23

STEEL

 “I just want you safe, Beauty, that’s all. I am so far away from you and useless if something was to happen. Please, Beauty, please do as Booth asks,” I begged, my hand gripping the phone so tight, it was possible I might crack it.

“I will, babe, I promise. You won’t have to worry anymore.” Her sweet voice coming across the phone line warmed me like her arms would if she were here with me. After she hung up on me earlier, I’d let out my frustrations on Darth. The big prick offered to let me try to kick his arse, and, unfortunately for him, I did. Just. He got in quite a few shots, one hitting me in the eye, and now I had a nasty shiner. Bastard.

But it helped. I burnt up a lot of my anger, and I started to think about why Mia hung up on me, which made me realise I would have hung up on me, too. I went completely alpha male on her, yelled, demanded, and commanded her. Then I realised I didn’t even ask her how the blood tests went or how she was feeling. Nothing.

“I will always worry about you, Mia. Always,” I whispered into the phone.

Fuck, I wanted to hold her in my arms, lie down with her, and listen to her heartbeat, the most soothing sound in the world.

“How was the test? Did it hurt?” I asked the questions I should have asked her instead of yelling at her.

Mia’s soft giggle filled my ears. “No, babe, it didn’t hurt, just a sting and a few minutes later, two vials of blood. I asked the doctor if she could rush the results, so we should have them in a day or two.”

Another kind of warmth moved through my body. I liked the way she said we, not I.

“When are you coming home?”

Home. I liked that, too. I liked it a lot.

“Argh, I’m not sure. Lucky’s recovery is pretty slow. We met with him yesterday but didn’t bother questioning him. He was tired and in pain, so we are meeting with him again the day after tomorrow. He is keen to find out not only who shot him but if there is a connection between that and Rogue. So what have you been up to?”

I heard rustling coming from her end, and I imagined her in my bed.

“Not much. Booth has me working here at the club behind the bar. He says I can’t go out again until Deck, Darth, and you get back. Although he is allowing a quick outing tomorrow so I can buy some more clothes and personal stuff. He has Tori and some of the other dancers covering my shifts at the Bar and Grill, and Rainn is covering their shifts at the strip club, which, for some reason, is turning Mannix into a crazy person. Shiloh gave me a timeout because Trigger is sleeping on our bed with me while you are gone. And I miss you,” she said all in a rush. My sniper mind catalogued all the information she threw at me and filed away the not as important stuff for later, but there were a few things she said that I wanted to explore more.

“You miss me, eh?” I teased. I liked that. I liked that my dog was protecting her and that she thought of my bed as ours already.

“Yeah.” She breathed softly, making my heart skip a beat. “Cooper?”

“Yeah, Beauty?”

“Why didn’t you have sex with me that night after you made me come with your mouth and my fingers?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was not a conversation I wanted to have on the phone with Darth sitting mere feet away in a small motel room playing Call of Duty. This needed to be done in person as I looked into her beautiful, chocolate eyes and listened to her heartbeat against me.

“Beauty, please don’t do this. It wasn’t what you think. When I get back, we will talk, okay?”

God, how could I have been so stupid? I knew the night I dropped Mia off at work she had been upset.

Even as I kissed her goodbye, I felt her pulling back from me. Making her come was at the top of my list of favourite things to do, but fuck, I had wanted to make love to her that night, and I should have. But I wanted to have sex with me on top, only my leg had been aching so badly after our previous sexcapades that I just couldn’t.

I loved her riding me, fucking love it. I wanted to prove that I could still be the man I once was before I lost my leg. I wanted to feel like a man. Pound into her, get up on my knees and lose control with her, but I didn’t want to fail at it, either, by stumbling my way through it only to have her laugh at me.

Callie laughed at me. I got over it.

But Mia? I couldn’t handle it if she did. I knew she wouldn’t, well, the logical part of my brain did but my heart... Jesus, I was fucking up with Mia left and right.

I had to stop comparing Mia to Callie. Stop measuring one against the other. Otherwise, I could possibly lose the best thing in my life. My chest started to ache. I wouldn’t lose Mia. Wasn’t happening.

“Okay, Stud, we will talk when you get back,” Mia whispered, but I knew better. I could see her trying to put a bright smile on her face. I had seen her do it many times when Callie was at the club, or she and I were playing pool or sitting on one of the couches in the main room. She would smile, but it never reached her eyes. And that was a shame because when Mia smiled, her eyes shone like melted chocolate. I wanted to be the one to keep those eyes smiling.

“Mia, I love you,” I murmured, keeping my voice low—one, so that Darth didn’t hear, and two, because this moment called for gentleness. Ideally, Mia should be in front of me or underneath me when I said those words to her for the first time, holding her close and hearing her heart beating against my naked chest, but I had hurt her. And that stopped now.

She gasped in shock. “Cooper—”

“No, don’t say that I don’t. Don’t say that I don’t know what I am saying. I know my heart, Beauty, and my heart belongs to you. Baby or no baby, you own me, Mia Stone. And only you.” I growled, desperate to halt any protest she created. “I love you. I am in love with you so fucking deep, there is no way to get me out,” I pressed.

She had to say it back. She just had to.

Please, love me too, Beauty, I prayed into the silence.

“Oh, Cooper, I love you so much,” she cried, her sobbing breaking my heart and making it beat harder all at the same time.

“Say it again,” I demanded.

Laughing, she did just that. “I do love you, and I have for so long now, a deep soulful love.”

Groaning, I closed my eyes and took a breath, letting the words and feeling roll through me, warming me like a blanket.