A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(32)

I know I can’t.

But I’ll give it my best shot.

“I’m sure.” I kiss her forehead, then both cheeks, finally settling a sweet kiss on her lips. “More than sure. You deserve your own life, Lindsay.”

“I don’t know what that even means.”

“You’ve been home barely a week. Give it time. Settle in and give yourself space.”

She grabs me, hard. “I don’t want space. Not from you.”

“Present company excepted.”

She laughs, her eyes flicking up to catch mine. “I’ve missed you. Not just you. Not just your presence. I’ve missed this.” Her palm flattens against my back, sliding up my spine as if counting the bones. “The easy way we have with each other.”

“Me, too.” Emotion overwhelms me. She cannot possibly know how deeply I’ve ached for her. Four years.

Four f*cking years.

“All that anger, Drew. I was so hurt, and I hated you so much for betraying me. Knowing now that I was wrong makes me feel so ashamed. I’m sorry.”

I pull her back from me by the shoulders, my fingers gripping her hard enough to make her yelp. “Don’t you ever say that!” I hiss, the explosive emotion in me set off like an IED. “Never. I never, ever want you to feel shame for anything those bastards did to you. How you felt about me is understandable. They planted that feeling in you. They orchestrated the betrayal by your friends. They set us both up. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

I’m shaking her. I can’t stop. Some deep part of me thinks I can shake the shame out of her.

She rips herself away from me and stands a yard away, mouth twisted in fury. “I know that! I know it up here!” She taps her temple. Then her hand moves over her deliciously creamy skin, settling just above a naked breast, right over her heart. “But I don’t know it here.”

I cross the space and press my palm flat over hers.

“I do,” I whisper. “I know.”

Her eyes fill with tears.

And I almost tell her.

In Afghanistan, there was an incident. IED, ambush on a high mountain road, and in the middle of the attack one of our jeeps went down a three-hundred-foot cliff. The driver managed to jump out, but the guys in back were lost. As it tipped before my eyes, the passenger door had a hand.

Yeah, a hand. The hand shot out through the open window and I grabbed it as the soldier jumped out, bracing his legs on something inside to get some force. Our eyes met.

It could have gone either way. Life or death. Success or failure.

His body smashed against the edge of the window, ribs squished like thick toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. He later had massive internal bleeding but my grip on his forearm – hard enough to dislocate his shoulder – kept him from tipping over that edge.

The jeep nearly dragged him down.

Impulse and training and sheer will kept him alive. The jeep almost took me down, too.

And right now, Lindsay looks an awful lot like a random hand poking out of an open window on a bombed jeep that is about to go over a cliff.

We are naked, standing before each other, hands on her heart. The look on her face says so much.

Rescue me.

Love me.

Don’t leave.

I’m damaged.

Don’t shame me.

I’m sorry.

“How do you know?” she asks. “How do you know what I should or shouldn’t feel?” Her voice is so soft. There’s no challenge. No anger. Just a gentle request that I answer the mystery of the universe.

No pressure, right?

“I don’t claim to know you better than you know yourself, Lindsay.” I look down at our hands, together against her fine skin. “But I know that if you harbor shame inside you for how you’ve treated me, let it go. Let every f*cking drop of it go. That’s not a burden you need to carry. All the shame is on John, Stellan and Blaine.”

She flinches at their names.

I reach to her chin and tip it up, so her eyes meet mine. “You are my world. My soul can release when I’m with you. My blood runs free and wild when you’re near. We’re meant for each other, my love.” Emotion chokes my throat, my heart slamming against my chest, trying to get out and hold hers.

She does not look away. Her fingers lace through mine, her tips digging into the sweet spot above her heart, her shaky inhale seemingly endless.

“I love you, Drew. I never stopped. It was just the pain of what I thought had happened that held me back. It consumed me. It blocked out everything else in the world. Now that I know the truth, I feel like I can see the sun again. I can breathe again. I can live.” She closes her eyes, a single tear slipping down her cheek. “I can love.”

Her eyes fly open and lock on mine. “I can love you.”

Four years.

A bolt of pain shoots through me, paralyzing my heart. She finally trusts me. After all this time, all this heartache, so many years of struggle and hard work, I’m getting what I want.

Her.

Honesty is the best policy, right?

I need to tell her the truth. My truth.

But it sticks in my throat, choking me.

“I love you,” I rasp, the words pushed out of me so hard the air lifts tendrils of her hair, making them float. She gives me a kiss, her hands tightening around my shoulders, and I hug her back. She loves me. She trusts me.