Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars #1)(90)

I should be scared. Terrified. Get up and climb out of this bed.

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stay there in the strong security of his arms. Sure he would never hurt me. That he was wrong on so many levels.

I blinked, searching his face, trying to keep up. To understand.

Something tender passed through his features, his own eyes confused. He touched my chin, tilting it up as he looked at me closer. “And then here you are, Mia . . . beautiful you . . . making me question everything. My purpose. My reason. But you’ve got to understand I can’t let that go.”

“B-b-but your music? The band?”

I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.

He cringed. “You want my honest?”

“Yes.” I issued it without hesitation.

“Love them, Mia. They became the only family I have, even when I tried to stop it. Never wanted to use them, but when it comes down to it, that’s what they were. A cover. An excuse. A distraction.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you can’t.”

“Or you don’t want me to?”

“I told you that you couldn’t get that deep, Mia. That I couldn’t let you go there. It’s not safe. And I’m not willing to let you get in the middle of what’s coming.”

I was suddenly frantic. A frenzy of words hurling from my mouth, desperate to find a way to meet with this man. To understand what he was really going through. “Who hurt them? Your wife? Your daughter?”

My fingernails scratching across his chest like I could claw my way inside.

Desperately, he squeezed my hand, words choked. “Please. Mia.”

I didn’t know what he was begging for. For me to stop asking questions. To stop making him remember. Or if he was pleading with me to make it better.

I touched him all over his beautiful, hardened face, hit by the realization of what he had done.

Of what he had put himself through the night he’d saved my Penny.

Of what he’d suffered.

And I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t. Tears streamed free, hot down my face. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

My hands were everywhere, and I was peppering soaked kisses to his face.

Adoring him with all the strength that I had.

It was Leif. It was Leif.

And I didn’t know if it was my tears or his as we touched and adored and sought a way to heal.

When the haggard, stricken words fell from his lips and pled against mine. “She was three, Mia. She was three. A baby. A baby.”

His agony cut and slayed.

And I tried to hold us both together.

To keep us from falling apart. But we were already sinking in his devastation.

With the fury that seeped from his pores.

Rage.

Hatred.

Violence.

Maybe it was the first time I truly saw them in him.

That dark, dark intensity fierce in the night.

True and real and terrifying.

His wounds deep.

Forever bleeding.

He set his hand on my cheek, his thumb rushing across my bottom lip. “Do you get it now, Mia? Do you get it? What I’ve been trying to tell you? Why this can’t happen? I already lost what I’d been given to protect. And seeking retribution is all I have left.”

The weight of his confession crushed down on my chest.

He blinked hard, his hold tightening on my face. “And then you look at me. You look at me, and I don’t know how to walk away. Don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t.”

“I can’t make that promise.”

“Can you try?” I was begging. I didn’t care. Because I could feel it—what this had come to be. What he had come to mean.

“And what if I fail you, too?” The question was pure, gutted grief.

“What if you don’t?”





*



I woke up, startled, dread slicking my skin as I shot up to the empty bed beside me. Sheets and blanket rumpled, a divot in the mattress from where he’d lain when we’d fallen asleep.

He was gone.

Agony lined my insides.

But little voices were flowing into my room, and I knew I didn’t have the time to wallow. I forced myself from the bed, aching in a way I wasn’t sure I knew how to handle.

Knowing he would be gone.

That he’d given too much.

But after last night? I had a new understanding of what he’d meant when he’d told me he had nothing left to give, even though I ached for him to find refuge in me.

In us.

And at the same time knowing seeing my children just might hurt him too much.

I pulled open the door only to stop in my tracks.

Gasp leaving me at the sight.

Leif was in the living room with my children.

Greyson on his back and trying to tackle him to the floor, Penny giggling as she explained to him how to play the boardgame that was set out in the middle of them. Leif tried to balance Greyson on his back and listen to Penny at the same time, and both Brendon and Kallie were there, adding in their instructions.

Warm, brown-sugared eyes found mine, like he felt me before I’d even stepped into the room.

Heartache.

Affection.