Curling up into a ball, the first teardrops fell, proving that I was broken, not in body but heart. How serendipitous, meeting Kayson and saying goodbye to him both revolved around me ending up in a hospital.

“Miss Beaumont?” I leaned up to see a middle age man in a white lab coat at the foot of the emergency room bed. “Your CT scans look good, we’re going to let you go. Take it easy for the next few days, use ibuprofen for the pain and swelling, and if your symptoms worsen or if you experience any difficulty breathing, please come back. I will send a nurse in to get you discharged.”

Closing my eyes, I waited for the nurse. Home. What did I have at home? Fuck, I needed to call a cab.

“You ready to go home?” The perky nurse asked me. “Hold out your arm, and I will get that IV needle out.” She secured a cotton ball and some medical tape around my arm and then laid a stack of papers on my lap. “Here are your instructions to follow for the next few days.”

“Thanks.” My soul matched my appearance, battered and bruised.

I dressed in the clothes that I had arrived in, they were splattered with blood, but at least they weren’t open in the back like the hospital gown. After slipping on my boots, I picked up my papers and walked out of the ER toward the curb and dug in my purse to find my phone.

A shiny black pickup truck pulled up to the curb and a gorgeous man got out. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to rescue you.”

“Kayson, I can call a cab. I’m not in the mood. I feel like shit, and I look like I’ve been through a gristmill.”

His hand moved to my face, his thumb lightly swiping my tears. “You look beautiful. Let me help you. Let’s talk on the way, if you don’t like what I have to say, then I will drop you off at your apartment and run home to start packing up your stuff. Okay?” I nodded. He held out his hand and helped me up into his truck then closed the door. “I want to talk about all the misunderstandings yesterday with Gigi answering my phone.”

“Does it matter? It’s not like we can be together anyway. I was just temporary. I gave you my heart. Kayson . . . I fell in love with you.” He pulled his truck into a parking lot. “What are you doing?”

“I want to see your face. What did you just say?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. What did you just say, Ariel?”

“I fell in love with you. There, are you happy now? I fucking fell in love with you and you crushed me. I called you when Carter was going off with bullshit about you using me until you found the right Greek girl to marry, and I get fucking Gigi on the phone. I called back and listened to several minutes of her orgasmic shouting of your name.”

“I’m going to remember that you just told me that you loved me, not that you think you’re in love with me but that you are. So, with that, I’m going to keep my cool because I’ve been waiting for those words. Last night, I was at the station watching them interrogate Gigi, and I made the mistake of laying my shit down on the table and leaving the room to talk with the detective. While he was bringing me up to speed, you must have called, I didn’t hear the phone ring, and she answered it. I didn’t realize this until after we had her in handcuffs and discovered you were missing. Finally, Carter? He was shitfaced. He has no clue what the fuck he was saying.”

“But Leo looked it up on her phone, I’m Baptist.”

“Fine, then we’ll be Baptist. I don't care, I only want you.”

“But your parents. Your church.”

“Ariel in the Greek church anyone may convert to Greek Orthodox. Before someone converts they must meet with the Priest and attend religion classes but there isn't much more.”

“That’s it? No drinking sheep’s blood?” I gave him my cheekiest of grins.

He put the truck in gear and headed back toward my apartment. “I’m in love with you. I think that I fell in love with you the first night I locked eyes on you. I wanted to be your warrior, your rescuer, and your lover all at the same time.”

“You are, you did. You’re my hero.”

“I’ve never felt anything like that in my life, and I feel it every single day that you agree to be in my world. I once told you that I needed to protect you—I did that. Brandon won’t hurt you again. Now my needs have changed, and I need you to trust me, and I need you to talk to me.”

There were several moments of silence before he broke it. “Well, at least I knew that answer.”

I wasn’t sure where to start but if I didn’t say something I was going to lose him. “Because of that man, my daddy, I made a decision that eventually killed my mama.”

“I don’t know what happened, but that can’t be your fault. Anything he did lies solely on him.”

“No. This was my fault. My daddy was a whoremongering fool, at least that was what all of our neighbors called him. One day I’d had enough. I told Mama that either she left him or I was leaving. I had it all arranged. I was moving in with my best friend.”

“What did your mama say to that?”

“Nothing. I told her that she wasn’t ever going to be enough for Daddy, and I wasn’t enough for her. Then she . . . collapsed. That was her first stroke.”

“That wasn’t your fault, sweet.”

“It was my fault. Mama was fine putting up with Daddy’s crap, I wasn’t. Me. I couldn’t take it anymore. Instead of keeping my mouth shut I heaped more stress onto her. Stress causes strokes. Mama was willing to put up with all of his bullshit, but he hightailed it out of dodge as soon as we learned that she would move a little slower and might always have a slur to her speech. Mama had her second stroke three years later, and her final stroke well, that was when I left.”

“Oh, sweet, you have to stop blaming yourself for this. Your dad was a jerk, I’m sorry. Your mother stood by him and at the first sign of trouble he left and left you to carry all of that weight. That is not how a real man handles his family. You had every right to decide your limit, what you could or couldn’t take, that was yours. Your mother’s stroke tells me that she had a lot more stress than you realized. Look at Pop, that is the kind of man I want to be. The kind I want to be for you.”

Kayson’s words melted me and that night when I crawled into bed, our bed, I was emotionally drained, but Kayson promised to fill me. His warm hand slid up my body, the backs of his fingers brushing against my tender skin as he slid the silk of my nightgown up. He peppered my flesh with kisses, his nighttime whiskers long enough to tickle with each peck he placed on my bare skin.

“I love you, Kayson. I’m sorry. So sorry. When Brandon pulled out that gun and I was listening to his words, all I thought was I wasn’t enough for my mama, and I may not be enough for most people, but I was going to be enough to save you and my friends at that moment. It made me want to fight. I’d just learned how to redirect a gun, and I figured if you were in the hallway, Piper, Leo, and Stella were out there, too. I had to make sure that the gun didn’t go off and shoot me or someone coming in through the door.”

“Ariel. You are more than enough, but as I told you before, I will never have enough of your kisses.” He pecked my lips. “The taste of you.” He licked my nipples. “Or that sweet pussy of yours,” he said as he moved between my legs.

“Tonight isn’t going to be rough, or fast. It is going to be slow and deep, right here,” he said, tapping my bare entrance. “And deep here.” He touched his chest and then mine, right where our hearts were.