When her voice came across the line sounding so broken and lost, something inside me shriveled up and died. There was no question I’d go to her; it was only a matter of finding out where she was and how fast I could get there.

When she curled into my arms and settled in right here, I almost felt guilty for the quick flash of comfort, of physical awareness, of feeling like she was finally exactly where she belonged.

But when she mentioned the fact that she had a son, in the past tense? It fucking crushed me.

I swallow down the taste of my own bitter pain, somehow twisted up so completely with hers, and stroke a hand down the bare skin of her arm. I think I’m shaking, but I don’t let it stop me from touching her. She needs the comfort right now, and I’ll be damned if I’m anything but all the way there for her.

Fuck me, though. A son? She lost a fucking child?

I stay silent, waiting for her to continue, while on the inside, my soul riots.

Up, down. Up, down. My hand stays steady on her arm.

“Your son?” The words taste rough and wrong leaving my mouth. “I didn’t know you had a son.”

It makes sense. The haunted sound always there in her voice, the way she drifts through life like someone only half-living it. I always knew she was someone who’d experienced loss, real loss. I just never knew to what extent.

I feel the motion of her head against my chest as she nods. “My son was three when he…” She takes a deep breath, one that makes her whole body shudder. “When he died.”

There’s a monotonous quality to her voice now, like she’s completely taken herself out of her emotions so she can make it through her story.

“Listen, sweetheart…you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to tell me unless you want to.”

I know that I need her to tell me. I need to understand this woman. I need to know what makes her the person she is today. I need to know how deep her scars run.

But do I want to know this? Do I want to know the story that broke her? Fuck, no. I don’t want to know any of it.

She continues like I hadn’t spoken. “We were all in the car. Danté, my little boy, and my husband, Trenton, and I.”

My whole body goes cold at the mention of a husband, and my hand stills on her arm.

Husband. Arden has a husband.

The word echoes in my head, over and over again, mocking all the impure thoughts I’ve had about this woman in the past few months.

“Trenton traveled for work a lot, so Danté and I were taking him to the airport the morning it happened. I was driving…my son had asthma. He started having an attack in the backseat, and suddenly, the only thing I could think about was getting him to breathe again. I told Trenton to get to his inhaler, which I’d accidentally left in the trunk. Trenton unbuckled his seatbelt—” She chokes on the words, coming to an abrupt halt in her story.

My hand returns to stroking her skin, moving from her arm up to her shoulder and then to her hair. Mentally shaking myself, I focus on her. Nothing else matters right now, other than the fact that she’s hurting, and she needs me.

It occurs to me, for the first time, that she called me tonight. Not Brantley. It’s significant; I know that it means something.

I’m just not sure what.

“Everything was happening so fast, and I kept glancing back to make sure Danté was all right. I didn’t see the car swerve in front of me until it was too late. We were on the interstate, there were a lot of cars…” She trails off, and I just wait, holding her a little closer to my chest.

Holding my breath and wishing what she’s about to say wasn’t true.

Finally, she continues, her voice hollow and lost. “After the accident, I was in a coma. When I woke up, months later, my entire world was gone. They both died that day. I never even got to go to their funerals, say goodbye. They were just…gone.”

“Jesus.” The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it, because…Jesus fucking Christ.

When I first woke up from my accident and everything was black, I thought I’d lost everything. But the woman in front of me lost literally everything. Maybe not her business, or the security of a home and an income, but she lost the two people she loved most in the world.

I can only imagine what kind of wife and mother Arden must have been. She would have given herself completely to her husband and her son. Body and soul, heart on her sleeve. And to lose them that way, in an instant? Waking up to find out that they were no longer living, dead and buried, without even the chance to say goodbye?

It answers every question I ever had about this woman. I thought I was dealing with someone who’d been through some pain in her life.

I was wrong.

I’m dealing with a woman who’s had her soul destroyed.

She stirs from her place in my lap, and I feel her head shift and tilt, like she’s looking up at me.

