I tried not to burst out laughing. He was so exhausted he couldn’t even stand up. “Are you hungry?” I asked, masking my grin.
“Haven’t eaten today,” he yawned. That’s insane, it was dinnertime. I’d gnaw my own arm off if I didn’t get to eat anything all day.
I scooped him up a huge bowl of chili and watched as he inhaled the entire thing.
He didn’t even come up for air.
“S’good,” he murmured through a mouthful of food.
“Thanks,” I said, holding laughter back.
When his bowl was empty he stumbled to his feet and leaned his palms heavily on the table. “Whoa,” he grunted.
“Shit,” I yelped, rushing over to him. “Are you okay?” I wrapped one of his arms over my shoulders, so I could hold his weight.
“Yeah, just really tired,” he said looking down into my eyes. Holding him this way, our faces were only inches apart. He quickly shut his eyes. “You really should stay, Liv. Brooke really needs you here.”
Brooke didn’t need anyone. He was like a tornado of contradictions wrecking havoc across my thoughts. I got the fact that he was exhausted, but enough already with the bullshit. Men and their mixed messages. I was seriously stuck in the sandbox paradox. Does he like me? What does it mean when he throws sand in my hair? I hated men.
I walked him to the front hallway—to the stairway that led to his apartment. “I have a life in Vermont. That’s where I have…”
“What? What do you have?” he scoffed, climbing the steps next to me, grasping my shoulder hard.
Nothing. I had nothing. I wasn’t close to anyone. Didn’t have any family. Thanks for reminding me asshole.
We made it to the top of the staircase and he swayed against his apartment door. “Are you really okay?” I asked, afraid to just deliver him to his door and walk away. What if I found him still there in the morning?
“So fucking tired,” he mumbled.
I opened the door for him and shifted out of his way. I really didn’t want to go inside. “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what I can do to help you.”
His eyes stared into mine for a moment; they were telling me a thousand different things in a language I didn’t understand. Whatever it was—whatever they were trying to communicate to me—it took my breath away. I leaned my back against the doorway, pressing myself against it, waiting for him to walk through. I just wanted him to walk inside. I wanted to close the door. I needed him to. I just needed him to do what I knew he would do—walk away—and not string me along with false hope.
“Nothing, you can’t do anything,” he said, slowly moving closer. “Thanks for dinner.” He slid past me, so close the heat from his body sent shock waves across my skin. I sucked in a quick breath. I couldn’t help it, the way my body reacted to his. He stopped mid-step, his gaze lingering at my lips.
I held my breath, my heart thudding fast in my chest.
Slowly, so slowly, he raised his eyes to mine, both of our bodies shifting closer and closer.
His chest skimmed gently against mine, the softest of touches, created a surge of electrical currents between us. Heat singed across my cheeks. I felt it in my chest, my breasts aching and heavy, begging for his hands. I felt it in my knees, which were weakening and tingly with anticipation. Hell, I felt it between my legs, that familiar ache of wanting a man.
Dean’s breathing turned heavy and audible; his fists balled at his sides.
I raised my face to his, boldly. Whatever it was between us hung thickly in the air. He had to see it. His body was responding to it.
To me.
His eyes darkened as he lowered his lips to my ear. “The way you blush,” his breath whispered against my skin, “makes me feel alive.”
My hands dropped to his waist, my fingers curling into his shirt. Warm thick hands wrapped around my throat, his breath loud and hot against my neck. With his hands on me, I could barely breathe. I wanted to climb up his body and melt over him.
As his hips pressed hard against me, a deep moan rumbled up from his chest. I felt how turned on he was, his arousal hard and thick pushing against me. It made me dizzy with want.
“Dean,” I whispered. I wanted his lips on mine, his tongue inside—
Warm lips brushed gently against mine, hesitating, trembling. Then his mouth—God, his hot, delicious mouth—was covering mine. An explosion of flames burst in my chest. I moaned into his mouth, and he sighed in relief against my lips.
Heat spiraled and swirled up the center of my body as I clutched him closer. His mouth opened, and his tongue slipped achingly slow past my lips. Our breaths mixed, hands clawing at each other.
Then, he was gone.
Icy air froze over my skin, and I jerked forward from the shock of it.
“Shit. Shit. Fuck,” his shoulders stiffened, his head bowed. “I’m sorry…I don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking—” He said, backing away. He couldn’t even look at me. His expression was pained and raw.
I clawed at his shirt trying desperately to pull him back.
“This is wrong,” he groaned quietly, pulling my hands from his shirt and stepping back further.
It wasn’t wrong. I promise you Dean; it’s the farthest thing from wrong. “But why?” I asked, childlike.
He looked at me through anguished eyes. “Don’t feel things for me, Liv. Don’t want me. It’s one thing for me to suffer thinking about you, but don’t do that to yourself.” His voice became urgent, “Being with me? The only thing I could promise you is a world of hurt. And I’m not worth it.” His gaze dropped to the floor. He couldn’t even look at me. “You deserve better than what I have to offer.”
“Yeah. Right. No problem,” I said stunned, face flushing with humiliation. My eyes prickled with tears as my skin tightened, and my scalp tingled with horror. I jumped away, widening the gap between us. “No worries. It’s all good.”
