Chapter 13

Alex stood in a cloud of cigarette smoke outside Pioneer Spirit. At least three people had offered him a cigarette, exhibiting the small-town kind of hospitality he’d grown up with.

Sadly, he wasn’t looking for nicotine. He was after some clarity. He wanted something to make sense, and it wasn’t making sense inside, with all that noise and darkness and Becca smiling at some tool.

He knew he had to get back inside. Make sure Jack hadn’t drunk himself into passing out, make sure Gabe hadn’t taken off with the waitress before her shift was over. He had to make sure Becca wasn’t in there flirting with Mac Parker.

He had people to protect, whether they appreciated it or not. That had always been his job—to do things whether other people liked them or not.

It didn’t change because he wasn’t an officer anymore. It was a part of him, looking after people, wanting to help people. Ever since… He couldn’t just shut that off because the person didn’t want help.

He turned around to head back inside, but the door opened and Becca stepped out. With the battle light in her eyes that shouldn’t do that thing it did to his gut. And lower.

He shouldn’t have felt excited by the prospect of an argument with her. He should have been tired of it and irritated that she couldn’t listen to him. Or understand him.

“So are you out here sulking or what?”

“Sometimes I think I prefer the Becca who picked us up from the airport and couldn’t manage a word.”

She gave him a curled-lip smirk. “That Becca is gone. As gone as I can make her be. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you. Your issues.”

“I don’t have issues. I have concerns.”

“You know the Parkers just like I do. They’re an upstanding family.”

“An upstanding family doesn’t mean someone isn’t capable of doing something cruel. Doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of hurting you.”

“Everyone is capable of hurting me, Alex. Believe it or not, Mr. Navy SEAL, there are people who are capable of hurting you as well.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” She shook her head, pressing her lips together more and more firmly until he wouldn’t have been surprised if steam started coming out of her ears.

She grabbed his arm and began to pull. He considered fighting her—it wouldn’t have been hard. She was strong, but not strong enough to forcibly move him. In the end, he let her drag him to the parking lot and her truck.

It was dark out here, though the moon and stars were bright. The air was cold and crisp and she didn’t have a jacket on. He scowled. “Give me the keys.”

“I’m not getting in yet.”

“Just give me the damn keys.”

On a frustrated grunt, she dug the keys out of her purse and threw them at him. Not lightly.

But he caught them and unlocked the truck, jerking the back door open and grabbing a coat. He didn’t know whose it was, but it would at least keep her warm. “Put that on.”

She shook her head and raked her fingers through her hair, ignoring the coat he held out. He curled his fingers into the fleece because if he thought about that, he wouldn’t think about his own fingers following hers.

“I know when I need to wear a coat.”

“I know you’ve got issues with your mom’s overprotectiveness, but it’s like thirty degrees out here. I’m not trying to smother you. I’m trying to…”

“What? Protect me?”

“Yes. That is what you do with friends. You protect them. I have protected Jack and Gabe for years. I made sure they had food before I did, made sure they had a place to sleep. It is what I do. It is who I am. You cannot change me because of your own baggage. And frankly, if you don’t care for it, don’t hang out with me.”

“Did it occur to you we’re not at war? That I know when to wear a coat, and I can figure out if a guy is talking to me because he’s interested and what exactly he’s interested in? Did it occur to you that I didn’t ask to be lumped in with Gabe and Jack? If you want to talk about friendly concern, then let’s talk about your nightmare the other—”

“No.”

“You were shaking, and you didn’t—”

“Enough!” He slammed his hand against the truck door and immediately regretted the outburst when she jumped in surprise. “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat and focused on being calm. “I am sorry.”

“I know you are.” She looked at him, concern radiating off of her in waves.

Her concern, her…whatever it all was, coiled inside of him, dark and ugly. He didn’t want anyone’s fucking concern. Most especially hers because it prompted some other thing inside of him he didn’t know what to do with. Some kind of softening. A yearning, if he had to put a name to it.

