So that’s what it was like to feel.
He must have hurt her. No way he hadn’t hurt her. He should go back and apologize. Except his mouth wasn’t shaped around “I’m sorry” but rather words he could never speak, never take back.
The air conditioner thunked off, leaving only a ringing silence. No sound from the apartment. No sound from the bar below. Only the rush of breath and blood in his ears and that strange heaving in his chest, like a wild, caged thing gripped his ribs and rammed shoulder to breastbone like the bars of a prison, testing for weaknesses, seeking a way out.
He took a deep breath. Unfisted his hands. Consciously relaxed the muscles in his thigh until the pain grinding into his back eased. Control surfaced, familiar and comforting. He shaped his mind around it, felt the struggling thing inside him recede as iron gray steel reasserted itself under his skin, encasing his muscles and bones. His pulse slowed, and he got to his feet, found his shoulders squaring, his body once again under his command.
He took the first step, then the next. All systems go. She’d be asleep by now. They were both exhausted. Under duress. She needed sleep more than she needed to debrief what just happened. What he’d just done. In the morning he’d apologize for losing control and essentially brutalizing her.
The hell of it was, he knew walking out the door had hurt her more.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Noise. An intrusive, annoying clanging, too close to her head to be her alarm because her phone was charging in the kitchen. She’d have to get out of bed to turn off the alarm.
The bed shifted as the warm body beside her reached for the nightstand. Through the stupor of sleep she heard Matt fumbling for his iPhone in the mess on top, then a solid thunk as something hit the carpeted floor—the Sig or his department-issued Glock, probably. Maybe the knife. Possibly the economy-sized bottle of lotion she slathered on her hands before she went to bed. Most likely a gun.
“I’ll take it,” she said, her voice thick, trusting he’d hand her the shrill electronic device, not a semiautomatic.
He dropped the vibrating, buzzing phone on her abdomen and rolled onto his back. “Christ,” he muttered.
She sat up, then paid the price for moving. He’d held her in place by gripping the hip that hit the linoleum the night someone shot out her windows, so when she sat up fresh twinges shot through the joint. Muscles in her thighs and calves protested vehemently when she moved.
None of that compared to the shredded ache she felt in her heart.
She swiped at the screen to shut off the alarm, then automatically checked various accounts without really seeing the comments and replies. It was something to buffer her against the turbulent emotions eddying in the air.
“Time is it?” he asked, his voice morning thick.
“Noon. Sorry. I should have set it back an hour, but I fell asleep instead.” And she’d forgotten to charge the phone as well. She’d lain awake, unwilling to follow him down into the bar and badger him further but exhaustion finally won.
She felt like she would never be rested again.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think that’s my line,” she said.
His arm covered his eyes, and his chest rose and fell evenly. Too evenly. In for a count of four, out for a count of four. Repeat. She looked at the hand loosely curled on his chest. The thin skin covering his knuckles looked like her heart felt.
He wasn’t going to answer her. Finally she said, “I’m fine.” Tears prickled at the backs of her eyes. She blinked hard, and after a few moments the sensation faded. “I’m sorry, Matt. I pushed when I shouldn’t have.”
I wanted something I shouldn’t want … something I can’t have.
“I’m sorry too.” He lifted his arm from across his face, looked her right in the eye. “I was too rough.”
“It was fine. You were fine.” She could handle that. Handle more. “I won’t break, Matt.”
“I might.”
She knew he’d meant to make a joke and defuse the tension, but the words sounded like he’d forced them out through steel wool. A wave of mortified regret crawled up her throat. Ten seconds earlier she’d told herself she had to stop pushing, and here she was … pushing.
Give him some space, some time. “I’m going to get in the shower.”
“Okay.”