A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

 

“You said they’re famous. A baseball player, a celebrity, and a politician. How did that happen? How deep does this go?” I pluck one of Daddy’s favorite phrases from my memory. “How high up the chain of command does this penetrate?”

 

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

 

“Liar.”

 

His eyes widen with shock, then narrow, his head tilting down, hands still burning his fury into me. “I don’t lie to you, Lindsay. I might not always tell the full truth, but I don’t lie. I don’t do that to you.”

 

“Then what do you do to me, Drew?” My breath quickens. Suddenly, every inch of my skin is extra-aware of his body, so close to mine.

 

“You tell me.”

 

Free. I feel free. Not one hundred percent free, but when you’re trapped, any amount of freedom feels expansive. Freed from the shadows of the past, freed from truth that never made sense, and now I know was a lie. Drew didn’t let them hurt me. He wanted to stop them. He couldn’t.

 

And if you can’t stop someone from hurting someone else, it’s not your fault.

 

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper, reaching up to touch his brow. “It wasn’t my fault. We’re just victims.”

 

He flinches at that word. “We’re survivors,” he corrects. “Survivors.”

 

“Fighters,” I say, stretching up to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”

 

I feel him recoil. “Thank you? For what? I didn’t do anything.” His nostril’s flare, his jaw clicking. “Couldn’t do a damn thing.”

 

“You told the truth. That’s more than I’ve had for four years.”

 

I feel his restraint. He’s trying so hard to contain his emotion. His skin shimmers with movement in the night, the waves of warmth radiating off him moving me.

 

And then his mouth is on mine.

 

We’re completely alone in my bedroom, the soft bed under my back in seconds, his body hot and pressing, his desire for me evident.

 

A little too evident.

 

“Ow,” I gasp. “That, um, is really digging into my hip.”

 

He frowns, then looks down. “That’s my gun.”

 

“Interesting nickname for it.”

 

He chuckles, removing the gun belt and placing it on my nightstand. On his knees and hovering over me, he never breaks eye contact.

 

“I’ve missed you,” I say, watching him.

 

“God, I’ve missed you, too.”

 

“More than that, I’ve missed knowing that my friend really was there all along.”

 

His face breaks as I say the words, emotion sweeping through his features. Tenderly, he moves to my side, propping himself up on one elbow, his other hand tracing the line of my nose, my cheek, my jaw.

 

“I’ve been here the whole time, trapped behind too many walls. Truths I wasn’t allowed to reveal. I’ve missed talking to you. Four years without you feels like a lifetime in hell.”

 

“Strong words coming from a guy who served two tours in Afghanistan.”

 

“I know whereof I speak.”

 

Four years weigh on me like the burden that they are. We’re suspended between the breakthrough of the truth, and the horror of all this unresolved history.

 

And then there’s the fact that we’re alone in my bedroom. No rules. No interruptions. No limits.

 

We can do whatever we want.

 

So what do we want?

 

Drew answers my unspoken question with a kiss. His mouth says I’m sorry.

 

His hands say I’m hungry.

 

Hungry for you.

 

No one has touched me intimately in so long. Our kiss the other day was nothing compared to this. We have the luxury of laying on a bed, stretched out, his body unfolding for me to touch and stroke, explore and forgive.

 

Forgive.

 

“I forgive,” I whisper between kisses. “I forgive myself.”

 

“And me?” The anguish in his voice makes me halt.

 

“I want to forgive you.” He needs to hear the words. I know he does. You can’t erase four years of worrying and looping with a single sentence. A handful of kisses. A conversation.

 

You just can’t.

 

I can’t.

 

“I understand,” he says, “because you’re ahead of me.”

 

“Ahead?”

 

“I can’t forgive myself. I can’t. You should forgive yourself, because not one drop of it was your fault. But I keep going over that night, wondering how I could have outsmarted them. Overpowered them. Done something more.”

 

“You couldn’t.”

 

“I could now.”

 

I am tracing the edge of his cheekbone as he says that. I stop, my finger perched on the hollow bone beneath his right eye. “You could?”

 

“I know how. Took years of training. But yes.”

 

Some muscle in my chest releases. “Really?”

 

“That has been my single goal these four years. To learn how to win. How to win in any battle. Make no mistake, Lindsay. When I say they will never hurt you again, I mean it.”

 

Drew’s eyes telescope, like a sniper’s sight.

 

“I believe you,” I blurt out. Because damn.

 

He’s hard core. There is no ambiguity here.