He wouldn’t.

“Let’s go back inside,” he muttered.

“No.” She put her hand on the arm he had braced against the truck and her other hand on the wrist of the arm hanging at his side. Her fingers curled around his forearm as though she could keep him in place. It would’ve taken no effort at all to walk away, but…

She was touching him. He didn’t want to walk away from that.

“Why are we really fighting?” She sounded soft, a little tired, and definitely a little drunk.

“Because you’re obnoxious,” he returned.

She gave a soft laugh, but her hands were still wrapped firmly around his arms and he was afraid to do anything. Because he didn’t know how he would react if she slid her hands up his arms. If she touched his face. If she did any of the things he was imagining her doing.

He would have to be strong. He would have to put her in her place.

He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do it.

“I need you to treat me like an equal. I think Jack and Gabe need the same thing from you. We’re not asking you to change who you are. I know your instinct to take charge comes from a really good place. But we are all trying to figure out who we are and what we want and where we’re going. I think you need to worry a little bit more about…”

She paused and he knew what she was going to say. He could’ve put her off. He could’ve told her to be quiet. He could’ve walked away. Instead, he stood there and let her talk. Instead of walking away from her hands curled around his arms, he let her say all the things he didn’t want to hear.

“Try focusing on you instead of us. Please? For all of our sanities.”

“I’m trying.” Which was the sad part. He was trying to back off, but his brain didn’t work that way. He didn’t want to think about himself. He had his mission. That was all he wanted to focus on.

Becca leaned into him, and he was so lost in his own thoughts for a second, he didn’t think to sidestep it or stop her. Her hands slid off his arms, but they came around him. A hug. She was hugging him.

And he couldn’t…he couldn’t move or speak. Partially because she felt soft and smooth and smelled so damn good, even after the bar. But partly because it had been so long since someone had hugged him. Since he’d been offered that kind of soft touch.

He had to swallow against the tightness in his throat and stiffen against the need to draw her closer.

For the first time, he wished the feeling in his gut was merely sexual rather than…whatever this was. Pain, comfort, longing.

“You try so hard for so many people. I know we keep snapping at each other lately, but we’re trying hard too.”

She didn’t stop hugging him, but she pulled back far enough that she could tilt her head up and look at him.

If she had anything else to say, apparently meeting gazes put a stop to it. Her eyes seemed to take in everything, from his hairline, to the square cut of his jaw, to…

His mouth.

It would have been easy to kiss her. Lower his mouth to hers and sink into a sweetness he did not deserve. It would have been so damn easy, and it was so damn tempting. Especially when she moved on to her toes, that pretty, lush mouth closer than it had a right to be and…

“Don’t,” he managed to command.

She stopped on a dime, looking at him wide-eyed.

Her expression changed. The softness and surprise going hard. What was wrong with him that he liked all the different sides of her? Soft and stubborn and hard and good and sweet and honest and a little neurotic.

“Why did you send Mac away back there?” Becca demanded, her arms still around him.

“I told you. I was trying to protect you.”

“That’s the only reason in the whole wide world you didn’t want him flirting with me?”

He was afraid she could see all of the reasons inside of him. She was still so close, and he needed to stop this. To walk away.

He could even tell her. All the truths inside of him he was trying to push away. He could tell her he didn’t like some other guy flirting with her. And it had nothing to do with Mac Parker or this bar or whatever. He could tell her he didn’t want anyone else touching her. That it physically hurt to think about someone doing that.

But how could he explain that he couldn’t stand someone else even thinking about touching her, because then he thought about touching her? Having her.

So he had to lie. To both of them.

* * *

Becca had never been this close to a man before. Not in an embrace, not with her mouth close enough that it would take less than a second to kiss him.

Not that Alex was reciprocating anything. He remained frozen in place and she didn’t know how to let go of him. How to step away. Even when he’d ordered her not to kiss him, she didn’t know how to walk away.

