Then she looked up at me. I braced myself for the pity that I expected to see there, but that wasn’t the emotion I saw in her eyes. It was sadness and something else. I cautiously lifted my finger to trace the bruise that had formed at her temple. She had been hurt. I wanted to kiss all of that hurt away.
“Shayne, you were just a kid then,” she said. She reached up to touch my cheek, and I flinched when I felt her soft touch. It was unexpected, but there was a part of me that craved it. There had been far too little warmth in my life. “You aren’t a kid now, but you protected me. He was going to hurt me. He was going to kill me.”
I wanted to bare my teeth as I thought about that man touching Lex, but I managed to keep that emotion in check. I had taken care of that threat.
She continued, “He didn’t because you stopped him. He would have killed you, too. I saw him point the gun at you. If you hadn’t moved as fast as you did, you’d be dead instead of him.”
“I could have called the police,” I said. “I could have done something different.”
“After what happened with your mom, I understand why you didn’t want to do that,” she said. “I might not agree with the aftermath, but I am not judging you for any of it. Being with you makes me feel safe, and I need that right now. I crave that.”
I couldn’t help myself. I saw her lips part, and her tongue slid across them. They shone in the moonlight, and I found that I ached for her. Every part of her. I leaned down and gently touched my lips to hers. I wanted to claim them. Claim all of her as mine in every sense of the word. But I held back. She had been through enough.
Her body pressed against mine, and I groaned as I felt the way her soft curves melded against my skin. I wrapped my arms around her as I broke the kiss. “You should run, Lex. Run as far away from me as you can.”
Her hands slipped up to grip my shoulders. “I can’t run away from you, Shayne. Because being with you is the only place I feel safe, and no matter what you might say, I know you care about me. You proved that to me when you came for me. I could never run away from you.”
I was amazed. She had accepted me. Everything about me, and she was still here. I had no idea what I had done right to have this woman in my life, but I wasn’t about to let her go. I didn’t care what the world threw at me. I wanted Lex Carroll to be mine.
My fingers tightened on her hips. I kissed her again, more forcefully this time. Her lips parted, and my tongue swept inside. She tasted sweet, just like I remembered. It was a taste that I had become addicted to, just like her. “If you mean that, then if you ever did run, I’d find you. Wherever you went.”
She leaned her cheek against my chest with a sigh. “And then you’d bring me home.”
We stared out at the city. I felt a rush of emotions that I couldn’t remember feeling in a long time.
Peace. Hope. Maybe even the scariest emotion of them all. Love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT – ALEXA
Shayne insisted on sleeping after that. My body had started to respond to him in a completely different way after his confession, but this complex, confusing man was suddenly insistent on being a total gentleman. He said that I had been through a traumatic experience, which was true, and he didn’t want to take advantage of my fragile state. I tried to tell him there was nothing fragile about it, but he refused to budge.
We compromised with him sleeping in his bed with me. I woke up curled against Shayne’s bare chest. His arm was wrapped around my body holding me tightly against him. I blinked at the bright light streaming into the room through the windows.
“Good morning.” Shayne dropped a light kiss down on my forehead as I smiled up at him. “How’d you sleep?”
I thought about it. I had expected to have nightmares or for it to take forever to fall asleep. Instead, I had slept soundly. “Okay,” I said.
“Just okay?” The corner of his mouth turned up.
I pushed up against him. “I might have slept better if someone had given me what I wanted.”
He groaned. “Believe me, babe. It was as hard for me as it was for you.”
Feeling bold, I reached my hand down between his legs. Immediately, I found his cock, and it was already hard. “I see,” I said with a small chuckle. I tightened my fingers around his shaft, and he groaned.
“Woman, that’s not what I meant. We should have your head looked at this morning.”
“Sssshhh,” I said as I did a shimmy against his chest. I nipped at his chin. “My head is fine. It looks worse than it feels. Words are for later. Actions are for now. If people are going around thinking that we’re a couple, then we should be doing more couple things.”