Oh, the lies we tell.
There was a huge problem.
A fucking huge problem.
It was too late. I was crazy about him.
So crazy, I’d have taken anything he’d offer. One night—a few hours even. How pathetic did that make me?
The thought terrified me, and I realized leaving was my only option—the only choice I had to help me forget all about Dean Fury.
Chapter 15
Dean
I woke up at six the next morning with the vision of Liv’s mouth freshly kissed, and her fingers pressed up against her lips. I hadn’t kissed anyone like that in years.
Each time we were alone with one another, it became harder and harder—fire and need and want wrecking havoc between us. In those moments, it was hard to cling to reason or restraint. I began to wonder if staying away was becoming more hurtful than crashing and burning together.
I wanted to be with her, touch her, and watch her body break apart beneath mine. I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head.
It wasn’t just lust that tormented me though—and I think that was the part that confused me—aggravated me. She had this unselfishness about her and courage that set her apart from any other woman I’d ever met. I knew her strong, brave character from the horror stories Brooke used to tell me when I’d ask after her. Ever since we were in grade school, I had this fiercely protective feeling about her—Brooke also, of course—but with Liv it was somehow different. It was more possessive—apprehensive. The thought of anyone hurting her devastated me.
When she wasn’t here, it was easy to avoid the emotions. When she visited—or spoke to Brooke on social media and I saw it—that’s when the feelings would rear their ugly heads, and I’d question my sanity.
I tried to shut her out, tried to be indifferent toward her—and I was failing epically. I was tightly wound, tense with need. But what I needed, what I really needed was to stay away from her. It would keep us both sane.
Last night was difficult to say the least. Dancing with her. Watching her laugh and move. Feeling her body slide over mine. God,
the way she looked at me. A hungry man would be able to live for years just on that alone. Her soft lips and whispered words. Her wit and intelligence. Her hands grasping my skin, nails digging in. The images in my head rattled me.
But those weren’t the only visions haunting me. I could see her life as I wanted it to be: safe, married to some dependable, conservative accountant or someone of that nature with beautiful dark-haired children, pets barking happily behind a white picket fence. I saw her smiling, spinning around with a few kids on each arm, her face flushed with pure happiness, dogs yipping at her feet.
When my thoughts turned to me invading that perfect picture of her, the sky in her world turned gray with angry black clouds. There would be no reliable family, no children. There would just be consuming loneliness and the slow passage of time. She’d always be waiting for me to come home, and always be waiting for that tragic call that I wasn’t ever going to. I wasn’t enough for her to risk her own happiness. I wanted more for her, no matter what the cost it was to me.
Yet, the most selfish, deepest parts of me kept reliving her lips on mine and the way she wrapped herself into me, her scent surrounding me, making me dizzy with want.
Was she in the room beneath mine? Her long legs tangled up in the blankets, dark silky hair fanning out over her pillow.
I dangled my feet off the bed and rubbed at my face. There was no way I was getting back to sleep. Not when I was contemplating the fact that only a few feet of wood and air were between our bodies colliding into each other.
“Get a grip,” I growled to myself through clenched teeth. Coffee. I needed coffee—coffee and a smack upside the damn head to clear my selfish lust-filled thoughts.
I got up and got dressed, made coffee and gulped it down, ignoring the scorching pain as it slid down my throat. I needed something to erase the shit in my head. I needed something else to think about.
Grabbing for a cigar was my next plan, and thinking through the crime scene from the day before. That would end any daydreams I was having of her long smooth legs and the scent of her body lotion, the sweet taste of her lips.
I thumped quietly down the steps and out to the porch.
Even though it was early morning it was still dark outside—only the tease of pink on the horizon. I took a deep breath—exhaling a puff of frosty air—and tried to collect my thoughts. I hunkered down on one of the lounge chairs—the one right near the window to the guest bedroom—and lit my cigar. There were no lights coming from her room; she was probably still sleeping. There was a soft glow to another window though, and I leaned forward on the chair to look into the front bay window further down the porch.
The light from Brooke’s television flickered through the curtains with a silhouette of a person cuddled up on the couch. Leaning back, I smiled to myself remembering my dad, early in the morning sitting in the same position, watching the same police drama, not being able to sleep. He used to warn Brooke and me not to get on the job, but it’s all we knew.
I knocked on the window and watched as my sister went for her firearm.
“It’s me, Brooke,” I called through the glass.
Brooke came out, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. “Can’t sleep any more?” she asked me.
“Nah, wide awake now. How you holding up?” I asked, pulling over the other lounge chair for her to sit on.
As she sat, her face grimaced and her eyes squeezed tight. I laughed, understanding. It was freezing out there, and the surface of the chairs was like frostbite on your skin. “I’m fine,” she said with a shiver. “Just can’t sleep. I keep seeing the kids’ faces in front of me every time I close my eyes.”
“You’ll get used to them there. The ghosts. The ones you couldn’t save.” It was messed up for me to say, but the plain truth. All the dead bodies I’ve ever seen have become my constant companions over the last few years—keeping me vigilant to all the brutality in this world I still need to fight against.