Because he hadn’t answered her question. Not fully. If he’d only tell her that…that all he cared about was her well-being and safety. That this had nothing to do with the attraction she felt, then she would give this up. She would go back inside and sit with Mac and know that nothing with Alex was ever going to happen.

But he had to tell her. She needed to hear it from his lips to really be able to give it up.

He lifted the hand that had been hanging at his side and curled his long, blunt fingers around her elbow. He removed her arm from around him, but as he pulled her arm off and released her elbow, his fingers trailed—probably accidentally—down her forearm.

It jittered through her, like nerves and electrical shocks. Something swirling low in her stomach, sparks rioting in her chest.

His breath hitched, but his gaze didn’t meet hers as he pulled her other arm from around him.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to get at. I don’t know what other reason there could be.”

But he didn’t look at her, which was so weird. Alex always looked her in the eye.

“You’re lying.” Which she hadn’t meant to say out loud, but it was such a surprise to see it. To read him so well and so easily. “You’re really bad at it.”

His gaze finally met hers, and that she couldn’t read, whatever war was going on in his dark depths.

“Maybe you think I’m lying because that’s what you want.”

Which was true, but there was too much lining up to her way of thinking. He’d brought up not sleeping together this morning. Jack’s words—as drunken as they might have been—the whole not looking her in the eye and shuddering when they touched.

“Okay, that is what I want.”

She could tell she’d surprised him. That he’d expected her denial or maybe her to stutter and scamper away, but she wasn’t going to do that. “I’m attracted to you. Yup. Not going to deny it. You’re hot. You’re a good person—such a good guy, even when you’re annoying the piss out of me. I feel comfortable around you in a way I don’t with a whole heck of a lot of people. So, yeah, I’m not going to stand here and try to deny it, because I am not a coward—but you are.”

The shock written all over his face sharpened. “Excuse me?” he said, dangerously calm.

Clearly the word coward got under his skin. But that’s what he was being. Hiding behind lies and whatever else. It was cowardly. She should know. She was always a coward when it came to people.

Well, not anymore.

“I said you’re a coward,” she replied, giving a shrug she wished felt a little more nonchalant. “You won’t admit you feel exactly the same way. Because you’re afraid. Or is that for my protection too?”

He took a deep breath, clearly trying to find some calm, but his eyes were furious and his jaw was so tight it was a wonder it didn’t crack in half. Everything about him vibrated with anger, and she felt powerful.

Her. Becca Denton. She felt in charge and right. Not a doubt or a second of uncertainty.

“A coward, huh?” he finally muttered through gritted teeth, one of his hands flexing into a fist and then open again.

“Yes. A big ole fraidy-cat over the fact that you’ve got some feelings for your much younger step—” But before she could get the remaining words out of her mouth, he used the front of her shirt to jerk her against the hard wall of his much larger body. She was too shocked to jump back or fend it off, and even though nerves slammed through her, well, she liked being this close. Not just hugging close, but pressing close.

Then his mouth crushed against hers, hard and unrelenting, and whatever powerful feeling she’d had evaporated on the spot. Incinerated completely. She didn’t even have time to think about how she didn’t know how to do this. His hands were in her hair, her hair, tangling and moving her head whichever darn way he pleased.

She grabbed for purchase, a little afraid her knees were wobbly, holding on for dear life. Letting his lips and tongue lead hers, guide hers.

It was fire and it was shock and it was good. It was good to be hollowed out and feel as though she was filled with liquid gold. Shimmering and lazy. To be pressed up against nothing but hard muscle and skilled mouth and know not a thing could touch her here.

Not a thing but him.

“Christ, we can’t do this,” he muttered, but it was against her mouth, his arms banded around her so that whether they could or not, they certainly were.

She wanted to keep doing it. Experiencing it. Participate instead of just letting it happen and soak it up—which was good, oh it was good, but she wanted more.

So she didn’t stop. She pressed her mouth right back to his, wrapping her arms around his neck, and jumped headlong into that heat she would have never guessed existed.