“I don’t know why this happened,” she says, her voice soft.  “I’ll never understand why they were taken away from me, Flash. Was there some kind of lesson in all of this that I’m supposed to learn? If there is, I never wanted to learn it.”

Finding the curve of her cheek with one hand, I stroke her soft skin with my thumb, only to find it wet with her tears. Wishing more than anything that I could see her, I aim my blank gaze down at her face.

“We don’t ever get to know the why, Bunny.” Her soft, tortured sigh pulls more words from me; words I didn’t plan on saying. “There’s a plan, and people live out their part of it. When their part is over, it’s time for them to go. For some of us, it doesn’t give us any comfort knowing that. But for me…it helps to know that there’s someone up there pulling the strings. I can let it go, knowing it’s out of my control. I try to live as fully as I can while I’m here, and love the people who are important to me while I have them. It’s all we can do.”

She’s silent, her breaths steady as her chest rises and falls.

Finally, she speaks. “I’m tired of being sad, you know? But any time I’m not sad, I feel so guilty. It’s not fair that I should get to have good moments, not without them. And how do I know if they’re happy, wherever they are? If they’re not, and I’m down here, smiling…” She trails off, but I know exactly where her mind is going.

“They’re happy.”  My words are decisive, firm. “They got to share the lives they had with you, and now they’re together. They’re happy…they’re just waiting for you to start living again. It’s what they want. You need to trust me on that, Bunny.”

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she turns toward me and rests her forehead against my shoulder. My arms instantly circle her, pulling her close. It’s like I’m worried that if I’m not holding her up, she’ll fall apart. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen.

“I’m tired.” Her words float on a soft sigh. Her voice is drained of everything: emotion, inflection, volume.

“Hold on to me.” My voice is steady as I brace myself against the wall with one hand, gripping her firmly to my front with the other while I stand. She obediently wraps her arms around my neck and her legs encircle my waist.

Its been a long time since I’ve carried a woman. And I’ve never done it blind. Even though finding my balance is an adjustment, I’m doing this for her. She needs me right now, if for nothing but my strength. And I’ll be that for her.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” I whisper in her ear where her head rests in the crook of my neck. “Now, grab hold of Nitro’s harness for me—that’s it—and let him lead us to your bedroom. Good girl.”

I’m counting on Nitro to get us to where we need to go, because I know I can get Arden safely to her bed.

We pass through another doorway, Arden clinging to my front like a koala bear on a tree.

“Bed.” My command for Nitro is short and sweet, and he leads us forward, stopping directly in front of her bed. I gently place her down on top of it, then proceed to walk around the perimeter of the furniture, feeling my way with one hand. It’s a four-poster bed, king-sized from the feel of it. It’s high, and probably pretty fucking gorgeous if the solid woodwork is any indication. The house, with the high ceilings that I can feel from the echo of my voice, and the size that I could envision from the walk from the front door up the long staircase and into the upstairs hall. It’s bigger than my place, and suddenly I hate the thought of her rattling around in this house all by herself every day.

This is where she’s been staying since she woke up from her coma? Being reminded every day of how much she lost?

Returning to the side of the bed where she lies, I find her bare arm with my hand and stroke upward. Drawing the blankets up on top of her, I bend to drop a kiss on her forehead. When I move to pull away, her arm shoots out to grip my hand tightly in hers.

“Don’t leave me, Flash. I…I don’t want to be alone tonight. I can’t.”

The slight tremor in her voice would have drawn me in regardless, but I had no intention of leaving her alone. Not now…not like this.

Instead of retreating to find a chair to settle into for the night while I watch over her, I walk to the other side of the bed and pull my shirt off over my head. Shoving my gym shorts over my hips and stepping out of them, I climb in behind her, pulling her slim, tight body flush against my chest, I let one arm fall across the curve of her waist. She sighs.

“Not leaving you, Arden. I’ll be right here, for as long as you need me.”