She stared out into the front yard, biting down on her lip, in her lap her hands balled up into tight fists. “Talk to me about something else. Tell me something nice,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
Liv, I wanted to say.
Instead I asked if she’d had any of Liv’s chili.
“Yeah, I did,” she smiled at me, curiously. “She’s a great cook. A great friend.” She cleared her throat as if to say more and then thought better of it and said nothing.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling a drag off the cigar, watching the smoke curl into rings and fade into nothing.
“I’m going to miss her,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
She hit my arm with the back of her hand. “Going to miss her?”
I breathed in deeply, not answering.
“Well, she’s leaving this morning, so just be sure to say goodbye to her. I don’t think she’s ever going to come back here.” Brooke cocked her head to the side, and watched me carefully.
“What? Why?” I stammered, jerking my head back. Was Brooke just saying that to see my reaction? Because that was not a good reaction. But if it were the truth… My heart pounded hard and climbed its way into the base of my throat. And even though sitting outside in the cold was making my inside shudder icily, a cold sweat broke out across my forehead and down my neck.
“Dean, you only know about one tenth of the things her mother did to her growing up. I could tell you horror stories. I don’t know how the hell she came out of that childhood a stable adult. There’s nothing left here for her.”
I found myself glaring at her and tried my best to blank my features, striving to sound indifferent. “And you really think she’ll never come back?”
“Never,” she swore, gravely.
“And she’s leaving this morning…when exactly?” I asked.
She shrugged, “As soon as she wakes up, would be my best guess. She was ready to leave when I came home last night, but I begged her to stay. She was really upset last night about everything.” She rubbed at her eyes and yawned. “I don’t even know if she ever got her mother’s door fixed. All I know is she never wants to come back.”
“Did she say…” I started, then swallowed loudly, and cleared my throat. “Did she say anything else?”
“You mean about you kissing her?” she asked drily, staring at me for a long time afterward.
My heart just about leapt out of my chest. “Shit,” I murmured.
“Not much. She just said you both kissed, and you apologized for doing it. You said it was wrong, and that was that.”
“Did she…was she okay? Did I…” I struggled with the question, mainly because I didn’t want to really hear the answer. I didn’t want to be one of the reasons she never came back here.
“What? Break her?” She laughed. “Dean, Liv has been through Hell and came out a better person because of it. Not you, not her mother, not her father, or anyone else for that matter, can break her.” I was vaguely aware of a throbbing ache in the center of my chest. I opened my mouth to say something, but Brooke lifted a hand to stop me from interrupting her. “Not one of you has that power over her. I’ll tell you one thing; I want to be just like her when I grown up.”
“She is pretty amazing, isn’t she?” I mumbled.
Brooke was quiet for a moment, eyeing me curiously.
“Do you like her?” she asked softly, reaching for my arm.
I hung my head, not wanting to put the words out in the world just yet.
“It’s a pretty simple question, Dean. Do. You. Like. Her?” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah, yeah I do.” My voice sounded hoarse. “I can’t seem to see anyone else when she’s around.”
She measured my expression for a moment and then sat up, leaning closer to me. “The question I have, the question I’ve always had, is what the hell is keeping you away from her?” She clasped her hands together and pulled them back apart. “It never made sense to me.”
&nb
sp; It didn’t make sense to me either.
I raked my hands over my face, trying to think of the right words. It would be nice if someone understood what I was going through. “I just don’t want to hurt her. I’ve never been any good at relationships.” I sighed and shifted back on the cold seat. “God, Brooke you know that better than anyone. You’ve seen me crash hard and burn. My job always came first. I never had time for anything else. I’ve fucked so much up in every relationship I’ve had so far—how can I bring her into that? What am I offering her? To be let down always? I don’t know how to change any of it.”
An icy breeze swept up over the porch making us both shudder and cross our arms over our chests.
“So,” she said hesitantly, carefully choosing her words. “You’re holding onto all the wrong shit, all your mistakes, all your fears, just because you’re used it to being that way,” she asked, darkly.
The fuck you know about me. “I don’t want this life for her,” I said through a locked jaw.
“What life, Dean?” Her tone was curt, low.
“The life of a cop’s girl, okay? I don’t want to see her scared or lonely like mom was. I don’t want her to raise children alone, or have holidays alone or just fucking wonder daily if I’m alive or dead.” I managed to blurt out in frustration.
“So you’ll let her leave. You’ll let someone else take your place. Because you don’t think she’s strong enough.” She stared at me motionless, letting the words sink in.
“That’s not what I said,” I snapped.
“Yeah it is, just reworded. You know what, asshole?” There was a bite to her tone. “I’m a cop too. And I don’t know how anyone would want to do any of this alone. I would do anything, give anything to come home to someone every night that could make me forget all the shit I see during the day.” Her eyes took on a sudden glassy sheen. “Someone to make me feel like this world isn’t just filled with misery and hate. You’re looking at that right in the eye, and you’re pushing it away. You blame it all on your job. Yeah, you spend days putting bad guys behind bars, but you spend your night putting yourself behind them too. You’ve built your own Alcatraz with bars built from all of your own issues.”