cavern of his soul. He could never be in for the long haul, could never share that part of himself that most people did, the part that was at the root of successful, loving relationships like his friends Matt, Nick, Eric, and Dayne had found. Lucky bastards.

Cassidy was a beautiful woman who deserved a man who would love her. Most importantly, a man who could express that love. Unfortunately, Markus didn’t know how. Where once he’d thought that essential human gene had skipped a generation, he now knew otherwise.

The psych degree he’d gotten helped him to understand the issues plaguing him as a child, a teenager, and even to this day: Steven’s shitty parenting. But knowing the source of his problems didn’t automatically gift him with the ability to solve them. That had to come from within, not from lectures or books written by doctors with fancy degrees hypothesizing about the human brain.

The most important lesson he’d learned since then was what a total asshole he’d been. He was glad Cassidy hadn’t known him in his early twenties. She wouldn’t have liked him much.

Did she like him? He hoped so. Then again, she seemed to like everyone she met. She had a heart big enough to forgive even total bastards like her ex-fiancé. Who may, or may not, have been in her house only hours ago. But why would he take the time to steal her laptop? She’d very generously returned the engagement ring which, in his opinion, Hugh had forfeited by virtue of leaving her when she was at her absolute lowest and needed him the most.

Speaking of needing… The thought of leaving Leonardtown and not being near her or able to walk next door and talk to her anytime he wanted left a gaping hole in his chest.