She doesn’t say anything else, but the deep sigh that moves her chest after my words lets me know that she heard me; understands that I’m not leaving her.

It takes me much longer than she does to fall asleep, listening to the soft, even sound of her breaths while feeling the steady beat of her heat vibrating in my bones.

Tonight, Arden Fontaine bared her soul. Her chest cracked open wide while she spilled her pain, her secrets, her sadness. I’m not stupid enough not to feel lucky. I’m the one she let it out with. And I’m the bastard who, despite the depth of the emotions she laid bare to me tonight, feels a twinge of longing and need somewhere deep and dark inside of me.

* * *

When I wake up, my smart watch tells me it’s morning. Seven a.m. looks different behind the blackness of my sight than the nighttime does. It’s almost like I can sense the morning light, even if I can’t see it. It only takes a minute for me to remember where I am and who’s lying beside me. My left leg, clad only in my boxer-briefs, is sandwiched between two warm, bare thighs. My right hand is tangled in what feels like miles of long, silky hair while my left is full of a lush, soft breast.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Arden is wrapped around me like a snake on a vine, her skin feeling so unbelievably perfect against mine it’s almost painful. No, it is painful; an ache rises in my cock as it throbs painfully against the ripe curve of her hip.  It takes every ounce of control I have not to follow instinct and thrust against her.

This woman…she’s going to be the goddamned end of me.

My body doesn’t need reminding of the fact that even though I can’t see Arden, I find her insanely attractive. Gathering all the willpower I have inside me, I slide my hand away from her breast and bring it to rest on her hip. Purely out of habit, I close my eyes and inhale, sucking in a deep lungful of her sweet peach scent.  The silk brush of her hair tickles my nose, and my fingers involuntarily twitch against her skin.

Her breath still rises and falls in an even rhythm, my ears attuned to make up for the senses I’m missing.

Thank fuck.

The last thing she needs when she wakes up is to feel someone she trusted with her deepest, darkest secrets to grope her while she’s sleeping.

Slowly, moving without a sound so I don’t wake her, I disentangle myself from her warm body. Reaching down to the floor beside the bed, I snap my fingers softly and am immediately greeted with Nitro licking my hand in response.

I swing my legs around the side of the bed and realize that in this foreign house, I’m going to have to feel along walls and doorways in order to find the bathroom. I squeeze my eyes shut as the old familiar rage starts to build inside me.

A normal man, a capable man, can get out of a woman’s bed the next morning and find his way to the goddamned bathroom on his own. A normal man could crawl out of bed and make his way out of her house on his own, without aid, if that’s what he wanted.

But me? I’m not a normal man. And I never will be again.

Frustration seethes inside me, reaching deep into my gut and twisting until I can barely breathe.

It’s not a panic attack—it’s a rage attack, and Nitro’s soft whine from the floor beside me is enough to pull me back to the present.

I’m pissed…still pissed as hell that I can’t see, that I’ll never be the completely self-sufficient man I always thought I’d be. But there’s nothing I can do about it right now…not a fucking thing. Giving Nitro’s head a pat, I lie back down on the bed beside Arden and take deep, soothing breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth.

Beside me, I feel her stir. Hear the covers rustle as she turns over, and I count the beats as I picture her opening her eyes, scanning her room, and then turning her head to find me lying beside her.

I go still, even my breath freezing inside my lungs.

Seconds tick by before she speaks, and her words reach me at the same time her hand does. Her left hand wraps around my right, squeezing hard, as she says, “You’re really here.”

I squeeze back. “Nowhere else I needed to be.”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. And at the sound of it, I can’t do anything else but turn and wrap her in my arms. This woman…she might be broken inside but somehow, I know those pieces are going to find their way back together again. And I’m going to be there, standing beside her when it happens. I don’t give a fuck if I have to glue each one of them into place my damn self.

And along the way? Maybe I’ll figure out how to live as less of a man. Maybe if I help heal her, I’ll find that part of myself I lost the day I lost my vision.