No Perfect Hero(85)

One day I’ll have to let her go.

Tonight, though, I have her.

She’s warm and soft and everything I need as I gather her close, fitting her body into my arms and against my chest like she belongs there. Even through my miserable haze, my dick goes hard the second her soft, supple flesh touches mine.

The weight of her holds me down, makes me stable and solid until nothing feels quite so shaky anymore. I sigh, burying my face in her sweet-smelling hair, and let my body go loose, the tension easing out of me.

“Thanks, darlin',” I murmur.

“Mm? What for?”

“Not letting me run you off like a wolverine.” I close my eyes, still counting those slow, steadying breaths. “I’m sorry. When I saw you there, realized you knew about Jenna...I got too damn defensive for my own good.”

She’s silent. Then I feel those tender fingers on my arm.

I don’t have to look. I know what she’s tracing by the feel of her skin on mine, when I’ve followed those same lines over and over again.

Jenna’s name.

“Why does it scare you so much?” she asks. “I know it hurts, Warren, but why do you keep everything about her a secret?”

I need a good long second to think. “Guess I’m afraid it’ll happen again, Hay. If I tell other people the truth, they’ll get sucked in, and I’ll lose someone else.”

“The truth?”

Fuck.

I take the deepest breath of my life and tense.

“You figured it out, darlin'. Sort of. I think my sis was murdered,” I growl. “I know she was. Think she found out someone in her unit was into black market drug dealing with a little gunrunning on the side, and they killed her for it. I’m here to settle the score. Maybe I won’t kill them...maybe I won’t cross that line. But goddammit, they’re gonna confess and serve time if it’s the last thing I do.”

Her hands curl against my chest, resting against me warmly as she looks up at me.

“Bress. You think Mr. Bress killed your sister.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I have a witness I trust who saw it, and I can’t let that asshole hurt Grandma, or you, or Tara. That’s why I’m so worried. That you’ll get caught up as collateral damage when he runs and tries to cover his tracks.”

I expect her to reject it, deny it. She’s becoming part of Heart’s Edge so quickly, and maybe she’s bought into that ‘fatherly local businessman’ act.

But she only frowns thoughtfully. “Mr. Bress owns a lot of businesses in town, doesn’t he? Are those part of the drugs?”

“As far as I can tell,” I answer, a little startled, numb that she’s taking this seriously. “I just need to actually connect him to it. He’s evasive. Good at covering his tracks with middlemen.”

“And then what?” she asks, bright green eyes searching mine.

“Then, I hope I’m the man my sis would want me to be,” I answer. “And that I can do this the right way.”

I cover her slender hand against my chest with my own, rubbing gently.

“I know what you probably think of me, Hay. But I’m not here to murder a man in cold blood. Just to make sure justice gets served and the evil fuck stands trial.”

“And what then?” she whispers. “When you’ve done that, what'll give your life meaning?”

I know she doesn’t mean to put those thoughts in my head. Those wonderings about her, about what might be if I wasn’t so wrecked.

But I can’t shake them any more than I can throw off the heavy, needy feeling rushing through me.

“Don’t know,” I whisper, dipping my head toward her, drawn in by that sweet, earnest way she’s watching me. “I haven’t thought ahead that far.”

She rises up to meet me halfway. What crashes between us barely resembles a kiss.

It's more like two rough forces colliding.

We’re a firestorm of all the things we can’t say, all the things that shouldn’t be, this wrenching inside me that makes me feel like she’ll destroy me from the inside out.

I’ve called her poison again and again, the sweetest venom, better than any booze. And she’s soul-deep now, spreading through my veins, aiming to kill me with this raw, real emotion – and I’ll go willingly.

That’s when it hits me, stealing my breath.

It's not just some sappy bullshit.

I’d die for Haley.

Die to keep her safe, but I’d rather live to keep her with me.

Her arms around me.

Her body arching under mine when I roll on top of her. Then it's her wildness, her sweetness, and I'm like a madman, completely consumed by obsession as I kiss her, touch her, stroke her from head to toe and leave my mark on her throat with my teeth.

This woman's so fucking mine. Even if it's the last thing she ought to be.

And when she scurries out from under me and undoes my belt, her little fingers tugging down my zipper, I'm a goner. So gone I couldn't tell you what year it is to save my life.

I watch her little hand take my cock. So huge, so tense, throbbing like the end of the world in her hand.

There's a flash of green eyes, then she just engulfs my seething fullness.

“Sweet fuck, Hay!” I snarl, running my fingers through her hair.