Ari still smelled the smoke and drywall and burned rubber. She’d probably never fully get the scent of scorched everything out of her lungs. She just wanted to forget it for a while.

She smelled Marc, too. Above all else, she still smelled him. The scratch above her eye burned; it would most likely scar—right beneath the bullet scar from Logan Lanning. That thought had every bit of her strength finally crumbling. How much more could she take? “I can’t do this.”

“You can do anything.”

“You’re just saying that because of Rafe and Jillian and Lacy. I can’t do this.” She wiped at the tears coating her cheeks. “I’m not like the rest of them. Lacy, Jillian, Mel—even Brynna and Gabby can deal with this better than I can!”

“Why do you compare yourself to them?” Marc’s hands slipped around her waist and he shifted her. Just like that, Ari ended up in his lap. His hands rose, covered her cheeks. One brushed against her bruised lip lightly. “You may not be just like them; I think you’re more. There’s a light in you, Ariella. And it has pulled me to you since the first moment I met you. Irresistible...”

She shook her head. She didn’t need the lies. The niceties. “I’m not able to just process and go on. I know me well enough. I know my strengths and I just can’t do this. Bombs, abductions, assassinations, people getting hurt and killed. And why? I don’t understand!”

“How can anyone? I’d bet you a million cold that Jillian and Lacy felt exactly this way. Have you talked to them about how they felt when that shit was happening to them?”

“No.” No, she hadn’t. Because they had had Rafe and Travis to be there for them. They hadn’t needed her. They had needed the men they loved.

Her hands tightened on his shirt and she pulled him closer. His shoulders were broad and strong and able to handle the entire world. For a minute, Ari just wanted to let him handle it all. So that she didn’t have to. She just didn’t think she could handle too much more.

“I think you should.” His fingers slipped beneath the fall of hair at her neck and cradled her head. “I think they were probably feeling just as afraid and confused. They just tend to hide their fear behind fire. Unlike you.”

Because she wasn’t as strong. Didn’t he see that? “I’m not as strong as they are, Marc. I’m not. I can’t deal with my home being blown up around me.” Ari fought the nausea swirling around in her stomach, fought the terror and worry for Trent, fought asking herself why someone would have done this.

She fought it all, and she fought throwing herself against him and just holding on as tightly as she could.

They could have been killed tonight. Again.

It was different than the bomb at Houghton’s hotel. That could have targeted anyone. But this…it was either Luc—or her.

It was so much more personal. More real.

“I think you are doing just fine, sweetheart.” Marc brushed a kiss across her forehead. His gentleness went straight through her.

“Am I? For how long? I need to find a place to live, Marc. I’m not even sure why I am here—or even how I got here.” To her shame, she wasn’t. She’d blinked while they’d been at the hospital, and then she’d opened her eyes and she’d been in Marc’s home. “Or what I am supposed to do next.”

“You’re supposed to get through tonight. Then tomorrow. Then the next day, and the next, and the next. It’s all any of us can do.” He shifted her, strong hands lifting her like she weighed next to nothing.

They’d known each other almost a year; she didn’t think he’d touched her as much as he had in the last month the entirety they’d known one another. It was like a wall had come down between them.

It had been a long time since a strong man had held her just like this. The few kisses they’d shared before had held suppressed heat—his doing. She suspected he hadn’t wanted to overwhelm her. Because he didn’t think she could handle more. Like she was a big wimp or something.

She was so tired of people in her life looking at her like she was weak. Tired of feeling exactly like that. Tired of letting life happen to her instead of because of her. She had to stop letting the world revolve and her be afraid of it. She had to take control eventually. But maybe…maybe there would be no eventually. Tonight had proven that.

If she was going to take control of her life, it should be now. Not tomorrow. “Kiss me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked...” Demanded. She’d looked at him and demanded something from him. Ari didn’t know where it came from, or what the consequences would be, but it felt right. Unlike anything else had in a long time. “For you to kiss me. For real. So that I can forget. So that I can feel like there is more than never-ending, constant fear.”

“Ariella,” he practically breathed her name. His hands tightened on her thighs.

“Please? I just...” It was the first time she’d ever been so direct with a man. That it was him gave her the courage. “Please, just kiss me. Like you did before.”

He hesitated again. But Ari was through not taking chances in her life. If she and Marc had been a few seconds later, they’d probably both be dead right now. She needed to feel something right now. To take control of one thing in her life.

Ari leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.

His hands slipped up from her thighs, and ran up her ribs. Ari took a chance—she dropped one hand to the top button of his shirt. Someone had given it to him—it wasn’t the one he’d been wearing at Rafe’s. She toyed with it hesitantly. And then she did it.

She popped open the button. And then the next.

Hot hands covered hers. “Ariella...I—”

Brown eyes met green. “I want this.”

His eyes widened. His hands tightened on her. “Do you? Or...I don’t want you doing something you’ll regret in the morning, sweetheart.”

“I can make my own decisions, Marc. I’m not a virgin. I know when I want to be with a man.” There was still a hesitation in his eyes. One that had her hesitating. Had her hands stilling on the fourth button.