“Hey, baby. Why don’t you guys sit here and have your breakfast while I look for your daddy?”
“Told you, Daddy’s upstairs. He made a mess,” Mary says sadly.
“A mess?”
A crash comes from upstairs, and she winces.
A chill goes through me.
Shit. “I’ll be right back. Don’t you worry about a thing.” I flash them a quick smile and hurry up the stairs. “I’ve got this.”
Let’s hope I’m right.
I don’t know what to expect. A full-blown psychotic episode? Violence. At least there hasn’t been another crash since I came upstairs.
Still. Fear is a touch of ice in my veins as I peek into Matt Hansen’s bedroom for the first time. His door is open—also for the first time.
Taking a deep breath, I enter.
He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows braced on his knees, his hands over his face. As I watch, he rubs them up and down, then as if feeling my gaze, turns to look at me.
“Tay,” he says in his deep voice, and I freeze.
Not just because of the unexpected nickname. I like the sound of it, though nobody else calls me that.
No, it’s the raw pain in his dark eyes, bared for me to see, that takes my breath away.
Then he turns away and curses, breaking the spell.
“I thought I heard a crash.” There are things strewn on the floor. Books. A broken gadget that looks like a tablet. There’s a small dent in the wall. “Are you all right?”
“Peachy.”
I pick up the tablet. The screen is cracked through. “Bad morning?”
“Bad… night.” His voice catches on the word, and I swallow hard.
“Want to talk about it?”
“What is it with you and asking me to talk all the time?”
“If you talked to me, I wouldn’t be asking.”
“Christ, you’re like Emma,” he whispers, still not looking at me.
“I look like your wife?”
“No. But you are like her,” he says after a moment, softly. He’s quiet, and I think he won’t speak again, but then he says, “She was your age when I met her. So pretty. Innocent. Kind. With a core of steel after the foster system had spat her out.”
I wait for more, but it’s as if he’s run out of steam. He also looks much younger from this close, his gaze vulnerable, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth soft and uncertain.
God, I’m so sorry for him. And for his kids. My heart’s breaking for them. I want to ask more, about her, about her death, when it was and how it happened, but I hold back.
Not a good time. But how can I ever help him, or his kids, without knowing?
“Are the kids okay?” he asks, his voice raspy, and I wonder what his nightmares were about. If they change, or if the same one returns to haunt him.
“They’re fine. Having breakfast. Worried about you.”
He grimaces and shakes his head. “I keep fucking up.”
“You don’t.”
I don’t trust myself around him when he’s like this. Not to open up and let him hurt me when I don’t expect him to.
How weird. I don’t trust this truce to last, and yet I can’t stay away and save myself.
I approach him slowly and sit down beside him. I put a hand on his thigh, over the thin cotton of his sweats, shocked at the thick muscle shifting under my palm, and feeling strangely hot and excited.
Warmth wafts off his body. I can smell his shampoo, his soap, and underneath it all, his scent of powerful male.
I feel drunk.
I feel disconnected. Is this what they call an out of body experience? Although I can feel my body, kind of distantly, aching sweetly, throbbing. Needing.
It’s his touch I need. On my skin. His mouth. Skimming over my lips, over my cheeks, down my neck, and lower.
“You’re so damn young,” he mutters, his gaze on my hand. I slide it up, toward his groin, and his breath catches.
I can’t seem to draw a proper breath, either. I think the bulge between his legs has grown larger, but I’m not sure.
“You’re not that old,” I whisper.
“I’m turning thirty this year.”
I nod, too absorbed by the way his solid flesh shifts under my hand. I trail my fingers toward that fascinating bulge.
He catches my wrist, stopping me. His cheekbones are flushed. “Did you hear me? I’m almost twelve years older than you.”
“I heard you.” And I don’t frigging care.
Is it a bad thing? It only makes me more excited. He’s older, hardened, grounded, and so hot. He’s not a boy. He’s all man.
I lift my hand to his arm, tracing the dark ink he has winding around his thick biceps. What am I doing? What are these thoughts? I shouldn’t be sitting here, touching him. I should be downstairs with the kids, looking after them, doing my job.
But I can’t tear myself away. I’m in a trance. Can’t ever remember feeling this way before. It’s like I want to climb on him, plaster myself all over him, lick his skin, bite his flesh.
Jesus, Octavia.
“What are these tattoos?” I trace them. “They look like barbed wire.”
“Zane Madden did them for me,” he says, glancing down at them. “He was my wife’s adopted brother.”
“Was? He died?”
“Fuck, no.”
“But she did,” I whisper. When he doesn’t speak, I say, “I know about your wife.”
He shoves away from me and gets up, scowling, his gaze going stormy. “The fuck you think you know. You know nothing.”
I recoil as if he slapped me. “Matt…”
“Get out.”
Tears sting the back of my eyes, but I won’t let then fall. I don’t know why, but I’d do anything to hide them from him.
“Fine,” I say unsteadily and stand up, then turn blindly toward the door. “Whatever.”
Not gonna let him see.
I hope he’ll call my name, stop me. Explain. Apologize.
He doesn’t.
Not that it matters anyway. I don’t know what I thought I was doing back there, touching him, letting myself want him. Letting myself fall for him.
What an idiot I’ve been.
Chapter Fifteen
Matt
The piece of paper in my hand reads “Remember who you left behind,” the hole left by the knife that was used to stick it to my door almost taking out the word “you.”
Nice touch.
“And you said you have no idea who this person is talking about?” John Elba, the young cop I talked to last time, says over the phone. “These people you left behind?”
“No fucking idea.”
This is messing with my head. Last thing I need with my state of mind right now. Who the fuck did I leave behind? My parents, my brother. They were fine without me. It’s not like I left the country, or the planet. I visited. They visited me, too.
“All right.” He’s quiet for a moment, and I think I hear the clacking of a keyboard, but it might be the wind. “No forced entry, no other sign of this person’s presence on the premises?”
I frown. “What do you mean… like vandalism?”
“Yes. Or anything indicating she or he attempted to force entry into the house, or your car, or left any other message somewhere.”
“Didn’t notice anything.”
“You checked?”
“Hell yeah, I checked.”
“Calm down, Hansen.”